Year 6

Welcome to Year 6

What are Year 6 learning about this half term?

Spring 1

In Spring 1, Year 6 will be continuing their history focus 'What role did Britain play in World War II, and how did impact the outcome of the war?', this half term our focus will shift away from Germany to looking at the imapct on Britain and its citizens before looking at the impact the British forces had in the victory of the Battle of Britain. Our English text will be "When the Sky Falls" which is a story set in London during the outbreak of WWII and focuses on a young boys life, change in circumstances and the reltionship he develops...with a gorilla! From this text we will take inspriation to write survival instructions, setting descriptions and create a narrative around the characters. Our reading lessons will also be based around texts set in wartime - A gunners day, Little Smuggler and two non-chronolgical reports about Reginald Joseph Mitchell and one based on World War 2.

In PE year 6 will continue with EdStart on a Friday this time taking on the challenges of hockey - they will need to wrap up warm for these sessions as they will take place outside. In their second PE session each week the focus will be dance based around musical theatre. We will create routines to tracks from hit musicals including: The Greatest Showman, Matilda, Lion King and Hairspray. I look forward to seeing their end results. Our music learning this half term will consist of us creating soundtracks for movies thining about scenes, sounds and composing our own pieces to suit certain moods.

In Science we will move on to the topic of Light with our key question being "What is light?". We will not only focus on the way light travels, reflection and how mirrors work but we will also look at the structure of the eye and how it works. Our PSHE key question will be: How can we show more responsible behaviour as we get older? We will be identifying areas for development, recognising our strengths and thinking of ways we can take care of ourselves physically, mentally and how we can manage ourselves financially as we get older.

In computing the class will focus on data - how it can be collected and how it can be stored, this will include RFID, QR codes and barcodes. Finding out how the information is stored and retrieved and creating data sets of our own. In RE the children will be learning about hinduism and what different hindus believe about God.

In art we will be looking at the power of protest in this half terms chromatic unit, looking at how art can be used to deliver messages and designing our own charity t-shirts. Our outdoor and adventurous learning will be held on a Wednesday morning during Forest School sessions, please bring extra layers to wear outside as the children will take part whatever the weather!

Our Previous Learning this year

Autumn 1

In our first term back at school we were getting used to our new rules and the expectations placed on us now we are the oldest in the school; the first way in which we did this was by applying for roles of responsibility within the school, writing a formal letter to the staff team.

In English we completed PVPG work from Grammarsaurus, which helped us feel more confident in our sentence structure before we begin our extended writing. The texts we will be inspired to write by this half term will be 'The Island by Armin Greder.

Maths focused on units within the Power Maths scheme, beginning with place value and moving on to learning formal methods to answer problems involving all four operations. All children’s learning can be further supported from home by participating in TTRS challenges making all pupils fluent and confident with their times tables.

We focsed on Geography in our Topic work, our key enquiry question was ‘Why is the coastline of the UK changing?’, in this unit we investigated how Britain’s coastal features are formed, the impact of weathering and erosion, and what the future of the landscape might be.

Science centred around electricity, we built a range of circuits and drew scientific diagrams to show these circuits. We will also made predictions when using various equipment and looked at alternatives to energy sources within the UK. In Computing the children explored what AI is and how it generates text images and code, they will also considered the ethical implications and its potential to replace human roles.

In Music the class appraised the work of classical composer Felix Mendelssohn, learning about dynamics, pitch and texture, before they worked on their own group compositions featuring changes in texture, dynamics and pitch. Art will be concentrated on monochromatic pieces when learning about drawing detailed portraits with accurate proportions, when we learned these skills we then got creative when learning to draw a Tim Burton style self-portrait. In French we will be reviewed our prior learning and put this into written work – taking into account the correct use of verb tense.

In PE we showed our adventurous sides while learning orienteering and working on our fundamental physical skills. We were also busy outside in the allotments as we turned our hand to gardening each week.

Autumn 2

This half term Year 6 will focused on history beginning their WW2 topic we looked at Germany – past and present- before concentrating on how the war began and what the impact on Europe was. We also recognised Remembrance Day and used the date as inspiration for poetry writing.

Our Science learning saw us investigating Charles Darwins Theory of Evolution when we learnt about evolution and inheritance. We looked at how plants, animals and humans have adapted to survive over time. Our English writing was based around this topic as we created non-chronological reports about animals and setting descriptions about the beautiful islands Darwin visited during his exploration. We also took part in the Todmorden Book Festival and enjoyed working with Ian Douglas, the storyteller, early on in the half term.

In maths we completed our four operations learning by completing calculations using BIDMAS and thinking about how we can use known facts to help us in our mental mathematics. We then moved on to focusing on Fractions – adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing.

Our Computing work was titled Bletchley Park – learning about the code breakers before we broke and create codes of our own. In Music this half term we listened, appraised, sang and created our own wartime songs.

In RE the children learned about Forgiveness and how religions view the concept, before asking should we always forgive others? In the build up to Christmas we switched our focus when we looked at the nativity and the role the shepherds played in this, we read different accounts within the bible and compared and contrasted these. Our DT learning this half term was an opportunity for us to explore micro:bits. We looked at navigating the world and working to a design brief to create a backpack which would help us on a worldwide expedition which included compasses, pedometers, etc.

PE we took part in a range of sports during our multi-sports unit. We also participated in gymnastics with the coaching staff from Edstart each week. We continued to take part in Gardening sessions each Thursday even as the weather turned colder.