Ariel (Y6)
Welcome to Year 6
Teachers: Mrs James, Mrs Redshaw
Teaching Assistant: Miss McConnell
Email: rspariel@southbankprimary.co.uk
Contact number: 01642 453451
Please be aware that contact may be made outside of teaching hours.
About our class...
Welcome to Year 6! This year sees an important chapter in our school life—our last year in primary school! During the year we will learn to challenge ourselves and build our resilience. We will work hard this year and some days will feel tough, but we will continue to develop strategies and skills for our future. As well as working hard and learning new things we will also have some fun and make lots of memories.
Our Learning
We have some exciting topics ahead of us including;
Autumn term - Crime and Punishment where we will explore what was seen as a crime over time and the different gruesome punishments that were handed out to criminals. We will also find out about the development of the police force from the Victorian period right through to the new millennium.
Our main topic for Spring term is World War II, where we will look at how and why the war started, who was involved, what it was like to be an evacuee and also how the war affected Teesside and lots more.
For the first half of the summer term, we will be focusing upon getting ready for SATs. This includes revising and re-capping previously taught areas to help build our confidence and resilience. We will then learn about Charles Darwin, the Galapagos islands and how living things have evolved over time.
IMPORTANT - SATs will take place the week beginning Monday 12th May
Autumn learning
Below is a snapshot of some of the learning Ariel have completed during Year 6.
Autumn term
Maths This term, we will be exploring place value within 10,000,000, securing our addition and subtraction skills, multiplying and dividing 4-digit numbers by 2 digit numbers including long division and remainders and also order of operations and brackets.
Throughout the year, children will use Times Table Rockstar's to continue to develop their times table knowledge. Children would greatly benefit if they continue to practice their times tables at home.
English This term, we will begin by focusing on our presentation and handwriting. We will also be working on our place value of punctuation and grammar and will look out different nouns, verbs and subjects to help us build our sentence structure. We then use this to write a non-chronological report about famous outlaws, letters linked to Dracula and a spooky setting description. We will also continue to develop our reading skills.
Science
In science we will look at Electricity. We will conduct investigations to determine how the voltage in a circuit affects the brightness of a bulb and use our ‘working scientifically’ skills to plan an experiment to investigate variations in how components function and use the results to write a clear and concise conclusion. We will also learn about renewable and non-renewable energy sources. Our second unit will be Living things and their habitats. In this unit we will about classification of living things, including microorganisms and learn to use a classification key and create our own key using yes/no questions. We will also investigate the question; Is yeast a microorganism?
Geography – we will learn what plastic is and its uses and learn about the problems associated with plastic. We will investigate ways to reduce plastic waste in school and conduct fieldwork before recording, presenting and evaluating the collected data.
History – we will build on our knowledge of periods in history that we have studied through KS2. We will explore using different historical disciplinary concepts and understand how crime and punishment has changed over time in Britain.
Music- we will be focusing on the song Happy by Pharrell Williams. We will listen to and appraise the song and compare it to others. We will also learn to sing the song and accompany it with a range of musical instruments. We will then learn about Jazz which will be focused around two tunes: Bacharach Anorak and Meet The Blues. We will also have regular sessions with Tees Valley Music Service and learn how to play the Ukulele.
Art – Monochromatic -in this unit we will learn specific skills and techniques to confidently use line, shape and value to create their own artwork. We will use pencils and ballpoint pens to explore shading, blending and mark-making and evaluate our own and others work.
DT –
PE – This term, we will developing our communication and tactic skills and learning the rules of tag rugby and dodgeball.
RE- In RE we will learn Why the Buddha is important for Buddhists and how Buddhist beliefs affect the way they live their lives. We will also explore what the gospels tell us about the birth of Jesus?
PSHE- We will follow the Jigsaw scheme and the theme ‘Being me in my world’ where we will look at setting goals for the coming year, looking at how our behaviour and choices can affect others and learn how democracy and having a voice benefits the school community. We will also look at the theme ‘ Celebrating difference’ where we will learn there are different perceptions about what normal means, know some of the reasons why people use bullying behaviours, and be able to explain ways in which difference can be a source of conflict and a cause for celebration.
Computing - We will use Purple Mash to support our learning and look more closely at Online safety, coding and spreadsheets.
French - We will review our learning from Y3-Y5 and learn including greetings, colours, family, animals, sports and weather.
Rights Respecting School
In our school we explore our rights across all areas of our school through our learning and social times. We make links in our lessons and explain why or how they relate to a certain right.
We are currently on our journey towards achieving the Gold Rights Respecting Award. We explore our rights across all areas of our learning. This term we will focus on Article 3 - Best interest of the child.
Important information and reminders
PE is on Thursday - children will change into their school PE kit before the lesson starts.
No jewellery should be worn on PE days. Inhalers must remain in school, and long hair must be tied up. Where possible PE will take place outside so children will need a waterproof coat and trainers.
On all other days children should come to school in uniform.
READING BOOKS
- Our weekly library slot is Wednesday. Children will get the chance to change their reading book. Please can children remember to bring their books back to school and bring a book bag.
KEY DATES
- Y6 Residential 7th October
- End of half term 25th October 2024
- Secondary school application deadline 31st October
- Term restarts Monday 4th November
- Children in Need Friday 17th November (more details to follow)
- PD Days (children not in school) Friday 22nd November and Monday 25th November
- UKS2 Christingle Thursday 12th December (more details to follow)
- Break up for Christmas Friday 20th December