Teacher: Mrs Cairns

Learning Support Assistant: Mrs Chadwick

Below you will find lots of information about our class, including what we have been up to. 

Reading:

Reading books should be read at home and brought in on your child's day.  Your child will read with an adult in school and their book will be changed when necessary. 

Spellings will be taken home on  Friday and there will be a test the following Monday morning.

Homework:

Homework will usually be set on SATs Bootcamp, Edshed, Dojo or Purple Mash.  We will tell the children when homework has been set and will share a message with parents on Dojo to inform you too.

PE:

PE  this half term is on a Thursday, so please remember to come to school in your PE kit.

The school PE kit is available from Lazer School Wear, St. Mary's Road in Garston.  This is a red t-shirt with the school badge and school blue shorts.  However, your child can also wear a plain red t-shirt and dark blue shorts that are available from most supermarkets.  The children can wear any training shoes for PE.

This is part of our school uniform and must be worn for PE lessons.

Football kits and other sportswear will not be allowed.

Swimming:

During the autumn term, Y6 will be having weekly swimming lessons.  These lessons will take place on a Wednesday.  Please remember to bring your swimming kit, including a swimming cap.

SPELLINGS

Here are your spellings for the year . Each Monday, you will take home your spelling mat and practise your spellings for Monday morning when we will have a spelling test.  

Below are some word cards that you can print out to use at home and some ideas to make your spelling practice more fun.  Remember, you can also log onto spelling shed to play lots of fun spelling games.

MATHS

Numbers and the Number System

Inspirational maths week.

Before starting our place value maths topic, year 6 completed a week of inspirational maths challenges.  It was important that we started our year 6 maths journey off positively and these challenges helped us to solve problems and reason mathematically, but even more importantly, they were: fun, interesting, encouraging, creative, engaging and inclusive.  These challenges were simply called 'I can do maths!'.  The children thoroughly enjoyed the week of challenges and it certainly did help us set an 'I can do, positive attitude' towards maths.

It was then time to tackle place value!  Take a look at our place value front cover to see the objectives that we will cover. 

4 Operations

After completing our place value unit, we build on our new knowledge, using it to support us with calculations using the 4 operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division).

Take a look at our front cover to see what we will be learning.

CLASS READING

New Year 6 Book - WAR HORSE

'I saw the grey soldiers ahead of us raise their rifles and heard the death rattle of a machine gun ...

A powerful story of the truest friendships in the worst of wars from the award-winning former Children's Laureate Michael Morpurgo.

ENGLISH, HISTORY AND GEOGRAPGY

During the Autumn term, we will be learning about World War Two.  Our English, history and whole class reading will all be based on World War Two.  In English we will learn about Rose Blanche and Anne Frank.  At the end of the unit, we will write our own diary entries and a bravery award speech.

In History, we will be learning about when and how World War Two started and how it fits into a historic timeline.  We will also learn about rationing, evacuation and key turning events in the war such as The Blitz.

For our whole class reading, we are really excited to have several texts all based around World War Two. We have a variety of genres including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.  We will examine extracts from the books, looking at key vocabulary, the type of language used by the authors and the layout of the different texts.

During this topic, the children will learn about their local area of Speke, building on previous knowledge learnt throughout their time in school.  The big question for this unit is 'How has Speke's population influenced a change in land use and what might it look like in the future?' The children will look at physical and human features in their local area, use an 8-point compass to write and follow directions, use 6-figure grid references and look at the change of land use over time, by studying maps.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Loving

Does love last forever or does it have limits?

To help answer this, the children will explore the love and care of people and learn about God's unconditional, never-ending love.

The key vocabulary in this unit is:

Unconditional, forgiveness, mercy, prodigal, parable.

Judaism

During this unit, the children looked the Jewish celebrations of Rosh Hashanah, Yom Kippur and Mitzvah Day.

Vocation and Commitment

EXPLORE

Our lives are marked by many different experiences of being welcomed into new situations and groups.

We recognise the importance of welcome, of feeling comfortable with new situations and belonging to new groups. We belong to families, to work places and to social groupings.

REVEAL

Christians believe that everyone is invited to share in the life and work of God through Baptism. The Bible recounts God’s invitations to people to share in his life and work: among them Moses, Samuel, the prophets, Mary and the apostles.

“Through Baptism, men and women are incorporated into Christ. They are formed into God’s people and they obtain the forgiveness of all their sins. They become a new creation through water and the Holy Spirit. Hence they are called and are indeed children of God. Signed with the gift of the Spirit in Confirmation, Christians more perfectly become the image of their Lord and are filled with the Holy Spirit. They bear witness to him before all the world and eagerly work for the building up of the body of Christ.”

During this topic, the children will learn about commitment in life and the vocation to priesthood and religious life.

Expectations

Advent is a time when we appreciate the love in our lives and prepare to celebrate love becoming a reality in the person of Jesus. Christians at Christmas celebrate the gift of Jesus, given by God as a sign and expression of God’s love. Giving and receiving reflects the truth that all life is given by God and life is given meaning through the gift of Jesus.

In this unit, the children learn about the meaning of expectation and that Advent is a time of joyful expectation of Christmas, the Word becoming a human person, Jesus.

SCIENCE

Our first science topic this term is the heart and the circulatory system.  During this unit, we will learn about: the parts and functions of the circulatory system, how our body transports blood, water and nutrients around the body, the affects of a healthy and unhealthy lifestyle on the body and the importance of exercise.

Classification

During this unit, children learn how to group and classify living things, including plants.  They learn about the famous scientist Carl Linnaeus, who invented the classification system (branching key).  The children learn how to classify animals using scientific vocabulary linked to characteristics of different groups, such as warm-blooded, vertebrate, live young etc.

PE Autumn 1 Topic - Athletics

This half term we will be doing lots of athletics to get ready for competitions throughout the year.  We will do sprint, relay, long jump, high jump, javelin, hurdles, speed bounce, standing triple jump and ball throw.  I am sure we will find some future Olympians in the making!

Latin

In KS2, the children learn Latin.  The lessons aim to give pupils both a sound foundation knowledge of the Latin language, and a taster of some of the ‘best bits’ of culture from Ancient Greece and Rome.  In the autumn term, the children will learn about:

• The Latin roots of English
• Parts of speech
• Verbs

ART

This term, the children look at the artist Marc Allante and use his artwork as inspiration for their own piece of art work.  They use sketching, water colours and ink techniques.

New Year 6 Book - The MALAMANDER

All is not what it seems at this seaside town - myths, mysteries, monsters and home to the legend of the Malamander!

This is our new year 6 class book - we will journey to the seaside where lots of fun themed learning awaits!

Fractions

In maths this term, we will be focusing on fractions.  Take a look at our fractions objectives below.

In English, we will be using the texts 'On the Origin of Species' and 'Darwin an exceptional Voyage' to write a discovery narrative, in which the children will be writing about visiting the Galapagos Islands and discovering uncovered secrets and undiscovered species.  The children will then be writing an explanation text showing how animals have adapted to survive and flourish in different environments.

In Science, we will also be learning about evolution and adaptation.  We will be looking at how animals adapt to live in their habitat and how evolution happens over time.