The year 6 team

Mr Neve

Class teacher

Mrs Whattingham

Teaching Assistant

Welcome to Year Six.

We are really looking forward to working with both the children and yourselves as parents and carers this year. For us it is a privilege to be part of a team who will support and guide your children through their last year in Primary School, nurturing and supporting them to be ‘secondary school ready’ by the end of our time together. We understand their needs, their concerns, and their excitement and look forward to being on this journey with them. I for one am thrilled to be teaching them again this year!

If you have any concerns or queries, please do not hesitate to contact us at year6@englishmartyrs.school. Also, please feel free to make an appointment to meet me after school. Our door is always open and I am always happy to make the time to see you.

Self-organisation

We encourage the children to take responsibility for their belongings and to look after the equipment they need as appropriate each day. Please remind them to check that their water bottles, school clothing and personal items are named to save confusion. They will each have a peg in the classroom and a personal tray.

Early on in the term we shall be issuing planners for the children to record homework tasks, key dates and events, and to record their reading. The children will be expected to bring these in to class daily and have them ready during lessons. We do appreciate that each of our young learners is different and will support them in fostering the right amount of self-organisation for them as an individual.

PE.

Our PE days this year are on Monday and Wednesday. Please ensure your child comes into school wearing the correct PE uniform and brings in a water bottle. 

Homework

I will be issuing homework on a Friday and it needs to be completed and returned by the following Thursday. If your child does not understand any of the homework, I will always give up my lunch on a Monday to model what is required. This allows the children to complete it that evening and return it on time. 

Homework is very important and helps to cement a deeper understanding of our learning in class. I would really appreciate your support at home and ensure your child is completing this on time. Thank you. 

In addition to these tasks, the children also need to read regularly – we want to promote  a love of reading and will encourage children to discuss the books they are enjoying at home as well as giving time in school to continue with these books. Please encourage children to record what they read in their planners.   

We would also like the children to continue to work on making sure that they are secure in their knowledge of times tables and making sure that they are retaining rapid recall of these.  On the maths curriculum page, there are links to lots of different sites where children can consolidate their learning of times tables in general, or maybe go back to one that they find more tricky.  Please do keep up a focus on times tables as having rapid recall will really benefit them in their class maths lessons.

The Curriculum

This year we shall have three termly topics: World War II, Maya Civilization and Identity. We have chosen to spread each topic over a term as we can then really delve deeply into each area and give them the opportunities to follow their own interests and questions within a topic.

SATs

All Year Six children have to take the Statutory Attainment Tests (SATs) in May. We shall do everything we can to support the children through these tests. Our primary focus has and always will be to get each individual as prepared for Key Stage Three as possible, supporting them through these tests forms part of that process but it is not our sole aim in Year Six. This is one of the reasons we have worked so hard to plan and deliver a creative curriculum with time to explore and engage with the termly themes. The children will have many opportunities to attempt past practice papers throughout the year.

We cannot wait to begin our exciting year 6 journey with your children and celebrate their many successes.

From the Year Six Team.