Welcome to 6SW.
The children have started back in Year 6 working really hard because this is their SATs year.
In maths, they have focused on place value, ordering and rounding whole numbers and are now consolidating their understanding of, and skills in using, the four operations: addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. Some of them learn maths with one of the other teachers, so messages about maths will be passed to their own maths teacher.
In English, we are reading The Odyssey by Homer, retold by Geraldine McCaughrean. Originally a poem designed to be told, not read, it tells the story of the Greek hero, Odysseus, as he tries to get home after winning the Trojan Wars in the battle at Troy. On his journey he encounters many difficulties and makes lots of mistakes. The children also have guided reading lessons, spelling and grammar focus lessons and do work related to their class reader. Some of their homework will allow them to prepare for the spelling investigation the following week.
However, life is not all about SATs and so they are also learning about life in the Stone Age (History), the important features of belonging to the Christian faith (RE) and the way the circulation and digestive systems work together to help their bodies function (Science).
On Friday 23rd September, we had a visit from Living History Mobile Museum to learn about prehistoric cultures. Mr Wichard showed the children how stones, bones and animal skins were used to make everything needed to live during the Stone Age. He showed items made by Native Americans as they were prehistoric until 150 years ago (prehistoric means 'before they wrote'). He also showed us British prehistoric items like flint cores, scrapers and arrow-heads, some of which were 4500-5000 years old.
The children now have homework books to do their homework in. It is intended that these will keep the homework neat and together, and provide parents with information and some examples of the type of work the children are doing in class. Homework will be set on a Monday and is due to be handed in on certain days through the week. The days homework is due in will be on a sticker in the children's journal. The children have been given a laminated spelling card to keep at home. This contains the government list of spelling for the whole of KS2, any of which may be tested in the spelling and grammar portion of the SAT test in May.
The children's homework is given out in maths lessons, where the list of tasks is glued into their planners for that week.
Staying in Contact
Please contact me if you have any queries. There are a number of ways you can do this. First of all, there are the children's home-school journals. In these, they record our homework and any other things they need to remember. There is also space for you to write in them and I will read notes when I checks our diaries. If the note is urgent, ask your child to show me and I will endeavour to reply straight away. All staff can also be contacted by phone, in which case a message will be taken, or by email to the school office. This message will be forwarded to them.