English ~

Literacy hours will continue to be based around the Hamilton Trust scheme and the main focuses will be:

Poetry- Superheroes, Alice in Wonderland, Counting the Stars, How the Tortoise got its Shell, The Walrus and the Butterfly and Classic love poetry.

Fiction- Chaucer the cat and the animal pilgrims and Shakespeare plays.

Non Fiction- Biographies and Autobiographies.

We will also be focusing on a variety of Comprehension exercises and Grammar exercises, where we will be learning about nouns, plurals, collective nouns, group names, gender exercises, compound words, possessive nouns, verbs, past tense, participles and adjectives.

During Creative writing we will be learning how to write;

Poetry- poetry using active verbs and poetry in Haiku style.

Fiction- a modern retelling of a story, a story in the style of an authors language, a story using two different narrators and a short play.

Non Fiction- Non Chronological reports and Explanations.

The children will undertake Spelling lessons on Fridays and will have worksheets and lists regularly sent home to learn. Please ensure that these sheets are returned every Thursday (as this will be the return day for spelling homework). We will continue to practise Handwriting skills to improve on fluency and speed. Please encourage your children to use joined up writing at home too.

Now more than ever it is imperative that the children continue to read as much as they can at home. Please ensure that they are reading daily for at least 15 mins and filling in their reading diaries daily. There are plenty of exciting stories on my shelf and they are always welcome to borrow any of my books to take home and read at their leisure. We also of course have an enormous variety of books in the school library as well.

Towards the latter stages of the term we will be undertaking a trip to the Arts Depot to see a Shakespeare play that we will have worked on in class and workshops.

Maths ~

The class will be working very hard in maths this term and covering a large amount, in the time we have. Those children that are confident with their multiplication facts (times tables) will find new concepts more manageable than those struggling so please make every effort to ensure that your child practices these regularly. There will be a timed test every Wednesday, so please ensure that your child practises their multiplication tables daily for 5 - 10 mins.

The early part of the term will focus on place value, fractions, pie charts, angles, length, weight, capacity, addition and 3D shape. Then towards the end of the term we will work on subtraction, decimals, co-ordinates, reflection, rotation, translation, area and conversion graphs. There will also be a weekly Mental Arithmetic test.

Homework will be given out every Friday and it needs to be back by the following Thursday. There may be occasions where your child may have extra homework for re-enforcement.

Science ~

We will be revisiting and consolidating a variety of science based topics throughout the whole term. Mr Martin will be teaching science every other week. As well as looking at a variety of specific areas in science throughout the whole of the term, we will be also ensuring that we use and explore the skills of science thoroughly within our practical work.

ICT ~

Our class based ICT work will link with our literacy and numeracy targets based on activities that test their skills of English and Maths.

The work we undertake in ICT this term will be the use of spreadsheets and how to write a formula. The software we will use for this is Microsoft Excel. In the latter part of the term we will be exploring a problem solving game called ‘Mission Control’.

R.E. ~

Our main religious focus this term will be on Christianity and we will explore the Lord’s Prayer and what it means to us, Immanuel at Christmas time and the work of Corrie Ten Boom. Of course the highlight of our religious festivities will be the Nativity at the end of term.

Art & D+T

Art and Design and Technology will be covered during the Summer Term this year as there is so much to be done before May. (SAT’s TIME!)

Humanities ~

Our humanities throughout the year will have a strong focus on mapping skills and looking at the environment. We will be linking this with our school journey at the end of the year in order for the class to have some understanding of Cornwall before we visit in the Summer term. The whole year’s humanities will culminate in a final project at the end of the year on Cornwall that will take into account the physical, political and human features of this county. This will take on two forms both a traditional project file and a multimedia presentation.

Each week two children have been made responsible for our current events display in the class. For this to be successful the class have been asked to scour the news; papers, radio, TV and internet for main stories and interesting tales. This is a really important part of our humanities work in year 6 and the children’s understanding of the global community is enhanced though this and any help or advice you can give them when it is their turn is much appreciated.

P.E. ~

We will be doing fencing on Monday afternoons, please ensure the children have the correct PE kit for this ( for safety reasons, they need the bottom part of a navy blue tracksuit) . On Thursdays the children play either rugby, football, netball or uni-hoc. Can you please ensure that the children have the correct kit for each of these sports as it can be very frustrating when there are missing items. If you are unsure as to any of the kit they need, please get the children to ask.

Homework ~

The children have a homework diary which will prove very useful as their schedules in Year 6 are going to be very busy. Information such as trips, clubs, homework and the like will be put in this so that they can begin to adjust to a more complicated schooling in preparation for secondary schools. They will also be given numeracy and literacy work to carry out which compliments tasks undertaken in class. All items of homework are normally set after lessons and the children will be given an adequate amount of time to complete them.

Try and encourage the children to get into a set routine for homework

Reading –DAILY for 15-20 mins

Multiplication Tables –DAILY for 10 mins

Spelling- DAILY for 10 mins

Numeracy & Literacy – a variety of different WEEKLY activities.

What things would be useful to do at home? ~

It would be a great benefit if you could ensure that your child brings their book bag, reading book, diary and PE kit every day. Also if you could go through their planning books frequently with them to help them manage their time, so they get tasks complete without having to leave it to the last minute. Any children that are unaware of the tasks being asked for homework are encouraged to come and ask me for help. Also, the children will shortly be coming home with specific targets for themselves. These will be in English, Maths and Science and will be reviewed and evaluated after Christmas. This will encourage the class to take more responsibility for their learning and it helps if everybody is working towards a common goal.

As always the internet is a great resource for the class to use and there are some fantastic websites on there to visit. One of the most UK friendly search engines is www.google.com and I have found that they are excellent for Cornish websites which will be very useful throughout this term.