Northside Primary School Year 6 Half-Termly Letter

NORTHSIDE PRIMARY SCHOOL – YEAR 6 HALF-TERMLY LETTER

Spring, First half, January 2015

Dear Parents,

Welcome back! Happy new year to you all. I hope you all had a happy and relaxing Christmas break, and are ready for a new term. Our cross-curricular theme this half term in Year 6 is:

The Environment

We will be looking at endangered animals this half term. We will be researching different animals, their habitats and how they have changed. We will use various texts including information texts, to find out interesting facts and figures about animals that are in danger of becoming extinct. The children will look at the places in which these animals originate in geography and how these places may have altered over time in history. The children will also make predictions about what the animal world will look like in the future. We will also look at habitats and how natural disasters alter them and effect animals.

Literacy: We will be looking at ‘Zoo’ by Anthony Browne. We will write persuasive leaflets to advertise the zoo and then move on to looking at the argument of whether animals should be caged for people to visit. We will also look at writing letters to the zoo stating our opinions and ideas to improve the treatment of animals. The children will write stories and biographies the famous naturalist, David Attenborough.

Numeracy: Like all schools, we will still be following the old framework for this year. Please take every opportunity to help your child with their numeracy skills, including counting, times tables, weights and measures and telling the time. Buying your child an analogue watch would really help. Your child needs to be using the SATs revision guide to help remind them of methods, this will also help them to understand the vocabulary around the different areas in numeracy. We will be looking at interpreting data, percentages, ratio and proportion, measuring and averages, in class.

Science: Our science unit will be ‘Forces in motion’. They will look at various forces and how they act on objects. They will use forcemeters to measure and investigate units of measurement for forces.

Homework: Homework is given on Fridays. It usually consists of five pieces of work, including mental maths, numeracy, spellings and/or grammar, literacy, and topic or science. Children should bring completed homework into school by the following Wednesday to be marked. The children will be getting pages from their literacy and numeracy revision workbooks set as homework. This will help to prepare them for their SATs exams later in the school year. It is important that they check their homework diaries for due dates as they are not always the same. We will then go through the pages in class to address any misconceptions.

What you can do to help:  READING – This continues to be a vital part of your child’s learning. Please listen to them read and read to them or share the reading – it will encourage your child to enjoy books, in English or a home language.  HOMEWORK - Encourage your child to do their homework and bring it back to school every Wednesday.  PE KIT – Needs to be in school every day – dark shorts, white T-shirt, black plimsolls or trainers.  LIBRARY – Remind your child to bring their library book in every Tuesday.  WATER – Please give your child a named bottle to keep in school, as water helps the brain to function.  FRUIT – Send in a piece of fruit for your child to eat at break time to aid their concentration.

If you would like more details of what we are doing, or you have any questions about your child’s work, please make an appointment to see me after school. Also, if you can help in any of our topics, please let me know.

Yours sincerely, Miss Sarah Glancy, Year 6 class teacher