Year 6

Welcome to Year 6! This is a particularly exciting year as the children enjoy their last year of primary school and prepare for their transition to secondary education. We have lots of exciting plans to make Year 6 very memorable and enjoyable for the children.

Our year group leader is Miss Cammack who is lucky enough to have a fantastic team of Year 6 teachers. The class teachers are Miss Cammack and Mr Sangha who are supported by our brilliant teaching assistants Mrs Inwood and Miss Taylor.  We are all incredibly dedicated to helping the children achieve their potential in this very important year.

Reading

We strongly believe that reading is an important life skill and it is our moral imperative to teach children to be able to read well. In Year 6, we will be reading and sharing a variety of books and extracts with the children, developing a shared passion and love for reading. We are particularly looking forward to reading ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty during our Victorians topic and a World War focused novel during our World War Two topic.  

All children will have a home reading book which they are able to select themselves from a good selection of high quality texts. Children will be listened to 1:1 on a regular basis as we work to improve children’s decoding, fluency and comprehension ability and prepare them for their end of KS2 reading assessments.

Curriculum

We are very proud of our broad and balanced curriculum at The Sir Donald Bailey Academy and in Year 6, we have some fantastic topics to cover. In science, we will cover animals including humans, evolution and inheritance, living things and their habitats, and light and electricity. We are particularly looking forward to links to DT during our electricity topic, where we will be making an electronic quiz board!

In history, we will be learning all about The Changing Power of the Monarchs in Autumn Term. We will be reading ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty in our English work to complement this topic well, and writing a biography about Thomas John Barnado who set up ‘Ragged Schools’ during the Victorian times to teach poor children to read and write. In Spring Term, we will be learning about World War One and Two. This will include a trip to the National Holocaust Centre in Laxton and Eden Camp to support our learning for this topic. We will also be learning about the mistreatment of the Jews during this time, and learning how to make a wartime fruit cake.

In geography, we will be learning all about Fairtrade during Autumn Term. In our DT work, we will be designing and making Fairtrade products. During Summer Term, we will be learning all about the coastline in preparation for our residential trip to Scarborough.

These are just some of the exciting things we will be covering in Year 6. To learn more about our exciting curriculum in Year 6, please view our curriculum map.

KS2 SATs

Year 6 is an incredibly hard year as the children work towards their SATs. The children will sit tests in reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation, and maths.

Scarborough Residential

At the end of the year, we will be returning to Cloughton near Scarborough for our annual Year 6 residential trip. How exciting! While we are staying in Cloughton, we will visit many exciting places such as Ninja Warrior, Bempton Cliffs, The Deep and even a boat ride around Scarborough. This is a fantastic residential and always the highlight of the year. We are already very much looking forward to this trip.

Homework

Spellings: On a weekly basis, children will be given twenty spellings to learn. These spellings will be appropriately differentiated to appropriately challenge all children. Spelling tests take place every Friday morning.

Maths: We endorse the use of CGP Maths Workbooks in Year 6 to help consolidate skills taught during their maths lessons. Children will be set work to complete from their workbooks every Friday. This needs to be completed by the following Friday. Children will be provided feedback from their maths teachers.

Reading: We expect all children to dedicate time to reading at home every evening for a minimum of 20 minutes. Children should record any home reading in their Home School Diaries. Children should read their home reading book. However, we also encourage children to become familiar with a wide variety of texts so it is important that any reading is recorded – newspapers, magazines, reading to younger siblings! Reading should be for pleasure and we look forward to hearing what the children have enjoyed reading at home.

To prepare children for their end of KS2 reading assessments, children will also be given one piece of comprehension homework on a weekly basis. This will be handed out on a Friday and expected in for the following week. The children will go through the answers to this homework during Friday’s reading session so it is really important that this is completed.

Physical Education

Year 6 will enjoy two PE sessions each week. These will take place on a Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons with their class teacher. It is really important that children have the correct PE kit for these sessions: black shorts/trousers, white t-shirt and suitable trainers/plimsolls. Children’s PE kit should be kept in school from Monday-Friday in their pigeon holes to ensure that it is always available.

Uniform

As the oldest children in the school, we have incredibly high expectations of uniform in Year 6. Children should always look well-presented and smart to set a good example to their peers. This includes black skirt/trousers/shorts, white shirt, school tie and blazer. Black school shoes should always be worn. No trainers allowed. Long hair should always be tied back and children are not permitted to wear jewellery.

As you can see, we have lots of exciting things planned in Year 6 and we cannot wait to share all of these experiences with the children. Make sure you look out on Twitter to see some of the exciting things we get up to! Please feel free to speak to any member of the Year 6 team if you have any questions or concerns.