Our new class novel…
“I predict it will take place on a farm because all those animals could be found there,” said Moh.
Sami predicted that the boy would go on an adventure and meet the animals along the way.
Sometimes it’s nice to read the reviews of a book but it’s also important to come to your own conclusion. The last review is quite poignant, though!
“The artwork is confusing but I like it,” said Tasha.
Felix mused, “I wonder why the Fox seems to be the only one coloured in?”
Watch this space!
Planning an experiment
After the Fall inspired us to make paper aeroplanes and find out which is the best.
In groups, we planned a science experiment with a different variable – challenge your child to define this!
Today, we made and tested our aeroplanes!
Ask your child to explain how we ensured it was a fair test!
Our Brilliant Maths
This week, we’ve continued our place value learning with rounding.
Just look how neat we are to show off our fantastic understanding.
Challenge your child at home to explain how they would round to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 or 10,000. They might use a number line or the look next door method!
Reading
Reading is super important. In fact, we think it’s one of the most important things you can do to support your child at home.
Some studies have found that children who read regularly are more likely to be happy in adulthood, more likely to earn more money and more likely to do well in all school subjects.
Whilst we understand life is busy, we’d love it if you could read with your child every day (ideally for about 20 minutes but anything is better than not reading at all).
This article has a handy reading for parents guide if you’d like any more information or tips.
Our Reading Activities leaflet will provide lots of activities to make reading an even more enjoyable and active experience for all. Check out the ‘Help Your Child‘ section of our website for a range of guides and tips for helping your child across a range of subjects.
Some common questions about reading:
When should my child have their reading book in school?
Our library session is a Thursday morning where we can browse the library or exchange a book. Children can now take their library book home. It might be a good idea to have one of your library books at school and take one home to read. Make sure you keep it at home until you’re ready to swap it; it will be quarantined at school beforehand!
My child can read fluently. Should they still read aloud to me?
Ideally, yes. They can spend time reading on their own, too – we encourage this. However, it’s really important that children still practise the skill of reading aloud. It helps improve their confidence and improves their ability to read with expression. Being read to is really important, too – so don’t underestimate the power of a bedtime story!
The book my child has brought home is too easy / hard. What should I do?
This will rarely happen but if you do think your child’s book isn’t the right level please get in touch with me.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
For the start of this half-term, our Living and Learning focus is the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
In class, the children will focus on different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
Risk taking
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
Responsibility
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
Responding
This could be responding to their teacher in class or responding to feedback in their learning.
Ready
Make sure your child is at school on time for a prompt start.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
Resourceful
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
Resilience
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
Relate this ‘R’ to Humpty Dumpty and our current whole school topic, After the Fall.
Remember
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
Reflect
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about how they learnt, why they learnt it, when they’ll use their learning, how they would teach this to someone else, what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today…
This week, children will have the opportunity to not only reflect on their learning in general but also reflect on how the 8Rs supports their learning.
Of course, these characteristics are referred to throughout the year across all subjects to promote good learning behaviour.
Our Amazing Writing
Take a look at some excellent examples of our writing in Y6.
I’ve been very impressed with their powerful vocabulary.
We enjoyed sharing our brilliant writing with and learning from each other.
- expanded noun phrases
- varied openers
- conjunctions
Challenge your child to explain the three ways you can write an expanded noun phrase!
Book Club
It’s been lovely and mindful in today’s library session.
“I love the different books we can enjoy here,” said Ethan.
Musa said he likes the library because of its variety of styles and genres.
Back in class, we’ve been practising our reading fluency by reading aloud to an adult or partner. Children have the choice to read their library book or a First News newspaper.
Ask your child what they’re reading at school. Do they enjoy it? Who is the main character? What’s happened so far?
Keep reading everyday at home, too!
Origami
Inspired by our class novel… 
…we’ve been making origami!
We’ve also learnt about pattern in our art lessons so we enjoyed experimenting with different ones.
Just like Humpty, we had to be resilient – one of our 8 Rs for learning – because it was quite fiddly! We were very proud of our efforts at the end, though!
Welcome back!
Welcome back!
We’ve already started to settle into our new normal – I’ve been really impressed with how adaptable everyone has been.
It’s going to be a great year!
“I think the year ahead is going to be really exciting!” exclaimed Noah.
“I’m really looking forward to everything. It’s going to be hard but fun as well. I’m looking forward to learning new things,” said Rayn.
“It’ll be fun to make new friends!” Alishbah stated.
Daisy smiled, “This year is going to be odd but fun.”
I think you’ve hit the nail on the head there, Daisy.
In maths, we’re gradually building up to year six content by first recapping learning from year five to make sure everyone feels confident. We’re starting with place value (eg In 56,934 what does the 9 represent? It has nine hundreds.) before moving on to addition and subtraction.
Help at home by practising some simple addition and subtraction calculations such as 2,899 + 492 or 5,693 – 411.
In writing, we’re looking at instructions. We’ve already followed some to make some origami! Soon, we will be writing our own about caring for a mysterious creature.
Help at home by practising sentences that start in different ways. You could start with:
- an adjective eg ‘Textured or metallic paper can also be used for origami.’
- an adberb eg ‘Carefully, cut along the dotted line.’ Or: ‘Once you’ve folded the paper, flip it over.’
- a conjunction eg ‘Because this fold is fiddly, use a paper clip to flatten it.’
In reading, we’re using our whole school novel After the Fall. You should check it out – it’s a cracking read!
Help at home by reading every day! I can’t stress this enough. It doesn’t matter what it is, where it takes place or who is reading to who. Better readers make better learners. 🙂
In topic, we’ll be inspired by After the Fall. Watch out for paper aeroplanes, collages and even parachutes…
Own It app
Has you child got a mobile phone? If they have, do the have the Own It app from the BBC?
The Own It app helps children and young people take control of your online life. It gives them advice when they need it, in real-time as they type. It’s designed to help them make smart choices, feel more confident, and live their best life online.
The Own It app comes with a special keyboard. This can be used like any other keyboard, but it also gives users helpful tips and friendly advice as they write.
There’s also the ability to track how they feel and improve their wellbeing. There are plenty of gifs and emojis so users can express themselves.
The Own It keyboard and app is personal to the user. Everything your child types is kept completely private, and never leaves the Own It app on their phone.
