Year 6 - Skylarks

The Year 6 Team 2022-23

Autumn Term 2023

We are so excited to have our new year 6 joining us for a brilliant start to the 2022/23 school term! This term, our topic is World War 2 and we focus on 2 different storybooks:

- Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian

- When the World was Ours by Liz Kessler

Whilst reading our class novels, we will be writing a range of stories based on the life of an evacuee. These will show the story of a child experiencing an air raid, saying goodbye to their parents at the train station and meeting a new family they will be staying with during evacuation. We will also be writing a speech inspired by Charlie Chaplin's speech in The Great Dictator, poetry inspired by Wilfred Owen and Tom Waits, an audiobook explaining how people stayed safe during the Blitz, a biography of Anne Frank, a recipe for treats to make using 1940's ingredients and much, much more!

In Maths, we will be mastering our understanding of place value and the four calculation strategies and challenging ourselves with lots of problem solving activities and tricky reasoning tasks.

In our topic work, we will be learning all about World War 2 in History, Jewish people in RE, famous film composers in Music and Light and Electricity in Science. During these lessons, we will re-enact the Dunkirk evacuation and see how many soldiers we can save, undertake a range of investigations to deepen our understanding of light, build a range of circuits for a range of purposes and create our own soundtrack to a scene from a World War 2 film! We will also be learning how to order food and drink at a cafe in French and developing our art skills by practising our painting and drawing.

As this is our first term back after the national lockdown and the consequent disruption to the children's social lives and learning, we will be doing lots of PSHCE lessons in order to support the children in understanding the current situation and ensuring that their mental health is being taken care of.

We will make it a brilliant first term in year 6 for these fantastic children!

Summer Term 2023

It's our final term at Redhill and it is going to be such an exciting one! This term, our two main storybooks are Wonder by RJ Palacio and The Boy at the Back of the Class by Onjali Q. Rauf. This term is focussed on celebrating our differences and looking out for others in need. Whilst we read these novels about the experiences of children with disabilities and refugees, we will also be doing work on lots of other stories about marginalised groups such as The Invisible by Tom Percival, Its a No-Money Day by Kate Milner and The Day War Came by Nicola Davies amongst many others.

In our English, we will be rewriting some of these stories and creating our own marginalised characters in order to help understand their position in society. We will be researching and writing information texts to spread awareness about different disabilities, writing persuasive texts to encourage the government to support refugees, exploring several Islamic stories as well as writing lots of poetry and much more!

In Maths, we will be exploring shape, space and measure, statistics and ratio.

In our topic work, we are going to be learning all about the human heart in Science, Islam in RE, regions of the UK in Geography, Matisse in Art, alternative musicians in Music and using computers to control systems in DT and ICT.

We will also be doing lots of work to help the children to prepare for their transition to secondary school as well as planning and preparing some exciting events for their last days at Redhill!

Spring Term 2023

This term, our storybooks are London Eye Mystery, High Rise Mystery and Room 13 and our topic is all about 'Landmarks and Mysteries'.

Whilst reading our class novel, we will be writing information texts and audio guides all about famous landmarks around the world and designing and describing our own, brand new landmarks for Derby. Furthermore, we will be exploring mystery stories and write stories inspired by authors ranging from Agatha Christie to Dave Eggers.

This half term, we will also be writing about famous historical and religious figures such as Howard Carter and Siddhartha, writing poems inspired by Ozymandias and creating spooky stories using images from Harris Burdick.

In Maths, we shall be deepening our understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages and learning all about algebra and measures.

In our topic work, we are going to be learning all about Ancient Egypt in History, Buddhism in RE, Deserts in Geography and Evolution and Classification in Science. During these lessons, we will go to Mummification School to learn all about how to mummify bodies; use Flanimals to understand the concepts of adaptation and inheritance across different species; and create documentaries about modern Buddhism and Buddhist symbols.

Whilst writing a mystery story based on Francis by Dave Eggers, we will use our ICT, Drama and Music skills to film a trailer for our story and to create a dramatic, tense soundtrack. Once completed, we'll use a range of multimedia programmes to design our own movie posters inspired by iconic horror films.