Year 6

Spring Term - Literacy

The Journey by Francesca Sanna was a very interesting picture story book  which exposed children to the hardships faced by refugees fleeing their homes because of war. This evoked a wide range of feelings and emotions, perfect for writing poetry and narrative. 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. Children researched refugees in the world today amidst devastating conflicts and compiled a fact sheet about refugees in the world today.. All this ended with the children’s own version of part of the journey undertaken by refugees with the added complication of a danger at sea. 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.  Number Sense  has helped to revise the essential table facts and there is fierce competition to achieve full marks in the daily test. Passports continue to be completed, helping with basic recall of number facts.

Spring Term - Science

The circulatory system, the heart and blood were also studied. Children learnt what blood is and its importance and were able to explain the four  key components. 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 Curricular Areas

Design and Technology
Children used their knowledge of circuits to create a steady hand game. This needed the research for ideas for a friend, creating a design which reflected their interests and then the construction of a wire puzzle which was connected to a simple circuit containing a buzzer. 

Art 
The ideas behind still life paintings and drawings was researched and examples from a variety of dates were examined. Children then completed their own sketches, ensuring a composition that overlapped with a variety of shapes and textures. This was enlarged so that a monochrome painting could be made , using varying shades of green.

PE Gymnastics
Children have enjoyed the work on gymnastics this term and have completed work on basic shapes, rolls and jumps. These have been put together to create a routine involving all elements, concentrating on style and form.

Games - Tag rugby
Brad from Guernsey Rugby has once again provided an opportunity for the children to participate in Tag Rugby. Skills learnt in previous years have been developed further, with the introduction of timed passes, moving back to the tackle and making sure that the defensive side stays on-side. 

Geography
In Geography, the differences between physical and man made features introduced the topic of why people choose to live where they do. This is linked to natural resources and how these are exploited to make money and how people will at times need to move as natural resources run out. The case study of Guernsey’s granite quarrying industry showed this well.

Outdoor Learning
While the weather was not very warm, the dry afternoons allowed children to create their own animals out of natural materials while also learning how to tie a figure of 8 knot. This formed the basis of a bracelet, also including overhand knots. A “God’s Eye” creative piece of craft completed the week’s work.
 

Autumn term - Literacy

This term, 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. 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. 

Autumn Term - Maths

Pupils have been consolidating their understanding of the 4 operations, using compact and efficient methods to work with numbers up to a million. 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. Fractions was a section that was very challenging! Pupils studied equivalent fractions and after ordering fractions with different denominators worked at adding and subtracting. Multiplication and division of fractions checked understanding of improper fractions and mixed numbers. The Number Sense tables initiative has helped to revise the essential table facts and is practised daily. There is fierce competition to achieve full marks. Times Table Rock Stars remains a big push in the Year group. 

Autumn term - Science

The studies of Charles Darwin and how animals have adapted to their environments was the focus of the first Science unit. Children looked briefly at inherited and non-inherited characteristics and studied some animals in more detail. How penguins have adapted to their environment was very popular. This was followed by the work of Isaac Newton and his discoveries of light and the colour spectrum. Children learnt about the visible spectrum, making colour wheels which when spun, created a mixture of coloured light, seen as white light.

Autumn term - Other Curriculum Areas

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.

The Guernsey Sports Commission continues 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 street dance, children learnt about fitness and agility, completing mini circuits in the hall.

Artists such as Monet, and Van Gogh  were the focus of work on impressionism. Pupils looked at a painting of waterlilies by Monet and mixed the colours needed to recreate a small section. Drawing skills were then used to recreate Van Gogh’s painting of his room - this took a lot longer than expected!

In History, pupils have studied Ancient Greece, putting the civilization onto a time line to see what was happening in the world at the same time. The city states of Athens and Sparta were compared and then pupils learnt more about the theatre, the Olympic games and how democracy was formed in ancient Athens.

Computer aided design was studied in DT. Pupils were given a brief of creating a small, electronic handheld navigation device. After coding the device using Microbits, pupils created a suitable box for the device .