Y6 News Autumn term 2015
Welcome back for the start of a brand new school year! We have so much planned and are really
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@Y6Monteney @MrF15her @m1sswildman
excited to get going! Here’s to a fabulous final year at Monteney. from Miss Wildman, Mr Fisher, Mr Ambler, Mrs Trigg & Mrs Mounfield (Team 6)
We are really eager to begin our first topic of the year! At almost 120 years old, the story of Dracula has become one of the most famous tales of all time. Written by Bram Stoker in 1897, the story was part inspired by a holiday spent in Whitby with many of the fishing town’s landmarks appearing throughout the story. During this topic, we’ll investigate where Vampires came from and whether there’s any truth behind these bloodsucking, nocturnal characters. Our topic will involve lots of ICT, research, art and sculpture. We’re even planning to have a go at some ‘pyrography’ – see if you can find out what that is! Through our topic work, we’ll continue to develop our skills of critique to edit and improve our outcomes to produce lots of Beautiful Work to display at our Exhibition of Learning towards the end of term.
Reading This term we’ll be reading the fantastic ‘Room 13’ by Robert Swindells. We’ll enjoy this together in class but there are lots of other spooky stories you could try at home. Reading some of these would really support your literacy work later in the term:
The Mighty Mighty Monsters series by Sean O’Reilly
The Saga of Darren Shan series by Darren Shan
The Goosebumps series by R.L. Stine
A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
The Nightmare Academy series by Dean Lorey.
Skary Childrin and the Carousel of Sorrow by Katy Towell
The Whitby Witches Trilogy by Robin Jarvis
Coraline, The Graveyard Book or Wolves in the Walls all by Neil Gaiman
Several of these books amongst other children’s horror will be available for loan from Miss Wildman’s classroom.
PE
Science
It is vital that you all have the correct PE it in
Rather than doing a small
school at all times. On transition day in July, many
amount of science each week,
of you did not have this.
we will dedicate a full week each
Everyone should have:
half term to our science
A plain white t-shirt
Plain black shorts
Black PE pumps.
If you wish, you can also have a pair of black or blue tracksuit bottoms in your PE kit to wear only when we go outside. This term our PE lessons will include:
Hockey Tai Chi (with Paul, our visiting expert) Gymnastics Basketball
learning. This term we will investigate: Evolution and Inheritance. Living things and their habitats
Literacy
Maths
This term, much of our literacy will be linked
Much of our maths this half term will
closely with our Dracula topic and supported
consolidate learning from year 5 and will
by our reading of Room 13.
mainly be based around securing
We will work on developing our use of creative
x and ÷) used in both mental and written
understanding of the four operations (+ -
language, varied connectives and building tension in
methods. We will also look at fractions,
our writing. We will also begin to build up our
decimals and percentages and the
writing stamina, independently planning, writing and
relationships between them.
editing extended pieces of writing.
Please work with people at home to practice your times tables. Having a
Over the course of this term we will:
secure and rapid knowledge of facts up
Analyse evidence and write reports,
to 12x12 and particularly
Write letters in the style of characters
square numbers will
from Dracula,
support a huge amount
Write instructions on How to Kill a Vampire,
Design and describe Vampire Hunting
of your maths learning.
outfits.
Write fictional recounts of a vampire
In Y6, we teach literacy and maths in
hunting mission.
smaller groups so we can target support more specifically to each child’s needs. These groups are flexible and will alter throughout the year. Please don’t hesitate to speak to us if you have any questions about this.
SATs The end of KS2 SAT tests are clearly a large part of Y6, however they are certainly not something that you need to be worried about. Each half term we will carry out a ‘mock’ SATs week in class. This will be done under test conditions but with no pressure placed on you. This has been incredibly successful in previous years to give you experience of what the test papers look like and get used to the time constraints so that these are not a concern when we reach the tests in May. The provisional dates for SATs week is w/c 9th May 2016. All children must be in school for the whole of this week. Later in the year, we will be holding some sessions for parents and carers where we will be able to give you much more detailed information about SATs week and a chance to look at some test papers.
Home Learning Now you are in Y6, your will be expected to take an increased amount of responsibility for their own learning. This is something that will be expected of you much more as you move towards secondary school, we will be expecting you to show much more independence with your learning this year. There are several ways in which you can do this: Spellings – each week you will be given a set of 10 spellings to learn. Our spelling quiz will take place on the following Thursday. Reading – you will soon be given one of our fab new-style reading diaries will be expected to read for at least 10 minutes, at least 4 times a week, reading to an adult for at least one of these times. This reading can be bookband books, other stories, magazines/newspapers, online articles; anything you like as long as you feel it is challenging you a little and is a mix of fiction and non-fiction. Reading often will really, really support a lot of your learning, helping you to understand the reading tests you will do later in the year. Literacy and Maths – when we feel it is necessary, you will be given a piece literacy or maths homework to support your learning in class. This will be no more than once a week and shouldn’t take more than 20-30 minutes to complete. Homework will be handed out on a Thursday to be returned by the following Tuesday, this is to leave time for you to ask for our support if you need it. Creative – Each term we will ask you to create a project that fits in with our current topic. You can choose whether to work independently or with a friend. The project can be ANYTHING you like; a piece of art, a model, an online presentation, a song or dance routine, a poster Online Learning – There are a whole host of games and activities online which you can use to support your learning at home if you wish. We have added links to some of them in Google Classroom and will continue to add others that we find.
Literacy: vj88oyd
Maths: 15b1j
Revision Guides – later on this half term, we will purchase a set of revision guides for each of you. These will support the learning we do in class and are for you to use at your own pace to revisit prior learning and practice ideas you have learnt about in literacy and maths lessons.
Dates for your diary:
Trip to Whitby – 17th September (please return slips and £8 payment ASAP).
6EW class assembly – Wednesday 30th September 8:55am
Christmas Performances: w/c 8th December.