Tuesday 15 March 2016

Well done!

Firstly, we would like to say how proud we are of the way the children conducted themselves during assessments last week. With up to three assessments a day, the children worked extremely hard and with a very mature attitude. Well done all! We hope you managed to have a well-earnt relaxing weekend!


Based on assessment outcomes, we wanted to make you aware of our focus rules in spelling up until SATS. We would really appreciate any support you can give your child in revising these rules and being able to confidently apply them to new words. Most of these rules should be found in their spelling homework books. They are as follows:


* The ‘i’ sound spelt ‘y’ other than at the end of words e.g. myth, mystery
* The suffixes –tion, -sion, -ssion and -cian
* Words containing the phoneme ‘ea’ e.g measure, treasure 
* Words ending with –gue or –que e.g. tongue, antique
* Words with the ‘s’ sound spelt ‘sc’ e.g. scene
* Words with the ‘a’ sound spelt eigh e.g. eight, weight
* Homophones (please see homework set on Friday)
* Words ending in –tious, -cious , -tial and –cial e.g. confidential, suspicious
* Adding suffixes beginning with vowel letters to words ending in –fer e.g. referring
* ‘i’ before ‘e’ except after c!
* Word containing ‘ough’ e.g. dough, sought


We will be revisiting these in class too but we would appreciate additional support at home if possible. We will be testing the children on these words in a few weeks  to see how they have improved.


Thank you ever so much for your cooperation,


The Year 6 team

Wednesday 2 March 2016

Update from the Year 6 team

We seem to be having a few technical issues with this blog as a few entries have mistakenly been deleted. Hopefully, you have been getting our updates and emails from the school's office directly too. Anyway...


Finally, with lighter evenings and brighter mornings, it feels like spring is around the corner! Although a welcome change, it does mean that SATS are approaching fast! Consequently, now is a good time for children to start using their 10-minute SATS buster books which many of you purchased at the beginning of the year. Of course, this is not compulsory, but if children feel they would like to do extra revision at home, they can pick and choose the areas they would like to work on and practise in their own time. If they have them, these books should also be brought into school every day from now on, as they can be used during quiet reading time or as extension work. 
In English, some children have started writing quest stories, whilst others have been planning Greek myths. During these lessons, the children have been building skills including: use of higher-level punctuation; use of varied description techniques and creating a balance of speech action and dialogue to create an atmosphere. 
During Maths, groups are at different points, however, similarly to the SATS buster books, we would encourage children to use mymaths if they would like to do extra revision on a particular topic. 
In topic, the children have been exploring democracy and the lives of women in Ancient Greece. It has been interesting to listen to the children’s ideas about how life has changed since these times and give reasons for why our lives are better nowadays. 
In Science, the children recently completed their topic on evolution and inheritance. They carried out some excellent research on the theory of evolution, fossils and we even linked this to a short unit on dinosaurs which the children were very engaged in. 
We look forward to seeing you on parents evening. Consultation arrangements will be sent out shortly so that you can sign up.


The year 6 team.