Welcome to Year 6!

Work for children who are isolating

If your child is isolating, please see Google Classroom for work set.

The Year 6 Team

This year in Year 6, our teachers are Mrs Thomas (Year 6 Team Leader), Miss Krawiec and Mr Harber. We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSAs): Mr Norgrove, Mrs Friar, Mrs Serreau-Nardi and Mrs Venner.  They support us throughout the day in and out of the classroom.

PE days will be Mondays (outdoors) and Thursdays (indoors) for Autumn 1.  Children should wear correct PE kit (plain red or white t shirt, black shorts for inside with black or dark blue tracksuit trousers for outside).  Please ensure all PE kit is named - it is incredibly hard for us to reunite lost items with their owners when clothing is not named!

Children should make sure they bring their PE kit into school and they will change during the day ready for their PE sessions.  They will be changing back into their school uniform at the end of the day.  PE kit can be left in lockers during the week but must be taken home at the weekend for washing.

Please note - long hair must be tied back for PE and earrings must be removed.

Homework in the Autumn Term

Homework will continue to be set on Google Classroom once the new classes have been set up.

Each week, your child will receive the following pieces:

- a reading task (children should also be reading for at least ten minutes every day)

- a spelling task and spellings to learn for a test each Tuesday

- a maths task (this may be set on TT Rockstars or My Maths, or a task linked to work in class).  If your child cannot remember their login details, they should speak to their teacher as soon as possible.

Each term, your child will also need to complete a piece of project homework.  Details will be given via Google Classroom.

If your child is having problems completing the homework, please speak to their class teacher.

Homework is set on Thursdays and is due in the following Tuesday.

Year 6 Autumn Term 1 Topic Web

Our topic this half term is a history unit called 'The Industrial Revolution'. Lots of our subjects link in to our topic including our English lessons where we will be focusing on the book 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty.

What have we been up to?

Week Beginning 11th October 2021

This week, we have been writing poetry linked to the Industrial Revolution, using our knowledge of child labour.  We are now going to edit and present them so look out for some pictures.

In reading, we have been learning about Dr Barnardo, using our skimming and scanning techniques to answer true/false and fact/opinion questions.  We also thought about words we could use to describe Dr Barnardo and found evidence in the text to support our choices.

In maths, we have been working on find the area of different shapes and solving area and perimeter problems.  We have also started to look at finding the area of triangles and parallelograms.

This week in our science lessons, we have continued to investigate what happens when we use different devices in a circuit, explaining our results by thinking about the push of the battery and the resistance of the devices.

In our history lessons this week, we focused on the workhouse in Basingstoke during the Industrial Revolution and looked at census information which gave us an understanding of who was in the workhouse at the time, the jobs they did and why they had to go into the workhouse.  We are a little shocked to find 'idiot' as one of the reasons for entry into the workhouse!!

We have been continuing to build our vehicles in DT and some are now able to move!  They are quite tricky to make so we still have a little more work to do before they are completed.

Our residential is fast approaching - there are several documents at the top of this page so please make sure you have read them carefully and let us know if you still have any questions.  The children have given us their name choices for bedrooms so we are busy sorting bedroom and activity groups ready for the visit.  Lots of excitement!  Please remember that we will not be able to upload photos during the week because there is no wifi access available to us on the site.  We will however be taking lots of photos and will upload some when we return as well as sharing them at our Year 6 Curriculum meeting which will take place on Wednesday 10th November.  At that meeting, we will be talking about what the curriculum looks like in Year 6 and our aims for the children over the course of the year.  We will also be sharing with you some important information about how we prepare the children for the SATs tests which will be taking place in May 2022.  Further information about the meeting will follow in a letter next week.  

Have a good weekend!

Week Beginning 4th October 2021

This week, we have been continuing with our topics and projects.

In English, we have been creating our non-chronological reports about workhouses using the information we found out last week.  We have been focusing on making sure our sentences link together within our paragraphs.

In reading, we have been finding out about child labour during the Industrial Revolution and feeling very grateful that we weren't living at that time!!

In maths, we have now finished our multiplication unit where we have been using the long multiplication method to help us solve complex problems.  Today, we started our area unit and have been looking at the area of rectangles through problem solving and linking this to our recent work on perimeter.

In our science lessons, we have been continuing our work on electricity, focusing on how the push and resistance change in a circuit when we add different devices.  We will be continuing this next week.

For history this week, we looked at the political changes during the period of the Industrial Revolution, who could vote and the laws that were passed (the Great Reform Act) to enable more people to vote.  Some great discussions this week (and outrage!) at the lack of voting rights for women which led us in to some very in depth debates about the role of women at that point in history.  

We are now at the stage in DT where we are building our vehicles.  More sawing this week and the glue guns have also now made an appearance!  Photos below!

Next week, we will be talking to the children about our Runway's End residential which is fast approaching!

Week Beginning 27th September 2021

We have had lots to keep us busy this week!

In our English and reading sessions, we have been focusing on what workhouses were like.  We even tried out some of the workhouse activities, like picking oakum, which involved our teachers being very strict - we all decided that a workhouse wouldn't have been a very pleasant place to be!

In our maths lessons, we have been solving perimeter problems and have now started our multiplication unit, looking at multiplying decimals and moving on to long multiplication.

In our science lesson, we carried out an investigation to test what happened to the brightness of the bulb when we added more batteries.  We had long discussions about how to test the brightness of the bulb that would give us a numerical value to be able to compare our results.  We used layers of tissue paper over the bulb until we couldn't see the light anymore.  Some of the bulbs were very bright and we used a lot of layers!

In history, we continued learning about the industrial revolution, focusing on inventions from the time.

We have now started making our vehicles in DT so there has been lots of sawing happening this week.  The children are very excited about this!

On Thursday, we held our parents meeting for our upcoming residential trip to Runways End.  Further information can be found at the top of this page.  We will be talking to the children very soon about the visit and they will be choosing who they would like to be in a room with.  Exciting!

Week Beginning 20th September 2021

We have been very busy this week continuing our learning about the Industrial Revolution.

In English, we have continued to look at the book 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty, focusing on writing a letter between two of the characters.  The children had a choice to write as if they were Rosie writing to her sister or Ma writing to her daughters, Lizzie and Emily.  We have been concentrating on confidently using different sentence structures as well as linking our ideas within paragraphs.

In our reading sessions, we are also looking at 'Street Child' and have been focusing on the part of the story where Jim enters the workhouse.  It has given us some good information ready for our new writing unit next week where we will be exploring what workhouses were like.

In Maths, we have been working on addition and subtraction, including with decimals and with much larger numbers.  The children have made great progress and have been working on some quite complex problem-solving.

In Science, we looked at the push and resistance within circuits, making our own circuits to explore this.  Our experiment from last week (about whether the number of devices affects the life of the battery) is still going!  So, we planned a new investigation ready for next week where we will be looking at how the number of batteries affects the brightness of the bulbs.  We are creating our own methods to measure the brightness of the bulb so we will post pictures next week!

In History, we have continued to look at what life was like during the Industrial Revolution, learning about jobs such as mining and factory work.  I think the children were glad they weren't living then!

In DT, we have designed our motorised vehicles, ready to start the making next week - lots of excitement around this!  Photos to follow!

The prefects have begun their new roles in school - it is great to see them so keen and showing their organisation skills.  Well done all!

Week Beginning 13th September 2021

Well, it's been another very busy week where the children have been getting stuck into their topics.

In English, we have started to look at the book 'Street Child' by Berlie Doherty which is set in Victorian Britain.  The children have been exploring the main characters and have been writing a diary entry as the main character, Jim.  Some great emotive writing and really getting into the London accent!

In Maths, we have worked on rounding numbers and the children have made excellent progress with this.  They have moved on to addition and subtraction where we are particularly focusing on using the standard methods to solve more complex problems.

In Science, we have set up an experiment in our classrooms to test whether the number of bulbs in a circuit affects how long the battery will last.  We are checking our circuits several times a day to see if they bulbs are still lit.  Results to follow!

In history, we continued to look at what life was like in Victorian Britain during the Industrial Revolution.  We focused on what housing was like, health, crime and pollution.

In our DT sessions, we have been investigating how to cut wood safely.  We will be making wooden-framed moving vehicles which will use gears and be powered by electricity.

One of the big events this week has been the announcements of who has been chosen as our chair, vice chair and secretary of the school council as well as class councillors, house captains and prefects.  Well done to everyone who was successful this year!  We still have the librarian roles to fill next week.

Week Beginning 6th September 2021

Our first full week back and what a busy week it has been!  The children are settling really well into the new school routines and have been very focused in class.  We have been starting to think about some of the Year 6 responsibilities that the children can apply for.  Announcements will be made next week for who has been successful in their applications for the roles of chair, vice-chair and secretary of the school council as well as house captains and prefects.  There have been lots of applications so good luck everyone!

In our English lessons, we have been working on our descriptive language and looking at different sentence patterns.  We used coloured pieces of paper to practise making different sentence structures.  Today, we are writing up our descriptions of a forest scene so some pictures of the writing will appear here shortly.

In Maths, we have been looking at place value.  We have been working with numbers up to ten million as well as numbers with two decimal places.  

In History, we started our 'Industrial Revolution' unit, looking at some images of the time and investigating what life was like for different classes of people.

In Science, we started our 'electricity' unit, investigating why some circuits wouldn't work.  We also went outside with hoops to model how the battery pushes electricity and what effect that has on the flow of electricity and the devices within the circuit.

In DT, we have started our unit which will involve using gears.  We looked at how gears work and how to gear up and down.  This half term, we will be designing and making a moving vehicle (a model of!) using gears and electricity.

It's another busy week next week with house captain voting and class councillor elections on Wednesday.  Prefect applications are due in by Monday and librarian applications by Friday.