Year 6

Welcome to Year 6

What are Year 6 learning about this half term?

Autumn 2

This half term our topic learning focus shifts to History, we will be learning all about World War Two and what events led to this significant event starting. We will use a range of secondary sources to find out about the key people and the impact of their actions.

In English we will look at two texts as we begin to construct longer pieces of writing, these will be Hansel and Gretel by Neil Gaiman and Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll. We will be using these texts to help inspire us when writing recount letters, description settings and how to guides. We will also be writing poetry in honour of Remembrance Day.

In Maths we will be following Power Maths, our focus this half term will be on fractions - simplifying, ordering, placing on a number line, adding, subtracting and multiplying them.

In Science we will be investigating the Theory of Evolution, during this work we will look at the adaptation of plants and animals and how we inherit traits from our parents. We will also use the text Moth by Isabel Thomas to look at natural selection and how during the industrial revolution this was seen happening.

Computing will be centred around the codebreakers of Bletchley Park, we will try to crack codes both on paper and using coding. We will also set codes for each other to try and crack.

In PE we will be learning the rules of handball and working as an effective member of a team. We will also focus on balance, sequencing and movement during our gymnastic lessons. We will focus on DT this half term and will be designing and making CAMS to make our automated toys move, we will have to follow health and safety rules as we will be using tools during the woodwork element of these lessons.

In RE we will be completing our learning of the Sikh religion and their beliefs. We will then move on to learning about Nativity and the people present at this event, hearing about the significance of each them. PSHE this half term will see us focus on similarities and differences, where we will remind ourselves about being respectful and kind even when online, we will learn how to keep ourselves safe and how to support others when people are using negative stereotypes against them.

Our Previous Learning this year

Autumn 1

This half term our English lessons focused on the basics and learning all about the place value of punctuation and grammar. This included nouns, verbs, subjects, single clause sentences and constructing more detailed sentences. Our class text was Survivors by David Long and Dream Snatcher by Abi Elphinstone.

In Maths we followed Power Maths learning, our first topics were place value and four operations.

Our Science learning this half term was based around Electricity, we created circuits, problem solved when circuits were not working, before planning and carrying out our own investigations. In computing we looked at computer programming, creating nested loops using logo and python before moving on to code mondrian.

In PE we focused on basic skills and perfecting these, as well as preparing for the cross country inter-schools event-which was unfortunately cancelled. We are awaiting the new dates for this event. We also took on orienteering getting outside and completing a range of activities to support this, to further enhance our outdoor and adventurous learning Year 6 were also working in the school grounds developing their gardening skills.

Our Geography topic this half term focused on imports and exports when looking at the economy of the UK, learned about sustainability in many different areas such as water supply, energy production and agriculture. We looked at a range of data, listened to case studies and thought about the relevance of the issues we found in our own locality.

In art we worked monochromatically and learned how to use a range of pencils to shade and applied this when learning about the proportions of facial features when drawing a portrait.

In RE we thought about our own values and looked at similarities between Sikhism and the values in other faiths. PSHE we learned about healthy friendships and relationships and discussed how these might change as we transition to secondary school.