Badger Class (Year 6) 2024 - 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Badger Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 6. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you 

Autumn 1 - War, war, what is it good for? 

In English this half term, we will be looking at the book Rose Blanche by Christophe Gallaz and Roberto Innocenti.

This is story explores the horrors of the Holocaust through the eyes and lived experience of an innocent girl called Rose growing up in a small village in Germany in the 1930s. 

In Reading, the children will explore Poems from the Second World War by Gaby Morgan. This is a moving and powerful collection of poems written by soldiers, nurses, mothers, sweethearts and family and friends who experienced WWII from different standpoints. We will also read When we were Warriors by Emma Carroll which explores the resilience, resourcefulness and inventiveness of children when their lives fall to pieces during WWII.   

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to improve our understanding of what we read.'

'Reading for Pleasure' has great amounts of benefits for your child. In Year 6, we ensure your child has time to read for pleasure and each day, we set time aside to read our class book for pleasure. 

Benefits of 'reading for pleasure':

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

Read with your child every day even if it is just 2 minutes- this can make all the difference. 
Record in their reading diaries to ensure that your child is receiving their stamp for their book from the vending machine, or reading buddy. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

This half term, the children will explore place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division and fractions.

They will explore numbers to 10,000,000 and develop their formal written methods for the four operations. The children will also practise ordering, comparing, adding and subtracting fractions.

During our maths topics, there is a large focus within TimesTables. We will, therefore, be building on our times table knowledge as we will be using this to help us solve our maths problems. 

Children will have ongoing access to their TT Rockstars logins at home. I will set your child specific times tables for them to practice. Please ensure that your child is practising them at home as it is very beneficial for their learning.

If you have misplaced your child's login, please drop me a message on Dojo and I will resend for you.

In science this half term, our class will learn all about the human body in their unit: Animals including humans! The children will build on their knowledge and understanding of different systems within the body. They will research the parts and functions of the circulatory system, focusing on how nutrients are transported around the human body. Children will also explore how a healthy lifestyle supports the body to function.

In our upcoming Humanities lessons, we will be exploring our focus question:
What was the impact of WW2 on the people of Britain? 

The children will identify the causes of World War 2 and the different phases in the Battle of Britain, make inferences and deductions about a photograph, describe how children may have felt when evacuated, evaluate the accuracy and reliability of sources and describe the impact WW2 had on women’s lives.

In our music lessons, the children will explore their musical abilities.

This half term we will be looking at Songs of World War 2.

They will focus on developing greater accuracy in pitch and control.

Your child will have 2 PE lessons each week. Their days this half term are Tuesday and Wednesday. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be developing your child's football skills as well as learning how to play basketball!

 Mondays- Each Monday, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week. They will complete a spelling test each Friday, and, if they receive a mark of 10/10,  they will get a Dojo point. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings each morning in class, however, extra practice at home is essential.

Thursdays- Each Thursday, your child will be given either maths or English homework (alternating weeks). Homework is expected to be in the following Tuesday via the portfolio section of our class Dojo page. Children who have completed their homework on time will be given a Dojo point. 

Every day- Your child should read as often as possible when not in school and this should be logged via the Go-Read app, if you can not access this, simply write on a scarp piece of paper the name of the book your child has read aand the pages they have read and we can log this for you. 

Please note: I will often upload additional activities and links for your child to support their learning at home, however this is not specific homework, this is just a little extra for them. For example, I may upload interactive links to games that I know they will like. 

Other useful links:

Please see below links to useful websites for your child to use when they are at home. I will be adding to the list throughout the course of the year so please make sure you check for updated links.

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.