We are Year 6!
Welcome to our class page! Here you will find lots of information about your final year at St Luke's.
Firstly welcome back to you all! We hope you have enjoyed your summer break and are feeling refreshed, ready for a new academic year ahead. We have missed you and cannot wait to see you all as you begin what will be a busy and exciting academic year.
Important Information
School will reopen for Year 6 on Wednesday 6th September 2023
School day begins = 8:40am
School day ends = 3:40pm (Mon-Thurs) 1:30pm (Fri)
Year 6 pupils must enter the school grounds using the Stockport Road entrance gate. They will also be collected from that gate.
We have two classes in our cohort: 6G and 6H.
Teaching staff within Year 6
6G - Mr Graham and Mrs Salim
6H - Miss Halliwell and Mr Tynan
Here we are! Left to right: Mr Tynan, Mr Graham, Mrs Salim and Miss Halliwell
Key Dates
- Wednesday 6th September, 2023 - school opens for all pupils.
- Tuesday 12th and Wednesday 13th September, 2023 - Y6 Castleton YHA residential
Autumn Term 1 Year 6
Writing
With writing being one of your formally-assessed subjects at the end of Year 6, we have an extra-special focus on it this year, in order to help you to improve as thoroughly and rapidly as possible. This term we will use the story of 'Rooftoppers', written by Katherine Rundell, to help us with our two main focuses: Narrative and Diary writing. We have used Rooftoppers as our first class text for a few years now and we are sure you will be gripped by the storyline and character development as we go on. It is a truly fantastic book!
Narrative (story) writing - Within this unit we will revise how to know that your sentences are complete and logical before moving on to give you a range of sentence types that you can use to add variety and pace to your written work. We will focus in particular on using a range of openers, including main clauses, subordinate clauses and fronted adverbials, ensuring that none of these are too heavily repeated which can stop your writing from flowing well. This will set you up nicely as we look ahead to your Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar SAT in May.
Diary Writing -
You might think diaries and narratives are pretty much the same thing, with diaries simply being narratives written in the first person. This is not the case! In our unit on diary writing, we will explore the importance of tense consistency, recap some familiar tenses (past and present) and introduce you to some new ones (the past-perfect and present-perfect tenses). We will also get to grips with the importance of understanding who your audience is when you are writing - you write a diary to read it back yourself, so what implications does that have for the kind of detail you write with? This will be key to understanding the difference between a diary and a narrative.
Numeracy
Another subject that you'll be assessed on this year is Numeracy. For the first five weeks of this term we will be consolidating and stretching what you know about the four main operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. Within this, we'll be working on improving your mental speed and accuracy. This should help us to build a solid foundation upon which we can introduce the new Year 6 objectives, of which there are many!
To get yourself started, you could have a look at fractions at home - these come up A LOT in Year 6! We will be learning how to add, subtract, multiply and divide fractions, both by whole numbers and by each other. The most important skill you have to master before this point is calculating equivalences. The fraction wall below will help you to visualize this:
As you look at the fraction wall above, you'll notice that two lots of 1/6 (so 2/6) is the same size as 1/3. This means that these fractions are equivalent (the same amount). Another easy way to consider this is to multiply or divide both the numerator and the denominator by the same number. This will give you an equivalent fraction.
e.g.
3/4 is equivalent to 9/12 (because 3x3=9 and 4x3=12).
Science - 'All Living Things'.
This term we will be studying classification and the ordering system devised by Carl Linnaeus. This work will involve pupils considering the characteristics of a 'living thing' and they will start to group creatures in relation to their appearances, abilities and habitats.
Before too long, we will begin to explore some complex scientific concepts, such as the structure of certain cells and ways in which scientists group organisms (living things) according to the characteristics at a microbiological level. This will help us to answer our final question of the unit: What do I have in common with mould? It may seem ridiculous, but at the first level of classification (Domain), mould and human beings wind up in the same group!
Geography
Our Geography focus for the Autumn term will be National Parks within the British Isles. We will be exploring the question "Who are Britain's National Parks for?" We will be learning about how 'National Parks' are places of protected countryside which aim to be open to everybody. Sometimes, however, these two objectives can seem to contradict each other. Is it possible to make National Parks open to everybody and yet still protect the countryside?
Can you name the National Park that is located just south of Manchester?
To get you started, here is a picture of all the National Parks (and other areas of natural beauty) found within the British Isles.
History
In History, we will be looking at the Ancient Greek civilisation, and asking ourselves what impact the Ancient Greeks have had on modern British society. It may seem strange to think that a civilisation from a few thousand years ago, in a very different part of Europe, has had such a profound impact on the way we live today in the UK. At the end of the unit, we will ask you what you think is the greatest impact that the Ancient Greeks have had on us today.
Physical Education
For both 6G and 6H, you will need your PE kit in school every Wednesday and Thursday. It's worth simply bringing it in on Monday and leaving it in school until you're done with it on Thursday evening.
Wednesday = Dance/Gymnastics (white t-shirt, black shorts/leggings)
Thursday = Outdoor games (as it's now autumn, you must ensure you kit is appropriate for the cooler and wetter weather).
You must bring the correct PE kit into school and we advise all kit is taken home and washed over the weekend so it is ready each time for a new week in school.
The outdoor games focus for this half term will be rugby. In this unit, you will learn what is going on with that funny egg-shaped ball, experience picking a ball up and running with it (feels strange when you're used to football and basketball!) and work as a team to run in as many tries as possible!
In our Dance lessons we will be focusing on the 'Haka' - a traditional dance/performance originating from the indigenous people of Australasia and has strong cultural links to New Zealand and other pacific islands.
Religious Education
At St. Luke's the pupils learn about the different major world religions with the aim of increasing awareness, respect and understanding of the diversity of beliefs within our communities. We will begin by comparing and contrasting the key beliefs of Christians and Humanists, asking what matters most to these religious and non-religious people?
Important Documents
Below, you will find our long term plan (an overview of the topics we do in the year), the medium term plan for our foundation subjects (a breakdown of the lessons within each topic for our foundation subjects) and our timetables (a 2-weekly timetable for 6G and 6H)