Badger Class (Year 6) 2025 - 2026

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Badger Class.

Class Staff

Teacher: Mr Baxendale

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Cavanagh

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 

Spring 2 - The Ways of the Wolf by Smriti Prasadam-Halls

In English this half term, we will be looking at the book, The Ways of the Wolf by Smriti Prasadam-Halls

In Reading, the children will explore multiple texts as we explore a new text and genre each week. 

Here's a list of the texts we shall explore this half term:

• The Final Year by Matt Goodfellow
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• Women in Science by Rachel Ignotofsky
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• The Place for Me: Stories About the Windrush Generation by Various Authors
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• Black Beauty by Anna Sewell
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• The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson
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• Digging for Victory by Cathy Faulkner
• 

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. 

Over the coming weeks, the children will be diving into the spatial world of measurement, specifically focusing on the properties of area, perimeter, and volume. Following the KS2 National Curriculum, we will begin by calculating the perimeter of composite rectilinear shapes and move toward finding the area of irregular forms by counting squares.

As their confidence grows, the pupils will use formal formulae to calculate the area of rectangles and triangles, and eventually progress to estimating volume using $1cm^3$ blocks. We will then transition into our statistics unit, where the children will refine their data-handling skills. This involves interpreting and constructing more complex graphs, such as line graphs for time-series data and pie charts, while using their addition and subtraction skills to solve "difference" problems within a dataset.

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 about Living Things and their Habitats. In this unit, Year 6 pupils dive deeper into the biological complexities of the natural world by mastering the Linnaean system of classification. Building on their prior knowledge of broad groupings, students learn to categorise a diverse array of organisms—including micro-organisms, plants, and animals—based on specific, observable characteristics and structural similarities. The curriculum emphasises the importance of scientific reasoning, tasking pupils with articulating exactly why a creature belongs to a particular group, such as why a dolphin is a mammal despite its aquatic habitat. By exploring the work of pioneering scientists like Carl Linnaeus, students gain a robust framework for organising the immense variety of life on Earth, from the smallest bacteria to the largest mammals.

This unit of work, titled "Why does population change?", explores the global distribution of people and the various factors that influence demographic shifts. It begins by defining key terminology, such as population density—the number of people relative to an area's size—and population distribution, which describes how people are spread across the globe. Students examine how different regions vary in density, from sparsely populated areas to densely populated ones like Asia, which holds nearly 60% of the world's population. The unit further investigates the drivers behind population growth and decline, focusing on the birth rate, death rate, and the impact of migration. Through the lens of "push and pull factors," learners analyse why individuals move, considering negative elements like conflict and poverty versus positive attractions like better education and safety

In our music lessons, the children will be exploring film music!

This is a very exciting topic! Children in Year 6 explore film music to understand how music can create mood, support storytelling, and influence an audience’s emotions. By studying how composers use rhythm, melody, and instruments to match characters and events on screen, pupils develop their listening skills and musical vocabulary. Exploring film music also encourages creativity, as children experiment with composing and performing pieces to accompany scenes. This topic helps them think critically about how music is used in the wider world and builds confidence in expressing ideas through sound.

Your child will have 2 PE lessons each week. Their days this half term are Tuesday and Thursday. Please ensure they come into school in their PE kit on these days. This half term we will be developing your child's Tennis and Gymnastic skills

Homework activities will be sent out every Monday. Your child will have a range of activities to take home including Maths, Reading and Spag tasks which will ultimately help them towards achieving their SATS targets.

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.