Binley Woods Primary School

Home Page Pre-School

Year 6

Our Team:

Mrs Balmer, Miss Jones, Mrs Harbour, Mrs Vickers

For the first couple of weeks, the children will be studying journalistic writing. We will use our key text 'Archie's War,' by Marcia Williams to inspire events from WW1 for them to write about. They will read and analyse the features of newspaper reports and news reports on the internet. They will study the text and language features and look into the typical vocabulary that news papers use. The children will be given the chance to write their own newspaper reports on relevant topics that are in the news right now and then they will form 'newspaper groups' and use ICT skills to hone their skills and produce a digital piece of journalism. After newspapers, the children will study biographies and autobiographies. We will be using and comparing the texts 'Boy' by Roald Dahl and 'Brown Girl Dreaming' by Jacqueline Woodson to get into this style of writing. The children will compare the two text types, write a biography of an inspiring person of their choice and then imagine their future selves in their future job and write their own autobiography.

If we have time before half term, we will start The Umbrella Mouse, which is our next key text after Archie's War.

Reading:

As mentioned in English, the children will get the chance to delve into Boy, Brown Girl Dreaming and Marcus Rashford's 'You can do it.' We will be starting with 'Archie's War' by Marcia Williams as their introductory text - which they will also write newspaper reports about and as a great way to immerse themselves into their new topic. The children will also experience reading a variety of newspaper reports - some historical from the world wars and some very current, alongside biographies of inspiring people.

Alongside our fantastic texts, the children will hone their reading skills. We will be particularly focusing on developing their vocabulary range and 'stealing' great words from their reading. We will also focus on retrieval, summarising and understanding authorial technique. Year 6 children are encouraged to read every day at home and to share books with a grown up as much as possible. Our Accelerated Reader program is perfect for this and they will be encouraged to quiz on their books every 2-3 weeks.

SPAG:

Spelling will be taught using our No Nonsense Spelling program. The children will be taught new spelling patterns from the 5-6 word list, revise words from the 3-4 list and they be expected to apply this through all their writing and check their own errors regularly ensuring that they compile lists of their own personal errors. Grammar and punctuation skills will mostly be taught through the text type they are writing about, what is relevant to that text type and the targets they need to work on. Earlier skills such as basic punctuation, sentence cohesion and using some varied openers to their sentences will be taught and encouraged from the beginning. The children will soon receive logins for SPAG.com which will vastly help them with SPAG revision.

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)

In the first week, the children will start their maths learning with number puzzles, times tables and problems to build their collaboration, resilience and problem solving skills. They will think about how times tables link to other areas of maths and then they will hone their mental arithmetic skills.

After this, the children will start the Mathematics Mastery Program. Our first topic is integers and decimals where the children will develop their command and understanding of the number system. This incorporates place value, number patterns and sequences, rounding and ordering numbers and this topic forms the basis of the further topics to come.

After this, the children will practise their calculation skills for all four operations and particularly work on their mental and written methods for multiplication and division. All of these units will incorporate problem solving and develop their reasoning skills. In Maths Meetings (which are 15 minute extra sessions) the children will hone their mental arithmetic skills to enable to them to better cope with the challenges of Year 6 maths.

It is essential that the children are fully fluent in their times tables. Times tables rockstars logins will be sent out and there are plenty of websites out there to help support them to secure rapid recall of them up to 12 x 12.

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

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

In theme lessons, the children will be studying the history of the First World War (which will lead into the Second World War for next half term) The children will get the chance to develop their historical questioning skills. They will use the internet, non-fiction books and some primary sources to develop their analysis skills and take informed notes. The children will produce a timeline of events and this unit will also incorporate geographical mapping skills as they map where the main battles took place and the countries that were involved in this conflict.

The children will try to understand the causes of the war, why it went on as long as it did and what it was like to live during these tough times, both on the home front and as a soldier fighting in the trenches.

The children will also use this opportunity to develop links with our community as they learn about our local war heroes in Binley Woods and surrounding areas and as they join in with the village service of remembrance.

They will also have the opportunity to write a newspaper report, write remembrance poetry, letters home and a descriptive account of life as a soldier.

In Science, our theme will be 'Light Up Our World' This theme builds on the theme 'Earth, Sun & Moon and The Planets' which they studied in Year 5.

The children will deepen their understanding of light sources and how light travels. They will use their understanding of night and day to think scientifically about how shadows are created and why. They will conduct investigations into what effects the length of shadows and which type of materials create shadows. They will also study reflectivity and think about how they can use mirrors to change the direction of light. The children will have the chance to make a periscope too if they didn't already on transition day.

Other areas of learning:

PE:

In physical education, the children will have the opportunity to study two different team games. The coaches will be leading a unit on ball skills and football and Mrs Balmer will be leading a unit on Tag Rugby. Tag Rugby is taught on Thursday afternoon and Football on Friday afternoon.

Art/D&T:

This half term is a Design and Technology half term. The children will explore rationed foods in the war and develop their own recipe for 'world war scones' The children will design, cook and evaluate their product and think about how they could improve it. The children will also be given some art activities related to their other subjects. They will continue to develop their drawing, sketching and shading skills in short burst skills sessions.

R.E:

In Religious Education the children will explore the idea of commitment and discuss what this word means. Our Sacre question this term is ‘What does commitment mean to Muslims. The children will explore how those within the Islamic faith remain committed to their faith and values.

Music:

In music, the chidren will be using our charanga scheme to explore music and technology. They will be using the song 'Do what you want to.' which is an American Soul song.

PSHE:

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 their first unit is 'Being Me' where the children will explore what it means to be them. What their goals and aspirations are. What makes them unique. Understanding the differences between their rights, wants and needs is a significant part of this. We will also develop the Core Learning Skill of 'Learning with Others' this term and our week Class Learning Forums will help us to discuss learning behaviours and their impact on them and the classroom.

MFL:

The children will be learning and deepening their understanding of French. The topic they will be learning is A L'ecole - words and vocabulary associated with school, including the timings of the school day, the subjects you can study and a refresher on the days of the week. They will be discussing in French whether they like, love or dislike particular subjects.

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.'