Abbey Road, Old Buckenham, Attleborough, Norfolk. NR17 1RH

Abbey Road, Old Buckenham, Attleborough, Norfolk. NR17 1RH

Executive headteacher: Mrs Julia Humphrey

Telephone: 01953 860380 Fax: 01953 860952

Website: Twitter: @OldBuckenhamPri

Year 6 Newsletter

Spring term 2
February– March 2018

Dear parents,

Welcome back after thehalf term break. Like the first half term, this one is a slightly shorter one than normal – a little over 5 weeks. We will finish for the Easter breakon Wednesday 28th March, returning for Summer term 1 on Monday 16th April.
Intended curriculum overview
Our focus this term is geographical, and looks at Germany.
Our class book this half term will continue to be Goodnight Mr Tom by Michelle Magorian, as we unfortunately didn’t get to finish it last half term, and the children seemed to really enjoy our whole-class reading sessions with it!
In English, we will create some fictional stories about legends, as part of the Talk for Writing programme. In Maths, we will explore ratio and proportionality, calculating with the four operations and algebra and statistics. In Science, we will focus on living things and their habitats, looking at the Linnaean classification system to see how plants and animals are grouped according to their characteristics.
Geography will, as mentioned, look at Germany – we will learn a great deal about the European country’s geographical features, economy, culture, perhaps even a few German phrases here and there! For Design and Technology, the children will be making their own picture frames. They will use these to frame a piece of artworkbased onthe Ampelmännchen (‘little traffic light men’), a popular German icon from the Cold War, still seen on the streets of Berlin today.
PE this term covers Basketball,and will take place outside on Wednesdayafternoons. Please ensure that your children arrive at school on Monday mornings with their full PE kit. Forest School for Year 6 resumes this half term, and will be on Thursday afternoons – your children must ensure they bring the appropriate gear to take part in Forest School, whatever the weather.

Home learning

New spellings will continue to be issued every Monday, and the children will be tested on these on the following Monday. You will also find attached to this letter a list of Key Instant Recall Facts which, to support our learning in mathematics, they should aim to practice on a regular basis. These KIRFs cover common factors for pairs of numbers. Please spend 10-15 minutes a night helping your child to practice these, as well as reading with them on a regular basis and asking them in-depth questions about their understanding of their books. This will prepare them well for the accelerated pace of learning that they will experience in high school.

End of Key Stage 2 writing assessments

Before your child leaves school, I will make judgements about their independent writing, using teacher assessment frameworks for the end of Key Stage 2 (I will also make these judgements for reading and maths). There are four judgements that I can make:
1. Your child is working at pre-key stage standardat the end of Key Stage 2;
2. Your child is working towards the expected standard at the end of Key Stage 2;
3. Your child is working at the expected standard at the end of Key Stage 2;
4. Your child is working at greater depth within the expected standard at the end of Key Stage 2.
Obviously, my aim is to judge as many children as possible to be working at or above the expected standard for the end of KS2. To do this, I must be able to find evidence of all the ‘pupil can’ statements within each standard–as well as all the statements in any standard(s) before it– in your child’s independent writing. (Note: ‘independent’means work that I have not directly influenced while your child is writing it, such as reminding them to spell a word correctly or telling them to use a particular piece of grammar or punctuation. I cannot make judgements about writing that is not independently produced.)
I have attached a copy of these standards (apart from pre-key stage) to this letter for you to look at; your child has also been given a copy to refer to in class. If your child does any independent creative writing at home, you may wish to compare it to the standards – particularly ‘working towards’ and ‘working at’ – to see if they are including the essentials of good writing, such as legible handwriting, using capital letters in the right places and putting full stops at the end of every sentence.These elements are particularly important, as no matter how well your child writes, incorrect use of capitals or illegible printed handwriting (for example) means that I can’t award them a standard they may otherwise deserve.Please see me if you have any questions about how these standards work or how you might be able to help.

Individual projects

Individual projects are a great way for children to demonstrate their understanding of a particular topic in their own way. Some suggestions for individual projects for this half term are as follows:

• Build a model of a famous German monument, such as the Brandenberg Gate or the Reichstag;
• Cook a traditional German meal, such as Bratwurst, Currywurst, Sauerkraut or Schnitzel;
• Write, draw, or record a fact file about a famous German, perhaps a sportsperson, a politician or a scientist;
• Research a famous German engineering company, like BMW / Mercedes / Audi / VW;
• Using Office 365, create a Sway (presentation) based on anything related to our topic learning;
• Any other projects which your child may come up with, which fit into our topic (please ask them to consult with me if they are unsure about their idea);
  Your child should bring in their completed individual project on Monday 26th, Tuesday 27th or Wednesday 28th March, to be shown, shared and discussed with the rest of the class on the afternoon of the 28th. If it is a food-based project, please avoid bringing it in earlier than this, and please remind your child to stick it in the fridge when it gets here, to avoid it becoming inedible due to being left out.
  ‘Anything else?’
  I would like to take this opportunity to thank those parents who have been supporting your children with their SATs revision workbooks over the past few weeks – the children seem really engaged with these, and love coming in to add the pages they have completed to the class chart on our whiteboard. Every Friday afternoon leading up to the SATs, we will hold a prize draw, where 5 names will be selected from those who have added their pages to the chart – each person chosen will win a chocolatey prize. If that’s not an incentive to ensure they are revising (apart from achieving excellent results, of course), then I’m not sure what is! ?
  Please refer to the Y6 webpage at for more information, a copy of this newsletter, and a copy of our class timetable so you can see what your child will be doing each week. If you have any questions or comments about anything in this letter, please do not hesitate to come and see me either before 8.30am or after school.
  Yours sincerely,
  Mr C. Brown
  Y6 class teacher
  February 2018