Year 6 - Polar Bear & Panther Class
Year 6 Curriculum and Residential update meeting will take place on Wednesday 18th September, at 3.15pm in Polar Bear class (The PowerPoint for this is attached to the bottom of this page).
As part of Bridgwater Week, Year 6 will be visiting King's Square and Bridgwater Docks on Tuesday 22nd October (10.30am - 12.oopm).
Well done Year 6, we are super proud of how you have settled into your new academic year and we are very much looking forward to the year ahead! Keep it up :)
Welcome to Year 6
Mr Thorne teaches Polar Bears class and Mrs Weall/Mrs Lukins teach Panther Class. Mrs Perry, Mrs Whitney and Miss de Vries also work in Year 6.
Teachers can be contacted on the following email addresses
Accelerated Reader
Reading in years 3-6
At the beginning of every new school year(in Key Stage Two) your child will complete a reading assessment called 'The Star Reading Test'. STAR Reading is a computerised reading assessment.
Questions continually adjust to your child’s responses. If the child’s response is correct, the difficulty level is increased. If the child misses a question, the difficulty level is reduced. The test uses multiple-choice questions and takes approximately 20 minutes. Your child will re-test on The Star Reading Test every half term.
The Star Reading Test will give your child a ZPD (Zone of proximal development) The ZPD is the range of books that will challenge a child without causing frustration or loss of motivation.
Your child then picks a book at his/her own level and reads it at his/her own pace. They will start at the lowest level in the range and read through the levels at their own pace. When finished, your child takes a short quiz on the computer – passing the quiz is an indication that your child has understood what has been read.
Every time your child passes a quiz their book level will rise by 0.1. The whole process is overseen, monitored and adjusted (where necessary) by your child's class teacher and teaching assistant.
At Eastover, we have many rewards in place to motivate:
- prizes given after every quizzed passed
- a visit to our gift shop once they have passed a certain amount of quizzes/ read a certain amount of words
- different competitions held throughout the year
- class readometers-the first class to reach the top every half term receives a class prize.
More information can be found here: https://www.renaissance.com/2016/09/09/parents-guide-renaissance-accelerated-reader-360/
Homework
Children in Y3- Y6 have the following homework each night. Please record in the children’s yellow books that all the tasks have been completed. If your child wishes to do more homework or spend longer on each task, or complete their own tasks afterwards, this would be excellent! Please note, additional tasks linked to other subjects may be sent out by class teachers.
10 minutes of reading aloud
10 minutes of MyMaths/TT Rockstars practice
10 minutes of spelling practice on Emile
If you have any problems, please ask!
Important websites:
- TTRockstars
- MYON for Home reading
-
Accelerated Reading for Quizzing
Please click on the link below to find the planning document for year 6, this will tell you what the children are learning throughout the year.
No Outsiders
What is an outsider?
Someone who feels left out, who feels like they don't belong and are not welcome. We want schools to be teaching that there are no outsiders because everyone is welcome. A four-year-old understands what it feels like to be left out and does not want to be left out. We need to create classroom environments where no child feels left out; every child needs to be taught that they belong.
Year 6
The Year 6 books have a theme of acceptance. King of the Sky beautifully explores feelings of being an outsider from the perspective of a young refugee boy. He forms a friendship with an elderly man who teaches the boy to work with homing pigeons.
Through the pigeons, the boy learns to feel a sense of belonging. The Only Way is Badger is truly a book for our times. A badger builds a wall across the forest and instructs the other animals to be 'more badger. If they fail, they are thrown over the wall. The ending of the story provides much material for discussions about conciliatory behaviour and consequences of actions. Leaf describes fears about the unknown and a lack of confidence to find out. A polar bear arrives on an island and rather than talking to him, the other animals hide and talk about him. This theme is revisited in The Island, which is a powerful study into the power one group of people have over another and the dire consequences of unchecked prejudice. Introducing Teddy is a wonderful tale of a teddy bear who comes out as trans halfway through the story.
All of teddys friends accept her as Tilly, no one questions it, and this is the focus of the plan. The final book in the scheme, A Day in the Life of Marion Bundo provides a fantastic opportunity to talk about democracy, prejudice and LGBT equality. A rabbit in the white house wants to marry another male bunny and while all the other animals celebrate the wedding, the leader of the animals says two male bunnies marrying is against the law. The animals have a vote to see if the law should be changed. The focus of the lesson plan is how democracy works.
Things to remember...
Just a quick message to let you know that your PE days are as follows:
Polar Bears every Monday
Panthers every Friday
Please come to school in the correct kit
Thanks :)
Good afternoon!