Binley Woods Primary School

Home Page Pre-School

Year 6

Our Team:

Mrs Balmer, Miss Jones, Mrs Sharp, Mrs Vickers

In English this term, the children will be finishing off and re-editing their work from their topic on Trash where we hope to also finish the book. After this we will start their climate activists project. The children will use the books 'Greta and the Giants', 'What a Waste' and 'The Varmints' as inspiration alongside watching speeches from David Attenborough to write climate leaflets, letters to their MP and Severn Trent Water to complain about river pollution and write a passionate speech to urge world leaders to reduce their carbon footprints.

Our writing will be either be moderated by the local authority or within school around mid-June, so the children will be polishing up their re-editing skills, learning how to self-correct their spellings and choosing exciting synonyms to up-level their vocabulary. This moderation process will give them their final writing levels for the end of Key Stage 2.

After our writing has been moderated, English will turn towards script writing and reading in readiness for our performance. We will also choose a novel as a class, either an adventure story, The children of the Benin Kingdom linked to our topic or Skellig. The children will get the chance to select what they would like us to read.

Reading:

Just prior to SATs, the children will be honing their reading speed, comprehension and test technique but afterwards we will continue to develop a love of reading and using reading to enhance their writing and the wider curriculum after SATs so they have all the skills they need ready for secondary school and carry a love of reading with them.

SPAG:

Maintaining high standards are grammar and spelling, or the skills to edit and correct is still hugely important after the Key Stage 2 SATs tests have finished. The children will be encouraged to widen their vocabulary, use dictionaries and thesauruses and self-correct and hone their writing to show off and apply all the skills they have learned this year.

Grammar glossary for parents

SPAG.COM

https://spellingframe.co.uk/

Fun word searches, crosswords and more all based on Year 5 and 6 spelling words which you should know by the end of Year 6 (as well as the Year 3 and 4 of course)

After SATs this term, the children will have the opportunity to work in groups to design their own theme park. This project enables Year 6 to develop and run a theme park business successfully. It includes not only lots of calculating, percentages and scale drawing skills but it also gives the children an opportunity to develop their group-work and leadership skills as they are given the chance to run particular roles within their group.

After this, the children will turn these skills to their own enterprising project ready for business enterprise day and will also complete a transition unit on Spirals which incorporates algebra.

It is so important that Year 6 children keep their maths skills honed in readiness for secondary school this term. We will be working hard to ensure that all children are secure in their times table knowledge before they move up and also that they feel confident in their maths abilities and are willing to problem solve and make mistakes.

https://www.timestables.co.uk/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/tim es-table s

After SATs has finished and we have finished the theme on colonialism and slavery we will be teaching our two remaining topics:

Our Geography theme is: Mapping Our Changing World this term. This will link with the next English theme on climate change and persuasive writing.

During this unit, the children will get the opportunity to develop their mapping skills using digital mapping software. We will largely be using Digimaps, which is a program specifically designed for schools by Ordinance Survey. This enables the children to track changes across our globe. Initially, we will be linking this back to our last theme - their population project and they will track population changes across the globe but then we will look at the effect of climate change on our world-wide biospheres and how this is shown on our maps and also the effect of erosion and other natural phenomena that change the shape of our landscapes and maps.

Our history theme this term will be a close look at the history and development of the Edo civilisation in the Kingdom of Benin which is now modern-day Nigeria. The children will examine sources of information to find out about the fascinating culture of these peoples and their ruling Ogisos and Obas.

They will then examine how the British Empire led to the fall of the kingdom, linking this to what they know already about the colonialism of Africa by European nations in their last topic. They will also look at how some of the cultures and traditions are still celebrated today in modern-day Nigeria.

This term in science the children will complete a short topic on classifying life. This theme will build on evolution and inheritance from last term. The children will learn about Carl Linnaeus and his system of classification. They will discover how life has evolved into different branches and look at different ways of classifying life including whether animals are vertebrates or invertebrates. The children will then study micro-organisms. .

We will then start the last topic on Electricity. In this theme, the children will learn about different electrical components and how to make and test series and parallel circuits. The children will learn how to draw and construct simple circuits and how to build and test switches. They will learn about resistance and the materials used within effective electrical components.

The children will learn how electricity is generated and how to stay safe around electricity.

Other areas of learning:

This term the children will be learning various skills in tennis and orienteering in the first half of term. In the second half of term, they will start a unit on Athletics and fitness and it will be their turn to do Forest Schools. P.E will continue to be on a Thursday and Friday with Forest School starting on Thursdays after half term.

In Art will be mastering all techniques including sketching, shading, painting and pattern making across the year which will culminate in planning a sculpture and or jewellery - looking in particular at the Benin bronzes and decorative items and fabrics that royalty in the Kingdom of Benin used to adorn themselves with.

Alongside this, the children will put their skills to the test by preparing scenery for our end of year performance.

. In design and technology the children will be using their coding skills and digital Lego to construct programmable toys

In Religious Education we will complete the Christian unit around Easter before moving faiths and exploring the key question: Does belief in Akhirah (life after death) help Muslims lead good lives?

In Music this half term, our theme will be respecting each other through composition.

The children will also be working towards their end of year performance.

Personal, Social and Health Education is not only taught as a standalone lesson but runs through everything we do. The children will be following our Jigsaw scheme and also doing a lot of PSHE to help with transition. After half term the unit is about 'Changing Me' This unit deals with puberty, sex education and growing up. You will receive a letter about this to your email address from Mrs Loxton. We will start this unit on the second week of term and as our timetable changes a fair bit due to transition activities each week, I will inform you which day it will taught on in our weekly notices at the end of each week.

The children will be studying 'Me in the world' in French this term. Bilton will also be coming in to deliver a secondary school French taster session.

In Summer, the children will be using Purple Mash to develop their coding skills. They will also be quizzing and learning about networks.

Comprehension tasks for the half term or after

Extra practice for the children this half term.

If you would like an alternative year group please visit the year group of your choice and complete 'Week 4’ unit. You can navigate to these by choosing the subjects button at the top, then choose the year group of your choice, then choose the subject.

Then you can simply choose the lesson you want to complete.

Other sites you may choose to access for additional or alternative learning:

We understand that all families are being faced with different demands and challenges and therefore some of you may feel that these alternative resources work better for you and your circumstances:

BBC Bitesize, choose the year group you feel more comfortable with :

All of the below will help you with working from home

Click the pics or links for useful websites

English:

Spag.com - Use this to complete their SPAG homework or catch up on activities they may have missed in class.

Accelerated Reader - Use this link to get onto our Accelerated Reader website at home, your child has their login.

Get Epic! - Use this website to access 100s of books online. This is great if you are learning online and can't access books. Your child will be given a class code and can be assigned books, or they can choose books in their AR range.

Use these links to find an interesting image. What do you think is happening? Can you describe what is happening in your exercise book? Can you write a story about it?

Audible has lots of free audiobooks for children while you're learning at home.

Maths:

Learning with parents: Much of our maths (and some English) homework and any online learning will tap into the resources on this site. Your child will have had a login sent to a parent email address. Please ensure they are used to logging on and can do this independently. The videos are an excellent way of seeing how they learn maths concepts in school, so you can support your child with assigned topics.

This website has LOTS of age appropriate maths resources and they have produced home learning packs for each year group with helpful videos and activities for each day of home learning.

This website has lots of interactive maths games.

This website groups games together well and you can search by subject.

Times Table Rock Stars - your child has an individual log in for this.

This is a story based maths game which your child can log into with their TT Rock stars log ins.

Other subjects:

This is a fantastic website with lots of videos, interactive activities and printable resources around all the subjects as well as current events. Great for exploring if you want some extra material in your home learning.

Once clicking this link, choose 'Espresso' from the drop down log-in menu in the top right hand corner. You will receive a username and password for this website.

This website often has child - friendly news items, and they will be uploading some free content when schools close.

With this link you can take a virtual tour around the British Museum, London.

This website has lots of activities you can do in the garden, as well a lots of information about animals and plants for research tasks.

Joe Wicks 'The Body Coach' has a series of 5 minute videos aimed at children. He is also running a 30 minute PE session every morning at 9:00 on his youtube channel.

Take a look at these:

Daily activities to dip into

SEND SUPPORTED

We work with a company called SEND Supported at school and they are releasing newsletters each week offering support and guidance to parents of children who many have additional needs in school. Please find below a link to these newsletters:

There are also lots of other resources and information available on their website. The 'Things to do Issue 2 - Resources' file has some lovely activities for all children regardless of whether they have additional needs or not. There are lots of great visual puzzles and games for children to play so please have a look if you can. There are also resources available now to support with developing children's memory skills in 'Thing to do Issue 3 - Resources.'