Year 6

Spring Term -Literacy

Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo was the inspiration behind a wealth of reading and writing tasks. The story of how Michael was rescued and how he survived on the island inspired Y6 to develop their own adventure stories. Children also wrote ship’s logs and described characters with a wider range of stylistic devices such as alliteration, metaphor and simile. The Journey by Francesca Sanna was a very different text which exposed children to the hardships faced by refugees fleeing their homes because of war. Persuasive letters were written to the family, giving them reasons for leaving and to border guards, asking them to allow the family to cross the border. All this ended with the children’s own version of part of the journey undertaken by refugees. This narrative used a variety of sentence openers, description and complicated punctuation.

Spring Term - Maths

Children continue to consolidate their understanding of the four operations, extending their working into decimals and fractions with three places. Children used short and concise methods of multiplication and division with decimals, including those with a variety of decimal places. This understanding of fractions has been invaluable when dealing with ratio and proportion. Problems involving making amounts and shapes larger and smaller by set proportions tested accuracy and understanding. Multiplication and division of fractions has now checked our understanding of improper fractions and mixed numbers. The new Number Sense tables initiative has helped to revise the essential table facts. There is fierce competition to achieve full marks in the daily test. Passports continue to be completed, helping woith basic recall of number facts. 

Spring Term - Science

The work of Isaac Newton and his discoveries of light and the colour spectrum started the next Science block. Children learnt about the visible spectrum, making colour wheels which when spun, created a mixture of coloured light, seen as white light. The circulatory system, the heart and blood were also studied. Children learnt what blood is and its importance and were able to explain the 4 key components of blood. This led to children naming different types of cells as well as different nutrients and explaining why they are important and how they are transported around the body. After acting out the journey of blood around the body, children learnt about the function of the heart and how it works, putting together an information text showing their learning.

Spring term - Other Curriculum Areas

An in depth study of Monarchs over time in History saw the children learn about the impact of the rule of William I, Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, Charles II and Queen Victoria. Monarchs were then compared according to their reach and the impact on society during their reign. This needed careful arguing, with children expected to answer as a historian, providing facts from what they had learnt.

In Geography, children learnt about the different layers that make up the Earth. The tectonic plates and how they can cause earthquakes, volcanoes and mountains were labelled and discussed. Children learnt more about why people choose to live in dangerous places that are prone to volcanic activity. These reasons included tourism, fertile soils for farming and the use of the heat for producing electricity.

After studying the charcoal work of Kath Kolwitz in art, children created their own self portraits using charcoal shading. This image then became the stimulus for a sculpture that could be used to fill the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. For their calendar, children created some graffiti art for the new year.

The Guernsey Sports Commisssion continued to offer support in the teaching of football and hockey. Children learnt control and the ability to work in small teams, using this in small two-sided games. In PE, after completing work on fitness and agility, children learnt about movement, balances and shapes, rounding off the term by creating a short gymnastic sequence.

During the two days of Design and Technology, children worked on coding a BBC Microbit, a programmable mini computer. They designed a handheld GPS with inbuilt compass which also worked as a pedometer. CAD tools helped with the design of a container to house the device while different materials were studied for their suitability and environmental impact.

Autumn Term - Literacy

Children started the term consolidating the skills learnt in Year 5 and writing a five part narrative based on a short animated video. This allowed children to showcase great vocabulary choices, a range of sentence constructions as well as checking basic punctuation skills. Following that,  pupils learnt more about explanation and instruction texts. They identified features from recipes and in non-fiction texts looking for stylistic features such as the tense of the writing, how formal it was and if the author had used items such as headings and subheadings, bullet points, text boxes and annotated diagrams. Using work by Richard Platt, children designed their own explanation text. This needed careful research which was then grouped into three paragraphs. A suitable layout was planned and images that explained more were added. A new spelling programme has been introduced which adds to the Word Aware work completed in class. 

Autumn Term - Maths

Pupils started the term by looking at the values of numbers up to 10,000,000 and beyond, ensuring they understood the relationship between numbers and their location on a number line. Since then, they have been consolidating their understanding of the 4 operations, using compact and efficient methods to work with numbers up to a million as well as into three decimal places. Use of concrete apparatus has helped to emphasise difficult concepts of carrying and substitution. The computations have been supplemented with a greater amount of reasoning activities, getting pupils to use the skills they have learnt in everyday contexts as well as using inverse operations to solve problems. Tables work has continued and Times Table Rock Stars remains a big push in the Year group. Passports are still tested weekly although there has been a major drive to get children closer to more age appropriate targets.

Autumn Term - Science

Charles Darwin and Carl Linnaeus  were two significant scientists studied this term. Children looked at adaptation and evolution and how species were adapted to the environments in which they lived. A study was undertaken of the white and black pepper moths which were suited to their environments at different times. Children looked at the Linnaen classification of animals, learning more about the different phylums, orders and groups. Using this information, children classified different vertebrates.

Autumn Term - Other Curriculum Areas

As an introduction to the year, children used the healthy eating knowledge from Year 5 to create healthy snacks that could be sold to the school. This linked well with Financial Literacy and children were expected to not only generate recipes to serve 30 children, but also had to cost out all the ingredients that were needed. Children then looked at how food was advertised in the media and studied slogans that companies use to make their products more recognisable. This helped in the making of posters that were used to advertise a sale of the goods to the school. All year groups were invited and Year 6 pupils sold, gave change and adjusted prices as the day progressed. The money was counted, expenses repaid and the profit calculated. This will be going towards the Year 6 camp in June 2024.

In Geography, children compared two countries, the United Kingdom and Brazil as examples of a developed and a developing country. Comparisons were made regarding location using lines of latitude and longitude, relief the climate, vegetation and population. Sao Paulo and London were examined in terms of population density and reasons for migration to the cities was examined.

Building on from  the introduction to badminton last year in Year 5, the Year group was taken to the Rohais badminton halls where Paulo again offered coaching. Children improved their overhead shots and serving, playing in a mini tournament by the end of the term. Indoor PE included work on street dance. Children were exposed to a variety of dance steps and then in small groups, choreographed their own routines which were presented to the group.