Welcome

Despite the fact that we have only been in school for nine days, Year 6 pupils have already impressed us with their superb attitude to learning and the quality of work they are producing. A fantastic start to the year for all!

This week we began our science topic ‘Evolution and Inheritance’, which involved learning the difference between the tricky concepts of adaptation and evolution. Children explored how environmental conditions have at certain times favoured the light or darker versions of the peppered moth, explaining which moth would be most prevalent in 2017 and why.

In our RE topic of Creation, children have considered the sacrifices made by Moses as he led God’s people out of Egypt towards the Promised Land. Next week will see us move on to learning about the Ten Commandments and the sacrifices made by the Israelites.

We have continued to develop and apply our understanding of place value and rounding in maths, with all children showing fantastic collaboration and reasoning when solving challenges in small teams. Arithmetic is practised every day and we would like to encourage all pupils to continue to learn their times tables facts every day to support this.

‘Whale Boy’ has captured our imaginations to an even greater extent this week with its rich description. After analysing how the author used this to create changes in atmosphere, pupils have begun to craft their own paragraphs with the same aim in mind. Spellings are a key element in achieving age related expectations for Year 6 pupils  – please encourage and help your child with theirs when you can.

Finally, we have received a last minute invitation to attend a special science day at Purbrook Park School next Thursday. This will be a day of exciting hands-on activities and investigations to inspire our children in this area. Transport to and from the school will be provided by St Peter’s. We will send out further details before the day.

Have a lovely weekend

The Year 6 Team

Welcome,

It’s been a great start to the new term.

The children have settled well into their new routines and have shown great positivity towards their learning.

In English, we have been immersing ourselves in descriptive narrative through fiction texts which centre on enigmatic nature of whales. The children have been spellbound listening to ‘Whale Boy’ by Nicola Davies and linking this text to the picture book ‘The Whale’ by Vita Murrow to start to create atmospheric descriptions of an encounter with a whale.

In Maths, we begin the term with place value and looking at the value of individual digits in numbers as well as writing these numbers in words. We have also been applying these number skills to problems to show how the children can use their knowledge of number to demonstrate their reasoning skills.

In RE, through scripture and the school mission statement, we have considered how Jesus’s teachings teaches us to live our lives as Christians. We will begin our Creation unit next week.

Children have been given their Home Learning diary this week. Could they please read the first few pages and last few pages to orientate themselves with the diary and complete any activities that are relevant to home learning.  Please record daily reading, maths activities and any other learning that takes place in the weekly diary and this will be reviewed and signed next week.

Daily Reminders  – individual water bottles to be brought in, homework diaries, break time snacks and a waterproof coat.

Walking home permission letters should be sent in to the class teacher to re-affirm your permission that your child is allowed to leave the school premises alone. This is so we are in agreement, for this new school year, regarding the arrangements for the end of the day.

If you would like to say hello or there is anything you would like to ask about this new year, please speak any member of the year 6 team and will be happy to help.

Enjoy your weekend,

The Year 6 Team