Year 6
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 .