And welcome to all the children for 2022-2023

When you reach the top of the school here at Chandlers Field, you will enter one of the Royal Palaces, either Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace. This is where the adventure of Year 6 begins.

 

Gates open at 8.45am and the children enter the classrooms through the Year 6, gated area. When they come into class during a soft start, our Year 6 pupils are expected to be responsible and organised for their day ahead. A challenging question or activity will be waiting for them to get those near-teenage brains in gear!

 

Following registration and a delicious array of lunch choices, Maths or English begins. In Talk for Writing, the children respond to a story-mapped text (composed by the teachers) where they imitate, innovate, and invent their own fantastic pieces of writing. The genre changes every 3 to 4 weeks and the children learn the original text nearly off by heart to enable them to use and even improve the structure to influence their writing. In Year 6, with the SATs approaching, the children have to be able to show off everything they can do in a range of genres. To that end, we also have a keen focus on punctuation, grammar, and spelling which are all embedded within our English lessons as well as complimented with standalone EGPS (English, Punctuation, Grammar, and Spelling) and Reading Comprehension skills lessons.

 

After the first lesson of either Maths No Problem or Talk for Writing, the children benefit from a ‘Brain Break’ using Mind Up strategies or go out to skip. Once the children have let off some steam, the second lesson of the day begins, whether that be Maths or English.

 

We use Maths No Problem, as our learning vehicle to prepare the children for their journey through to Secondary School. This begins with a question to explore and instigate the children’s learning which involves partner or group discussion and a lot of higher-order thinking skills. Maths journals are used to record and reflect on their learning journey. Due to the SATs in May, we also ensure that our learners have frequent opportunities to answer past exam questions to help with their exam technique.

 

During other sessions we explore the wider curriculum focussing on different artists, the impact of religion on our lives from the six main religions, conversational and written skills in French and we follow the Jigsaw scheme for PSHE. In PSHE we cover: Being Me in My World, Celebrating Difference, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me. This is to ensure that the children are well-centred individuals and responsible citizens. In computing children wil focus on knowledge across five areas: Digital Literacy and Online Safety, Computational Thinking and Computers and Hardware.

 

Afternoons consist of Geography, History, Music or PE. These subjects give the children a chance to explore a sustainable future, how we can learn from the past, the history of music, and the following sports in PE: Tag Rugby, Dance, Hockey, Handball, gymnastics, Rounders, and Athletics. Science is also taught for two lessons each week following the Developing Experts scheme, often in the afternoon, and is made up of exciting investigations and experiments on our scientific topics of Evolution and Inheritance, Electricity and Light, Animals including Humans and Living and Growing. In order to break up the afternoon, the children also run the "Daily Mile" for 5 minutes. This is a personal best competition where the children’s aim is to run 10 laps of our track on the playground to complete a mile a day – they love it!

 

 Alongside the extensive and thorough days, Year 6 also have amazing opportunities to experience these enrichment activities:

·         PGL – 5 day residential

·         Bikeability – a week-long course for road safety

·         Rugby and Football tournaments

·         Cross Country

 

So, Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace await. Is the future bright? Yes. Can we grab it with both hands?

#yeswecan