Year 6 are taught by Mrs Guyett-Smith, Mrs Fry and Miss Ingram
Miss Devin, Miss Hall, Mrs O’Neil and Mrs Prince are our Year 6 Teaching Assistants.
Home Learning – if you need to send anything to the school electronically, please email to: Y6@gomerjuniorschool.co.uk
Below is an learning overview of each term.
Autumn Term 2023
In a deep, dark forest where all is not as it seems is the start of our Year 6 journey. Through the power of imagery and imagination, we look at how images can be used to help us with both our Guided Reading and our writing. We will jump straight into narratives, where we will write a setting description and then our own end to the tale – imaginations at the ready!
In the afternoons, we will travel back to 1939 and the start of World War 2. Within Humanities, we will be learning about how and why the war started; key facts and dates; key characters and countries and the impact on people. We will be using our knowledge from Guided Reading to feed into writing with further setting descriptions and adding in character descriptions. This will be supported by a wide range of genres and texts. Additionally, we will have a chance to write our own diaries from ‘a night during the war’ experiencing air raids and what it was like for children during these tough times. All this knowledge will be drawn together using filmography to collaboratively create movies in computing.
Place Value is our first step on a mathematical journey. Being able to explain and understand numbers up to 10 million is our aim – can we order them, compare, read, write, say, partition in both a standard manner and a non-standard way (10345321 can be 10 millions, 3 hundred thousands, 4 ten thousands, 5 thousands, 3 hundreds, 2 tens and one ones but can also be 103 hundred thousands, 2 ten thousands 25 thousands and 321 ones). From here, we move onto applying this to all four operations and become experts at adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing. Skills which will be practised and applied in a weekly arithmetic lesson.
Science and STEM intertwine as we learn about electrical circuits and then apply this to building our own burglar alarm systems, before moving onto the different animal classification systems. Micro:Bits will be revisited in computing and the challenge will be laid to see if we can focus these in our burglar alarm systems. There will also be time to get creative in music where we will be creating and performing pop and jazz music and engaging each other in their creations. In art, it’s time to get messy and have fun whilst honing our clay skills to produce a WW2 medal. In French, we get to learn about school subjects and timetables. Our main focus for PE is outdoor adventure skills and invasion tactics whilst building upon their skills they have learnt throughout their school journey. Finally, in RE we will look at the power of prayer and how this links to communication and the bibles’ different interpretation of the birth of Jesus.
With all this learning going on, it is important to remember to learn how to look after ourselves and our friends and it is family relationships which underpins our PSHE lessons. We will also look at diversity – how to embrace differences and how to help others to do this too – linking in nicely with our WW2 topic.
SATs – working with the school to help your child
SATs-2022-23-Information-to-Parents.pptSummer Term 2023
We look forward to a very exciting final term for our amazing Year Six pupils before they move on to their next exciting adventure. Through English, we will explore the dystopian world of Tess and Day in the novel, Legend; where each believes they are in the right because of the ‘truths’ they have been brought up hearing. Why does Day scare the capital quite so much? Then, a quick dive into H G Wells’ War of the Worlds has us again questioning if we should believe all we are told – even if the chances are a million to one. Finally, we will delve into the spooky and unnerving world of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. This will inspire us to write some truly thrilling tales that will send a shiver down your spine.
In maths, we will be tackling real-world maths problems; we will become experts in solving questions about time and conducting complex investigations requiring high-level reasoning. We will apply maths we have learnt, by exploring what the future will hold, regarding banking, taxes, bills and wages.
During our PD ( personal development) learning we will cover key RSE topics such as puberty, reproduction, pregnancy and birth. Pupils will get the exciting opportunity to become parents to their own “egg baby” – who can nurture theirs successfully for the longest time? What key skills will they need?
Science will meet gSTEM in an exciting scheme of lessons that will look into the effects of different lifestyles and diets and the impact they have on the body. This will include getting up close with some real organs for a dissection alongside some scientific investigations. Supporting this, within our PDL and RSE lessons we will explore human rights, diversity, democracy, freedom of speech and first aid.
In Humanities, we will begin to explore the mystical world of the Maya, bringing this fascinating civilisation to life through multi-sensory experiences and augmented-reality technology. We will use CAD during computing sessions, to create Maya-inspired architecture, and printing designs with our 3D printer. Following this, we will work through our ‘Creeping Coastlines’ Geography unit, focusing on the changing beaches of Gosport. Finally, we are of course looking forward to working with our secondary school colleagues to ensure a smooth and exciting transition is ahead.
Transtion, Activities Week and all things ‘leavers’ will play a significant part of the second part of the term!
Spring Term 2023
Some people may argue that Spring is the best season of the year, others may feel that winter with Christmas is best and others still may feel that Autumn with Fireworks and Halloween is best. All are interesting points of view and it may be possible to persuade you to agree with us if we put across a strong enough argument. A strong argument is where we will be starting Spring term with persuasive writing. This will be our first look into a formal tone within writing in year 6 and how to use paragraphs to form a convincing argument. Initially, we will be looking into why we should or should not wear school uniforms and then writing independently about plastic on our planet. This will be interspersed with other non-fictional writing such as biographies and instructional writing. This will allow us to display our control of language and be able to write formally and informally.
The Good Thieves will lead our Guided Reading sessions and feed into some of our writing. This will be intermixed with non-fiction texts such as biographies, information texts and newspaper articles. This learning will guide our writing. At the start of each unit, children will look at high level extract from a range of authors which help them understand what a good piece of writing looks like. This term, H G Wells, Charles Dickens, Kathryn Rundell and Suzanne Collins are focus authors who help us learn from both modern and classic works.
We spring straight into maths by looking at decimals and percentages and how these link with fractions which we have been working hard on during the Autumn Term. Running alongside this, we will look at statistics, measurement conversions and introduce Algebra. To ensure the previous learning has been truly embedded, we will be continuously revisiting place value, four operations, fractions and shapes and angles. Having had a key focus on arithmetic last term, we will be balancing this with reasoning and learning to understand what the question is actually asking (also a key Guided Reading skill).
In Humanities we will become storm chasers, diving into our exploration of extreme weather. We will bravely venture into tornados, hurricanes and droughts, whilst creating meteorological models and applying our computing skills to present this information in a scientific manner. We will build our own weather observation station and work in teams to build a true picture of the climate that we live in, culminating in building our own ‘biomes in a bottle’.
Within Religious Education, we will learn about the significance of community through our study of Buddhism. We will experience the peace and tranquility of mindfulness and understand the impact of Siddhattha Gotama’s experiences and beliefs. We will contextualise aspects of the Noble Eightfold Path within our own lives and evaluate elements of this in detail. In the second half of the term we will explore the concept of resurrection within the Easter story as we become explorative theologians through the exploration of various fascinating sources of information.
Through PDL and RSE we will discuss human rights, democracy and diversity, exploring the way in which prejudice and discrimination can have a negative effect on people’s lives. In the second half of the spring term we will look into mental health and the steps we can take to look after this. We will explore recognising bullying and standing up for ourselves and others, as well as using the internet safely.
Our next Computing Project will develop graphic design skills. This is a vital skill in the computer literate world; a skill that is needed across many industries for advertising, brand awareness and identity. They will learn how to create logos, design and export marketing material and develop brand awareness.
Through the use of enquiry, we are going to be exploring the theory of evolution in science. Becoming scientists of knowledge, we will be extending our understanding of animals and the way that they have developed over the last few million years, whilst hypothesising and how we might develop into the future. Finally building many new scientific skills that we, as a year group, can utilise in our topics to come.