Year 6 Learning Zone and Curriculum Overview

Autumn 1

What a busy first half term we have had in Year 6! As well as adapting to the added responsibility of being the oldest learners in school, we have had sports competitions, parent workshop, a learning celebration and a chance to visit our newly revamped wildlife garden. Some learners have also attended open evenings at local high schools - we would really encourage everyone to do this! Remember, the deadline for applying is 31st October. Your application must be done online and can be accessed at this link: https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/schools/apply-for-a-school-place/apply-online-for-a-school-place/

All learners have been encouraged to access TT Rockstars at home as we are already finding that a super times table knowledge is required to access the Year 6 maths curriculum.

Autumn 2

As always in Year 6, reading, writing and maths will continue to be a big focus in Autumn 2 but we also have some really interesting topics coming up in our foundation subjects. We have attached links to the knowledge organisers for Science, History, RE and DT which will really help learners get a headstart in these areas:

Science Knowledge Organiser

History Knowledge Organiser

DT Knowledge Organiser

RE Knowledge Organiser

 Below is some information about the other subjects:

• Music: Hip Hop - The learners will continue to study this topic. They will write their own rap, using terms such as rhyming couplet, refrain and set. They will then record this rap over the top of their drum machine hook. By the end, they will have their first ever rap track that they can download keep forever! 
• Computing: Web design - We will be designing our own websites in this unit! It will link to a learning topic of their choice and we will learn how to embed, add links, create subpages, follow navigation paths and even create a Q and A section. If you would like to exlore the software we are using to do this, login with your Google account and visit sites.google.com
• PSHE: Relationships - We will be exploring what it takes to be a good friend and how you can identify whether a friend is healthy or not. We will devise strategues for dealing with peer pressure and will explore the positive and negative impacts of social media. As ever, if you are struggling with any personal, social or health issues and are looking for support then speaking to a trusted adult or contacting Childline (at this link or by calling 08001111) is a great place to start.

A look back at last year...

SUMMER TERM

Summer 1 has been an extremely busy term in Year 6 as we have been preparing for the SATs. The learners were a credit to themselves, their parents and the school in the way they tackled some tricky tests. We celebrated by having a 'snowball' fight with all our practise papers - look at the action shots!

We also completed writing a newspaper report and a narrative based on the short film Alma. For the newspaper report, learners had to take on the role of interviewer as they created imaginary dialogue from people who were near the scene of Alma's disappearance. In the narrative, the focus was to create a spooky atmosphere through carefully chosen vocabulary. Please take some time to read the examples below from some of our very talented writers. 

Summer 2 is all about enjoying our final term at Marsden. As well as a trip, an inspire event, the leavers' party and the awards assembly, we will immerse ourselves in the foundation subjects.

• History - World War 2: The learners can't wait to find out why WW2 started, what Britain was like during the war and how Adolf Hitler was eventually defeated. Here are some links to fantastic books based around World War 2 for anyone who is inspired to read more at home: The Silver Sword ; Once ; Letters From The Lighthouse
• Geography - Rivers: Where do rivers begin and end? What is the longest river in the world? Why are so many of the world's biggest cities built around rivers? These are just some of the questions we will explore during our geography topic.
• Science - Classification: With links to the Evolution and Inheritance unit we completed earlier in the year, we will be looking at how and why animals and plants are grouped in the way they are as well as creating our own system of classification.
• Design and Technology: It is cooking time! Who will be the next Gordon Ramsey or Nadia Hussain? We are going to explore different techniques for preparing and cooking food before the learners design and cook their own dish!
• Computing: The learners are going to use their programming skills to code programs that can run on a Micro:bit - a miniature computer that can display messages, play music and even help you with directions! If any learners are inspired by this unit then Micro:bits can be purchased on this link and the following website has some fantastic projects for them to explore: https://makecode.microbit.org/projects

AUTUMN 2

This half term, we have written biographies about some inspiring famous people and are now studying Romeo and Juliet! The learners have really enjoyed acting out some of the scenes and writing in role as the different characters. 

Our History unit has been all about the Ancient Greeks and we were really fortunate to take part in a workshop run by the brilliant Past Productions. During the day, we learnt about some of the Greek Gods, performed some Greek plays, created some Greek plates and took part in a few Olympic events!

Check out some of the outcomes:

AUTUMN 1

We have had a great Autumn term so far with the learners really meeting the extra demands that Year 6 brings with it.  We have been fortunate to have visits from the police and Paul Sturgiss (the world's tallest basketballer) as well as an online session with author Burhana Islam

who recently won the Fantastic Book Award.

In Geography, we ended our topic by researching how humans are having a negative impact on the environment but more importantly what we can do to change this. Some of the posters we created are below.

In art, we finished our unit where we used the grid method to enlarge, reduce and distort image whilst maintaining perspective. Our final piece was based on Bradford-born artist David Hockney's artwork and the end results were absolutely stunning as you can see in the photo below!

We have recently introduced Knowledge Organisers for our science and geography topics. Knowledge Organisers are a really visual way of representing all the key concepts that the learners will encounter during each unit and can be used to pre-learn areas or as a retrieval tool after we have covered parts in class. 

Attached below are the Knowledge Organisers we have introduced so far for you to download. They have also been uploaded to Google Classroom.

Year 6 Learning Zone and Curriculum Overview

Autumn 1

What a busy first half term we have had in Year 6! As well as adapting to the added responsibility of being the oldest learners in school, we have had sports competitions, parent workshop, a learning celebration and a chance to visit our newly revamped wildlife garden. Some learners have also attended open evenings at local high schools - we would really encourage everyone to do this! Remember, the deadline for applying is 31st October. Your application must be done online and can be accessed at this link: https://www.lancashire.gov.uk/children-education-families/schools/apply-for-a-school-place/apply-online-for-a-school-place/

All learners have been encouraged to access TT Rockstars at home as we are already finding that a super times table knowledge is required to access the Year 6 maths curriculum.

Autumn 2

As always in Year 6, reading, writing and maths will continue to be a big focus in Autumn 2 but we also have some really interesting topics coming up in our foundation subjects. We have attached links to the knowledge organisers for Science, History, RE and DT which will really help learners get a headstart in these areas:

Science Knowledge Organiser

History Knowledge Organiser

DT Knowledge Organiser

RE Knowledge Organiser

 Below is some information about the other subjects:

• Music: Hip Hop - The learners will continue to study this topic. They will write their own rap, using terms such as rhyming couplet, refrain and set. They will then record this rap over the top of their drum machine hook. By the end, they will have their first ever rap track that they can download keep forever! 
• Computing: Web design - We will be designing our own websites in this unit! It will link to a learning topic of their choice and we will learn how to embed, add links, create subpages, follow navigation paths and even create a Q and A section. If you would like to exlore the software we are using to do this, login with your Google account and visit sites.google.com
• PSHE: Relationships - We will be exploring what it takes to be a good friend and how you can identify whether a friend is healthy or not. We will devise strategues for dealing with peer pressure and will explore the positive and negative impacts of social media. As ever, if you are struggling with any personal, social or health issues and are looking for support then speaking to a trusted adult or contacting Childline (at this link or by calling 08001111) is a great place to start.

A look back at last year...

SUMMER TERM

Summer 1 has been an extremely busy term in Year 6 as we have been preparing for the SATs. The learners were a credit to themselves, their parents and the school in the way they tackled some tricky tests. We celebrated by having a 'snowball' fight with all our practise papers - look at the action shots!

We also completed writing a newspaper report and a narrative based on the short film Alma. For the newspaper report, learners had to take on the role of interviewer as they created imaginary dialogue from people who were near the scene of Alma's disappearance. In the narrative, the focus was to create a spooky atmosphere through carefully chosen vocabulary. Please take some time to read the examples below from some of our very talented writers. 

Summer 2 is all about enjoying our final term at Marsden. As well as a trip, an inspire event, the leavers' party and the awards assembly, we will immerse ourselves in the foundation subjects.

• History - World War 2: The learners can't wait to find out why WW2 started, what Britain was like during the war and how Adolf Hitler was eventually defeated. Here are some links to fantastic books based around World War 2 for anyone who is inspired to read more at home: The Silver Sword ; Once ; Letters From The Lighthouse
• Geography - Rivers: Where do rivers begin and end? What is the longest river in the world? Why are so many of the world's biggest cities built around rivers? These are just some of the questions we will explore during our geography topic.
• Science - Classification: With links to the Evolution and Inheritance unit we completed earlier in the year, we will be looking at how and why animals and plants are grouped in the way they are as well as creating our own system of classification.
• Design and Technology: It is cooking time! Who will be the next Gordon Ramsey or Nadia Hussain? We are going to explore different techniques for preparing and cooking food before the learners design and cook their own dish!
• Computing: The learners are going to use their programming skills to code programs that can run on a Micro:bit - a miniature computer that can display messages, play music and even help you with directions! If any learners are inspired by this unit then Micro:bits can be purchased on this link and the following website has some fantastic projects for them to explore: https://makecode.microbit.org/projects

AUTUMN 2

This half term, we have written biographies about some inspiring famous people and are now studying Romeo and Juliet! The learners have really enjoyed acting out some of the scenes and writing in role as the different characters. 

Our History unit has been all about the Ancient Greeks and we were really fortunate to take part in a workshop run by the brilliant Past Productions. During the day, we learnt about some of the Greek Gods, performed some Greek plays, created some Greek plates and took part in a few Olympic events!

Check out some of the outcomes:

AUTUMN 1

We have had a great Autumn term so far with the learners really meeting the extra demands that Year 6 brings with it.  We have been fortunate to have visits from the police and Paul Sturgiss (the world's tallest basketballer) as well as an online session with author Burhana Islam

who recently won the Fantastic Book Award.

In Geography, we ended our topic by researching how humans are having a negative impact on the environment but more importantly what we can do to change this. Some of the posters we created are below.

In art, we finished our unit where we used the grid method to enlarge, reduce and distort image whilst maintaining perspective. Our final piece was based on Bradford-born artist David Hockney's artwork and the end results were absolutely stunning as you can see in the photo below!

We have recently introduced Knowledge Organisers for our science and geography topics. Knowledge Organisers are a really visual way of representing all the key concepts that the learners will encounter during each unit and can be used to pre-learn areas or as a retrieval tool after we have covered parts in class. 

Attached below are the Knowledge Organisers we have introduced so far for you to download. They have also been uploaded to Google Classroom.