Class 14- Year 6

Welcome to Class 14!

Class teacher: Mrs Coates

Teaching Assistant: Mrs McRitchie

The children in Class 14 have settled into Year 6 brilliantly and have already impressed Mrs Coates, Miss Honnor, Mrs McLeod and Mrs McRitchie with their mature attitudes to learning.

Our current topic is ‘The Americas’ which links in excellently with our class novel ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar.

Year 6 Curriculum Autumn Term

English

We will begin our Year 6 English lessons with a recap on basic punctuation and grammar before looking at more complex concepts such as clauses, speech and parenthesis.

We will move on to embedding our learning in a variety of cross-curricular contexts including writing letters, narratives and poetry inspired by ‘Holes’.

As part of our reading curriculum, we are going to be developing our skimming and scanning skills in order to find information in a text quickly and efficiently as well as answering comprehension questions in a range of formats.

Maths

This term in maths, we are going to deepen our understanding of place value of numbers up to 10 million as well as decimal numbers. We will then consolidate our understanding of the formal written methods of column addition, column subtraction, short multiplication and short division before moving on to long multiplication and long division. After this, we will develop our knowledge of fractions, decimals and percentages.

Science

During the autumn term, our science lessons will be all about evolution and inheritance. Children will explore:

· How living things have changed over time

· How fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago

· How living things produce offspring of the same kind, but normally offspring vary and are not identical to their parents

· How animals and plants are adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution

History

Our key history question for this term is “What role did Christopher Columbus have on slavery during his voyages and discoveries?”.

Children will learn:

· Christopher Columbus was a navigator, who lived in the 15th century and who explored the Americas under the flag of Spain. Some people think of him as the “discoverer” of America, but this is not strictly true.

· During his voyages through the Caribbean islands and the Central and South American coasts, Columbus came upon indigenous people who he enslaved.

· Prejudice is judging people without knowing them and discrimination is prejudice in action.

· Slavery is any system in which principles of property are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals and an enslaved person is unable to withdraw from such an agreement and works without payment.

Geography

Throughout the autumn term we will be learning all about different aspects of the Americas including:

· Locations

· Biomes

· Populations

· Natural disasters

DT

In DT, we will be applying our measuring and joining skills to make our own products which involve pulleys and gears.

We will also have the opportunity to use the 3D printer to design and make our own 3D printed Christmas ornaments!

Art

We will begin the autumn term finding out about Paul Landowski and Heitor da Sila Costa who designed and constructed Rio de Janeiro’s iconic Christ the Redeemer monument as well as the works of Shreve, Lamb and Harmon, the architectural firm who designed the Empire State Building. We will then design our own sculptures which celebrate the unity and peace of the continents of North, South and Central America.

Music

Mr I will continue to build on the guitar knowledge and skills that the children developed in Year 5 in fortnightly sessions on a Wednesday morning.

PE

PE lessons will be on a Wednesday afternoon this term.

Year 6 will visit Velocity each Wednesday afternoon to take part in trampolining lessons.

Children should bring their PE kits to school with them so they can get changed for PE before lunch.

RE

Year 6’s weekly RE sessions will explore the following key questions:

· Creation and science: conflicting or complementary?

· Why do some people believe in God and some people not?

Computing

In computing lessons, children will learn about how data is transferred across the internet and how people can use the internet to communicate, share information and work together collaboratively.

A key focus of all computing lessons in Year 6 is e-safety and how to use technology safely, respectfully and responsibly. Our e-safety topic for this term is privacy and security and you can talk to your children about creating secure passwords and the permissions that different apps request.

French

In French lessons, will be refining our pronunciation before moving on to learning how to talk about school and what we do on the weekend.

PSHE

During our PSHE lessons this term we will revisit and build on prior learning about mental health and wellbeing, exploring strategies to support wellbeing with a particular focus on the transition to secondary school. We will also learn about economic wellbeing, including online spending.

If you have any questions regarding the content of PSHE lessons, please speak to a member of the Year 6 team.

Children have access to the following online resources and their logins are stuck in the front of their reading records:

Spelling Shed: Weekly spelling homework

My Maths: Weekly maths homework

TTRockstars: Times tables

Reading Plus: Reading comprehension

Purple Mash: A range of activities from across the curriculum

Year 6 Curriculum Overview

What’s been happening in Class 14?

Class 14 thoroughly enjoyed their first forest schools session of the year and are also enjoying exploring their first text in English, Holes!