Bear Class (Year 6) 2024 - 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Bear Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 6. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you 

Autumn 2 - Lighting The Way!  

In English this half term, we will be looking at the book A Story Like The Wind by Gill Lewis 

A beautifully illustrated story of freedom, music, and seeking refuge.
A small group of refugees is crowded on to a boat on the sea. They share their stories as the boat travels towards the dream of safety and freedom. One boy, Rami, has brought his violin, and his story of how the violin was invented, and of a stallion that could run like the wind, weaves through the other stories, bringing them all together into a celebration of hope and of the power of music and story. A very special, beautifully illustrated, fable for all who strive to understand, and to stand together with, those around them.

In Reading, the children will explore The Jungle Book by Rudyard Kipling. This classic collection of animal tales shows Rudyard Kipling's writing for children at its best. The short stories and poems include the tale of Mowgli, a boy raised by a pack of wolves in the Indian jungle. We meet the tiger Shere Khan, Bagheera, the black panther, Baloo, the 'sleepy brown bear', and the python, Kaa. Other famous stories include the tale of the fearless mongoose Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, and that of elephant-handler Toomai of the Elephants.

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to improve our understanding of what we read.'

'Reading for Pleasure' has great amounts of benefits for your child. In Year 6, we ensure your child has time to read for pleasure and each day, we set time aside to read our class book for pleasure. 

Benefits of 'reading for pleasure':

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

Read with your child every day even if it is just 2 minutes- this can make all the difference. 
Record in their reading diaries to ensure that your child is receiving their stamp for their book from the vending machine, or reading buddy. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

This half term, the children will explore fractions, decimals, percentages, algebra and position and direction!

During our maths topics, there is a large focus within TimesTables. We will, therefore, be building on our times table knowledge as we will be using this to help us solve our maths problems. 

Children will have ongoing access to their TT Rockstars logins at home. I will set your child specific times tables for them to practice. Please ensure that your child is practising them at home as it is very beneficial for their learning.

If you have misplaced your child's login, please drop me a message on Dojo and I will resend for you.

In science this half term, our class will learn all about electricity! They will build their own circuits, explore how they can increase the function of a component and learn how to draw their circuits using recognised symbols.  

In our upcoming Humanities lessons, we will be exploring our focus question:
Where does our energy come from? 

The children will describe the significance of energy, give examples of sources of energy and their trading routes, define renewable and non-renewable energy, discuss the benefits and drawbacks of different energy sources, describe the significance of the Prime Meridian, identify human features on a digital map, discuss how transport links have changed over time, locate UK cities on a map, use six-figure grid references to identify features on an OS map, consider and justify the location of energy sources, design and use interview questions and plot points on a sketch map.

In our music lessons, the children will explore their musical abilities.

This half term we will be looking at Songs of World War 2.

They will focus on developing greater accuracy in pitch and control.

Your child will have 2 PE lessons each week. Their days this half term are Tuesday and Wednesday. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be developing your child's hockey skills as well as learning how to play dodgeball!

 Mondays- Each Monday, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week. They will complete a spelling test each Friday, and, if they receive a mark of 10/10,  they will get a Dojo point. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings each morning in class, however, extra practice at home is essential.

Your child will also receive their Family Maths Toolkit Task on Mondays. Enjoy completing this as a family at home and return your book to school by Thursday for a shiny star sticker on your chart and lots of Dojos! There are prizes for completing 10, 20 and 30 tasks. 

Please note: I will often upload additional activities and links for your child to support their learning at home, however this is not specific homework, this is just a little extra for them. For example, I may upload interactive links to games that I know they will like. 

Other useful links:

Please see below links to useful websites for your child to use when they are at home. I will be adding to the list throughout the course of the year so please make sure you check for updated links.

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.