Welcome back Oak Tree Class!

I hope you have all had a lovely summer break and are ready for an exciting year ahead. To begin our school year, the whole school transition topic will be ‘Together we Learn and Grow’.

On this page, you will find some useful information about the term ahead and any key messages that you need to be aware of.  If you scroll to the bottom of the page, you will see  instructions for accessing our Google Classroom page. We love to share some of the excellent things going on in class and will use Google Classroom to support learning at home - spellings, homework and useful documents will be uploaded and made available on there. 

We are set to have a great term and have some really exciting things planned and lots of new things to learn about.  If there are ever any questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to get in touch, either by popping in or contacting the office. The support you give is essential for your child's progress and the closer we can work together the better it will be for them.

Kind Regards,

Mr. Johnson 

Curriculum Overview:

Maths

Our Maths topics for this autumn term will focus heavily on number, place value and the four written calculations and it is imperative that children are supplementing this work with basic skills practise at home. Please encourage the children to use their log in for Times Table Rockstars regularly at home to ensure they know all the multiplication and division facts accurately and rapidly as this knowledge and recall will be hugely beneficial this year. 

English

In our English lessons this term, we are continuing to work on our knowledge of punctuation and grammar from across KS2, with a particular focus on being able to extend our sentences through the use of different clauses. All of our writing across the year will be inspired by high quality texts and children's literature and we will be starting the term off with some writing linked to the book Can We Save The Tiger?. Where possible, we will try to link our spellings in class to our writing also. We will be completing daily whole class reading sessions to develop the children’s reading stamina, pace, understanding of vocabulary and comprehension skills alongside individual reading sessions where each child will be heard to read by an adult bi-weekly. Alongside everything we do in school, it is incredibly important that children are reading a variety of texts both fiction and non-fiction regularly at home and recording their comments in the planners. The planners need to be in school daily and to be signed at by an adult regularly. Finally, the children will need to focus on using spelling strategies and rules consistently to ensure they spell a variety of common and uncommon words accurately. They need to be practising their spellings regularly at home. Please see the spelling strategies document to support your child learning their weekly word lists at home.  

Science  

Our Science focus this term is Evolution & Inheritance, the children will be finding out about how living things have changed over time and that fossils provide information about living things that inhabited the Earth millions of years ago. They will discover how living things produce offspring of the same kind and identify how animals and plants have adapted to suit their environment in different ways and that adaptation may lead to evolution.

Geography                                           

Our Geography topic for this term is ‘Where on Earth does it come from?' This topic looks at the use of land around the world (including farming), trade links and the distribution of natural resources including food. Children will look at where commonly used resources come from, how they travel and how land is used differently. As part of the topic, children will plot on a world map where foods they eat have travelled from and they are always quite astonished at just how far many of our foods travel to reach our dinner plates!  

History                  

In our History lessons, we will be studying the enquiry question 'How did the steam engine change the world?' with a focus upon the Industrial Revolution and its impact upon our town and the wire industry. We will continue to use a range of historical skills, including looking at different historical sources including using our knowledge of our local area.        

Additional Messages:

SATs 

In May 2027, children in Y6 will complete their statutory end of key stage assessments known as SATs. The children will be tested in Reading, Maths and Grammar, Punctuation & Spelling with Writing being teacher assessed in school. The tests will take place the week beginning Monday 10th May 2027 so we ask that any holidays or time off is not taken during this month. An information evening for parents giving further details will be held later this year and a timetable will be sent out to you in the first week of the Summer term to confirm arrangements. SATs Booster sessions will take place throughout this term and all Year 6 pupils have access to SATs Boot Camp which will support their learning at home.

Reading:

Please make sure that you read regularly (at least three times per week) and get an adult to sign your planner each week. You can read your school reading book, your own book, a library book, newspapers, comics, etc.

Spellings:

Spellings will be taught and practised throughout the week and tests will take place each Friday morning with new spelling lists posted on Google Classroom every Friday. 

PE:

For this term, outdoor PE will be on Tuesdays and indoor PE is on Wednesdays.  Once again, the children can come into school in their school PE kits on these days - a T-Shirt in their house colour and black shorts / joggers / leggings and trainers - with all hair tied back and jewellery removed. Please make sure these PE uniform guidelines are adhered to as last year we started to notice a few football shirts, etc. starting to creep in. It is important the children look as smart in their PE kits as they do in their uniforms. Thanks for your support with this. 

Homework:

Continuing on from last term, we will be setting a weekly English and maths task for the children to complete on Learning by Questions. These tasks will be set on a Friday and should be completed by the following Wednesday. All of the tasks will be linked to learning that has taken place in school so the children should be able to complete the tasks mostly independently. If you find your child struggling on a particular question, please make a note of the question number and we can go through this in class together.

Some useful websites, resources and links:

https://spellingframe.co.uk - Spelling Frame. A great, interactive website to give you chance to practise your spellings in a variety of different ways.

https://ttrockstars.com/ - Times Table Rockstars. Use this website to practise your times tables, battle with your band mates and keep your arithmetic skills up to scratch!

SATs Boot Camp - Year 6 SATs Revision, Practice Papers & SATs Questions Online - SATs Boot Camp (Year 6 only). Use this website to revise maths and English units and complete practice SATs tests in preparation for your SATs in May.