Year 6

Welcome back, Year 6!

We are delighted to begin this new academic year, and that all the children are happy and ready to learn. We hope we will all have an enjoyable and exciting time in Year 6 - we cannot wait to share this adventure with you!

This is your last year in Primary school, and it is going to be one you will never forget! But it is also the beginning of a period of change, and this can sometimes be difficult.
It is normal to be worried, but remember that everyone at St Saviour's is here for you if you need someone to talk to, and that God is also with you each step of the way.

He is not confined to a space or a moment. He is in ALL THINGS, at ALL TIMES, and everything in our lives can help us become aware of God's presence.

Mrs Bellas and Miss Hopkins

Key Information

P.E.

This half term, Year 6 will take part in PE lesson on Mondays and Fridays. Please, ensure your child's PE kit is in school for these. PE kits will go home at the end of the half term.

Monday Mass

Year 6 will attend 9:15 am Mass at St. Mary of the Angels Church on a monthly basis. We have a coach booked to take the children and school staff, and there may be a few spare places on the coach. If any parent / grandparent / friend would like to go to Mass with the children and hop on the coach for a lift, please contact our school office at clerical@stsaviours.cheshire.sch.uk to book a place. There will be no charge for these visits. As it is a local visit, we will already have received permission from parents. The children will be back in school by about 10:15 am.

Walking Home Alone

In preparation for high school, the children in Year 5 and Year 6 whose parents have given written consent will be allowed to walk home alone at the end of the day. If you would like your child to walk home alone, please contact our school office at clerical@stsaviours.cheshire.sch.uk

Mobile phones

Children in Year 6 who are walking home may bring a mobile phone to school. During the day it will be switched off and kept safely in the classroom stock cupboard where children cannot access them. They will be handed to children at the end of the day to go home.

All classrooms have clocks but children may wear a simple analogue or digital watch to school as it can help them learn to tell the time. However, no Apple or smart watches please. These will be considered as a mobile device.

Religious Education

This half term, the children will deepen their understanding of Jesus by exploring the figure of Jesus as the Messiah, his thoughts and feelings during his final journey to Jerusalem, and the importance of his Passion and the meaning of his Resurrection for us as Christians. This will then link to the celebration of the Holy Week in the Church, and they will compare different passages of Scripture with different ceremonies and symbolism used by Christians around the world to commemorate the events of Holy Week.

Writing

Our Literacy work this half term will be developed using "The Enormous Crocodile" by Roald Dahl as a starting point. The children will explore the use of language in non-fiction texts and how to use key information from texts to write a non-chronological report about crocodiles, including some endangered species, and a formal letter of complaint.

Throughout the term, children will develop their ability to apply specific spelling and grammatical rules and strategies in their writing.

Reading

Reading together at home

Evidence suggests that children who read for enjoyment every day not only perform better in reading tests than those who don’t, but also develop a broader vocabulary, increased general knowledge and a better understanding of other cultures. Sharing a book with your child allows you to share adventures and experiences in the safe world of the book. It allows you to ask questions, talk about what has happened and decide what you think together, as well as sharing quality time together.

For these reasons I will be share here the books we will read in class every term, so that if you wish you can read them with your child at home. For every read at home, signed in your child's red reading diary, each child will collect a point. For every 5 points, they will receive 1 save.

This term, our class novels will be:

"Holes" by Louis Sachar. Stanley Yelnats' family has a history of bad luck, so when a miscarriage of justice sends him to Camp Green Lake Juvenile Detention Centre (which isn't green and doesn't have a lake) he is not surprised. Every day he and the other inmates are told to dig a hole, five foot wide by five foot deep, reporting anything they find. Why? The evil warden claims that it's character building, but this is a lie. It's up to Stanley to dig up the truth.

"The Last Wild" by Piers Torday. This is a story about a boy named Kester. He is extraordinary, but he doesn't know that yet. All he knows, at this very moment, is this:
1. There is a flock of excited pigeons in his bedroom.
2. They are talking to him.
3. His life will never be quite the same again...

Kester lives in a land in quarantine. A deadly virus has killed all the animals except pests and it's expected to be equally dangerous to humans. But when Kester realises he can talk to the pests, he finds they have great hope invested in him

At St Saviour's we are following the Little Wandle phonics and reading programme.

Please click on the link below to find a range of links which outline the programme's progression alongside a range of helpful pronunciation videos for the different phonetical sounds.

Information about Phonics at St Saviour's

Maths

Building on their knowledge and understanding of fractions, the children will develop their understanding of percentages and will apply this knowledge to real-life contexts by converting between units of measure, exploring different methods of finding percentages of an amount, and converting between fractions, decimals and percentages throughout the use of concrete, pictorial and abstract representations.

Later in the half term, the children will improve their mathematical skills by revisiting and deepening in their understanding of the properties of shape, including perimeter, area and volume of simple and compound shapes. Finally, we will focus on Statistics, revising concepts and methods learnt in previous years, and expanding their knowledge in this area.

The big question for the Spring term is...

How long will it last?

All our learning will be centred around our big question. This term, Year 6 will be learning about:

Geography: Sustainability and distribution of natural resources
Science: Light // Electricity
Design and Technology: Sustainability
Physical Education: Netball // Gymnastics
Art and Design: Recycled materials - Sculptures
Computing: Network technicians // Computational thinkers

Homework

We have introduced a new reading system in school to encourage reading for pleasure. This means that children will be reading age and phonic appropriate books in school every day, and that the books that come home will be books children have chosen to read for pleasure. If your child struggles to read the book for pleasure they have chosen, please read it with them so they enjoy the reading experience and be reassured that they are reading with an adult in school as well each day.

Daily reading - at least 30 minutes per day. Please, record your child's reading homework in their reading log. These will be checked daily.
Daily spelling and arithmetic (see weekly work attached below - this will be sent home every Friday)
Instrument practice at least 3 times per week.

summer-2-week-4-arithmetic.docx

summer-2-week-4-spelling.docx

Statutory spelling lists.pdf

Homework Challenges

Homework challenges are optional. They aim to encourage the children to continue to explore and deepen their knowledge of the past half terms learning. This will will enhance and support what the children have previously learnt. Each challenge is a great opportunity to show off some creativity.

If the children complete any of the homework challenges, they will earn 'Saves' for our school shop, 'Seacombe Stores'.

Maths

If the world were a village

In the book, the world's population (6,660,000,000) is represented in the imaginary village of 100 residents so that each resident represents approximately 67 million people from the real world.

Here's an example:

or or

What do you think?

In your opinion, which shows us the 100 people in the best way?

Here's another example:

In the village, 61 people are from Asia; 13 are from Africa; 12 are from Europe; 8 are from South America, Central America and the Caribbean; 5 are from Canada and the United States; 1 is from Oceania. How shall we represent this?

This time 1 flag represents 1 person.

Asia 61

Africa 13

Europe 12

South America, Central America and the Caribbean 8

Canada and the United States 5

Oceania 1

or or

What do you think? All of them show exactly the same information.

Which representation makes you realise that there are 100 people? Which one makes you realise that there are LOADS more people from Asia than anywhere else? Which was easiest to count? Did you notice how a flag had been used because that was linked to the topic?

Your challenge will be to decide how to represent some more of the data from the book. Here are some suggestions but you could choose your own data if you have a copy of the book.

Electricity:

76 have electricity. 24 do not.

In the village, the people with electricity have between them: 42 radios, 25 televisions, 61 telephones and 15 computers.

Air and Water:

82 have access to a source of safe water either in their homes or within a short distance. 18 do not and must spend a large part of each day simply getting safe water. Most of the work of collecting water is done by women and girls.

64 have access to adequate sanitation - they have public or household sewage disposal - while 36 do not.

68 breathe clean air, while 32 breathe air that is unhealthy because of pollution.

We are looking forward to seeing your different representations.

Literacy

This is your last half-term in Primary school, and this is a very significant moment for all of you. For this reason, your Literacy challenge is to write a letter to your future self. Maybe you could think about where you want to be in a years' time. Or maybe you could think about where you want to be by the end of Secondary school?

When you write a letter to yourself, you think ahead to the future and the different things you'd like to achieve, whether that's in a years' time or a few years time. This will help you develop ambition and think about the path you'd like to take in your future, the new things you'd like to get involved in, new people you'd like to get to know and what you might like to change about yourself.

You can then revisit this letter when you're at the point you've set out for themselves (next year, end of Secondary school…) This will help you see where you are against your goals and consider what went well and what didn't, what is the same and what you would like to change.

Top tips for starting to write a letter to your future self

Here are some ideas of things you might write in a letter to your future self:

1. Ways to improve yourself - how can you become a better person? How can you have a more rounded life?

2. What are your dreams? What is your dream job? What would be your biggest goal by the time you revisit this letter?

3. Who would you like to get to know? How could you help someone new at the school?

4. What scares you? What can you do to make the most of this time of change and how can you achieve your dreams without letting your fears get on the way?

Religious Education

In his letter to primary schools in the Shrewsbury Diocese, Bishop Mark challenges us to take care of our world through the choices we make in our homes, school, parish and local community.

The RE homework challenge for this half term is to take a photo of something you are doing as a family to look after our common home. Examples may include recycling materials correctly, reducing food waste, not wasting water, switching the lights off and thinking about the way you travel to school to name a few.

Please could photos be emailed to the school office before the end of the school year - we look forward to seeing what you have been up to!

Science: Microbial recipes

Micro-organisms, for example, fungi and bacteria play an important role in the production of many of the foods we eat and drink. Microbial activity is an essential feature of both traditional biotechnology, which uses conventional techniques such as fermentation through to modern biotechnology, which uses processes such as genetic modification to enhance some food production.

Did you know?

We consume the edible fruiting bodies of fungi when we eat mushrooms.
Yeasts are used in the fermentation of fruits to produce wine, cereals to make beer and in bread manufacture.
Lactic acid bacteria are used in the fermentation of milk to produce many dairy products such as yoghurt and cheese, vegetables to produce sauerkraut as well as fermented meat products such as salami.

Try the Microbiology Society members' favourite microbial recipes at home in order to investigate the role of different micro-organisms in food, using the recipes below.

Passport to the World

Useful links and resources

Times Tables Practice at home

It is essential for children to know their times tables fluently in order to access Maths confidently in Year 6, as well as to improve their pace. For this reason, they should practice their times tables at home daily. Not only they need to know their multiplication facts - they must be quick at recalling them in order to succeed.

All children in Year 6 have free access to Times Tables Rock Stars. This is a fantastic resource for children to practice their times tables daily, and as they play they can earn "coins" which will enable them to customise their avatar. At the end of the test, their class teacher will get a summary of your child's results, including how many questions they got right / wrong, the time they took to complete them and the answers to the questions they answered incorrectly.

Their usernames and passwords are stuck in the front cover of their reading diaries. TTRS is a great tool for children to improve not only their knowledge of the multiplication but the speed at which they recall them and their confidence at solving calculations with fluency. Challenge them to beat their own score / time - they are always willing to improve their results!

Click here to access Times Tables Rockstars

Let's talk books!

It is important that we begin to prepare children for High School and the expectation of an increased level of homework through online access. Therefore, in addition to their core homework, we have developped a ‘blog’ about books for the children in Y6 in order to aid their transition. Children will be expected to access the blog daily to see if a task has been set (this may be as simple as to post a comment about their favourite book) and to carry out the task.

The comments are being moderated, and no comment will be published without having been read by the class teacher first. Children do not need to log in to access the Padlet, and can post comments without creating an account by using the QR codes stuck in their reading diaries. Although this is a private blog, we encourage the use of initials or pseudonyms in their post, to avoid posting any personal information online.