Year 6 Newsletter Spring 2012
Dear Parents/Carers,
This half term really is the final push before the SATs! These assessments will take place during the week commencing 14th May.
At Easter, I will send home three packs of revision exercises for Literacy, Numeracy and Science (despite not having an official test this year, I will still test Science in the weeks following the SATs). It is vitally important that your child continues to work over this two week break. It is all too easy to forget important facts and skills!
In Literacy we will be focusing on producing high quality independent writing samples using a range of short stories or topic based work. Although there is not a test this year, it will be essential to collect enough evidence to justify my teacher assessments. In effect, each piece of independent writing now needs to be recognised as contributing towards their writing level and must meet their success criteria. Despite the lack of a writing test, there is still a reading assessment. It is vitally important for the children to read at home on a daily basis in order to develop their comprehension skills, vocabulary and reading speed. They should always have a novel on the go but they also need to read a range of other texts, such as newspapers and information books. Grammar, punctuation, spelling and handwriting skills will continue to be developed.
In Maths the children will continue to apply their skills to ‘real life’ problems and SATs type questions. We started this half term by looking at coordinates and symmetry. We have progressed onto learning to express one quantity as a percentage of another and practised matching equivalent percentages, decimals and fractions. Later in the half term we will revisit visualising and drawing where a shape will be after reflections, translations, or rotations through 90° or 180°. We will continue to practise using efficient written methods to add, subtract, multiply and divide integers and decimals by a one-digit integer, and to multiply two-digit and three-digit integers by a two-digit integer. It is important for the children to be ready for the B test paper, in which they can use a calculator, so we will regularly work through exercises with calculators. We will revisit converting between units of measurement using decimals to two places (e.g. change 2.75 litres to 2750 ml, or vice versa). This is an area that many children have difficulties with, but they can easily work on this at home in the kitchen. All children need to ensure that they can use their knowledge of place value and multiplication facts to 10 ´ 10 to derive related multiplication and division facts involving decimals (e.g. 0.8 ´ 7 or 4.8 ¸ 6).
In Science we will be studying electricity and light. Once these final Year 6 units are completed, we will use the rest of the term to revise the more challenging areas of the science curriculum.
In Geography we will be looking at the Amazon. We have started by looking at the course of the river and the wildlife of Amazonia. We will also consider how people affect the river environment and explore issues such as pollution. The children will develop their investigative skills and understanding of maps.
In Art the children will produce a range of work that complements our rivers topic in Geography. The children will also produce art work that fits in with our literacy, such as the story of Icarus.
In ICT the children will use large sources of information, such as those found on the internet. They will skim read and take in information to be able to own it for themselves and interpret it with others. At times they will be critical of content and may be able to check for different viewpoints. The information will be used in our geography topic and for revision purposes.
In Music we will continue to work on a range of class songs with instrumental accompaniments. We will also look at recognising and comparing sounds made by different instruments. After this we will examine how music can be produced in different ways and be described through established and invented notations.
In PE the children will continue to play cricket with Tony Moody on a Wednesday afternoon.
In PSHCE (Personal, Social, Health, Citizenship Education) we will be working on a theme called Good To Be Me. The children will learn about how to recognise their strengths and consider how risks often need to be taken in order to improve at anything in life.
Please do feel free to raise any questions you may have. I will usually be available between 3:30pm and 4:00pm on Wednesday if required.
With Best Wishes,
Neil