Dear Parents, Welcome back! I hope you had an enjoyable holiday, the children have certainly come back rested and eager to get into Year 6 life. I will be teaching your child for the vast majority of the week. Mrs. Johns will be teaching the class on the day when I am out of class to allow me to fulfil my deputy head jobs. I will, however, still be in school and be interested in seeing what the children are doing. We are lucky to have Mrs. Dolman working with us in Year 6 and continuing the support she started with the class last year. We will continue to start the school day with physical activity; your child will need to ensure they come to school prepared with a PE kit. There will also be weekly PE and Games lessons. The children are lucky to be able to have sports and dance coaches in school to teach them in a range of sporting activities. As we get near the Key Stage 2 production we’ll also be using our choreography skills to create a dance for it. During the daily literacy lessons this term the children will develop and extend their knowledge of different texts. We’ll be looking at how imagery is used within poetry as well as having a go at writing our own poems. The children will become familiar with a range of fiction genres exploring the style and structure of different story types before applying these ideas to help them write their own stories. Although your child is able to read independently it would be very beneficial to listen to them read or discuss the text they have read with them focussing on children’s opinions of texts, their ability to infer messages in the text and understand characters in stories. Additionally children will need to continue to work on learning spellings and spelling patterns and developing neat and joined handwriting. Any practice of these skills at home would be really helpful. In Numeracy the children will be working on developing mental and written methods to solve calculations including using decimal and whole numbers. They’ll be looking for patterns and sequences in numbers investigating square and prime numbers. When learning about shape the children will start identifying parallel and perpendicular edges or faces on 2D and 3D shapes whilst working on drawing shapes accurately. When working on solving calculations it is very helpful to be able to recall quickly number facts such as times tables. Your child would benefit greatly from working on knowing all times table facts.
Much our learning will happen through our topic work this will combine subjects such as science, art, history and geography. We have started the year with a short topic on the way we see things combining our literacy work with science and art. Later this term we’ll be learning about the Ancient Greeks finding out about what life was like in that period of time such as the culture, beliefs and practices. We’ll be looking at the influence of that time on modern day life now. No doubt you will have heard about the laptops the children are going to have for the year, there has been little else talked about in class! These laptops will be used regularly in all curriculum areas in school to support learning and help develop children’s skills in becoming more independent learners. Please support us with this by ensuring your child makes good use of the equipment. Year 6 is an important year for your child; it is their last year at Blandford St Mary and a preparation time for the move to The Blandford School. It is also the end of Key Stage 2 which will involve assessing your child to see the achievements they have made during Key Stage 2. Despite these important factors my aim is to make your child’s year an enjoyable and successful year. If you do have any concerns or queries please do get in contact by popping in at the start or end of day or leaving me a message for me to call you. Best wishes
Sam Harris,
Laura Johns,
Heather Dolman