History will be at the heart of our Discover learning this term. During Autumn 1, we will travel back to the Viking Age and investigate the struggle between the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons for control of England. Children will explore Viking raids and invasions, settlements, beliefs and everyday life before considering whether the Vikings really deserve their fearsome reputation. We will develop our chronological understanding and use historical sources to investigate different interpretations of the past. During Autumn 2, our learning will take us much further afield as we investigate the fascinating Ancient Maya civilisation. Children will explore Maya society, cities, beliefs, achievements and everyday life and consider how this civilisation compares with Britain during a similar period. Throughout both units, children will be encouraged to think critically about change, continuity, cause and consequence and return to our big question: Is change always a good thing?
Discover
Is change always a good thing?
How we'll be doing it...
Wow day
Our Discover term will begin with a Change Up Day, giving the children an exciting introduction to our overarching question: Is change always a good thing? Throughout the day, children will take part in activities designed to challenge their thinking about change and consider how change can have both positive and negative consequences.
Authentic outcome
Throughout our History learning, children will develop their skills as historians by investigating and analysing a range of historical sources. They will use their research and source-analysis skills to create a final presentation or display, sharing what they have discovered with other children and parents and demonstrating how historians use evidence to understand the past.
Autumn trips
Pantomime visit
Maths
In Maths, we will begin by developing a secure understanding of place value up to 10,000,000, including reading, writing, ordering, comparing and rounding large numbers. We will then build on the children’s calculation skills through addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, developing both written and mental methods and applying these to increasingly challenging reasoning and problem-solving activities. Alongside our new learning, we will regularly revisit important arithmetic skills and times-table knowledge to build fluency, accuracy and confidence throughout Year 6.
English
In English, children will explore a range of high-quality texts and use these as inspiration for their own writing. They will develop their ability to write for different audiences and purposes, producing a range of fiction and non-fiction pieces. Children will plan, draft, edit and improve their writing and will be encouraged to make increasingly independent choices about vocabulary, sentence structure and organisation. Grammar will be taught both within our writing and through focused activities. We will develop children’s understanding of areas including word classes, subjects and objects and active and passive voice, alongside consolidating punctuation and spelling from previous year groups. Reading will continue to be an important part of our Year 6 curriculum, with children developing their fluency, vocabulary, retrieval, inference, prediction and summarising skills through a wide variety of texts.
Science
In Science, children will develop their understanding of living things and how they are classified. We will investigate how scientists group living things according to their characteristics and explore animals, plants and microorganisms. Children will learn how classification systems help scientists identify and organise living things and will practise creating and using classification keys. Our scientific learning will involve plenty of questioning, observing, comparing and investigating, encouraging children to think and work like scientists.
PSHE
Our PSHE learning will help children develop the skills they need to navigate friendships, relationships, challenges and changes as they move through Year 6. We will explore the difference between growth and fixed mindsets and consider how perseverance, resilience and our response to mistakes can influence our learning. During our Families and Relationships work, children will discuss healthy relationships, respect, stereotypes and ways of resolving disagreements through negotiation and compromise. We will also sensitively explore experiences such as grief and understand that people may experience and respond to loss in different ways.
PE
In PE, children will develop their skills through a range of physical activities. During football, they will work on passing, dribbling, movement, positioning and teamwork before applying these skills within games. Children will also explore how different types of movement affect the body and take part in yoga, developing their balance, flexibility, strength and control. As always, PE will encourage teamwork, resilience, fair play and positive attitudes towards physical activity.
RE
Our overarching RE question this year is: “How is life like a journey?” Through our dedicated RE days, children will explore their own beliefs and those of others. Across the year, they will encounter a range of religious and non-religious worldviews, including Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Humanism. Children will be encouraged to ask thoughtful questions, make connections between different beliefs and develop respect and understanding for the diverse world in which we live.
Computing
In Computing, children will explore how information and data are shared through computer networks and how technology allows us to communicate and collaborate with people in different locations. They will develop their understanding of safe and responsible online communication and consider which forms of digital communication are most appropriate for different situations.
Children will also create and evaluate digital content, thinking carefully about its design, layout, audience and purpose, while developing their understanding of copyright and the importance of using other people’s work responsibly.
MFL
In French, children will continue developing their confidence in speaking, listening, reading and writing. They will listen to increasingly challenging spoken French and learn strategies for identifying familiar vocabulary and cognates. Children will also develop their ability to understand the overall meaning of a conversation or passage even when they do not recognise every individual word. Our aim is to build children’s confidence and encourage them to have a go when communicating in another language.
Subjects
Maths
In the first half term, the children will focus on place value and the value of digits up to 10,000,000. In this term we will focus on addition and subtraction also. The multiplication of four digit numbers by two digit numbers as well as subtraction will be done in this term also.
English
In this term the children will write spooky stories that will ultimately be used in the Halloween Disco to raise funds for the Year 6 end of year trip.
The class novels this term are ‘Crater lake’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’. The children will focus on word classification, the active and passive, subject and object and audience and purpose.
The children will write diary entries, letters home and adverts in the build up to their final piece of independent writing.
Science
Children will describe how living things are classified into broad groups according to common observable characteristics and based on similarities and differences, including microorganisms, plants and animals and give reasons for classifying plants and animals based on specific characteristics and analyse the advantages of certain plant features.
Evolution unit – Children will understand that inheritance of features comes from parents and understand reasons for extinction and mutations as well as understanding how and why animals adapt to their environment. An in depth study of leading evolutionary thinkers will also be completed.
PSHE
Growth mind-set unit- To identify characteristics of growth and fixed mind-sets. To suggest ideas to help develop a growth mind-set.
Family and Relationships- Identifying ways to resolve conflict through negotiation and compromise
Discussing how and why respect is an important part of relationships. Identifying ways to challenge stereotypes.
Exploring the process of grief and understanding that it is different for different people.
PE
Children will be focusing on football. Children will learn about the necessary skills involved and different ways of moving with a ball and team positions. In our moving and learning unit the children will learn about which movements effect which part of the body and how. In yoga, we will learn about stretches and positions that work the core muscles in our bodies.
RE
Through our RE days at school, the children learn about their own and other’s beliefs.
Our question this year is: How is life like a journey?
Over the next term we will cover Hinduism, Sikhism, Buddhism, Christianity, Islam and Humanism.
Computing
Children will recognise that data is transferred across networks using agreed protocols (methods) and complete a collaborative online project.
They will modify others work within the bounds of copyright and with relevant permissions and can evaluate the best forms of communication for different situations.
Children will upload and download projects to other devices and online space e.g. VLE, blog or website, collaborating and communicating with audiences in locations beyond school.
They will develop and use criteria to evaluate design and layout of a range of resources including web sites, pages on VLE, online resources and presentations
MFL
We will listen to longer text and more authentic foreign language material and learn to pick out cognates and familiar words and learn to ‘gist listen’ even when hearing language that has not been taught or covered.
Art
In Art we are looking at photography and start by looking at Macro photography and editing these pictures for a particular effect. We then move onto photomontage and creating images from other images.
DT
We will look at traditional dishes of Britain from now and the past and a range of cooking and baking techniques required for different products. We will look at specific preparation techniques and why they are needed. (eg not twisting when cutting out scones or they won’t rise, leaving dough to prove)