WELCOME TO YEAR 6 SYCAMORE CLASS
On this page, you can read about the staff working with your children, find out what topics are being covered and find useful information for supporting your child at home. These pages will be updated regularly. You will also find photographs of your children at work!
September 2024
Welcome to your new class- we hope you had a lovely break and we are looking forward to a great first term with you all.
Term 1
Year 6 will start with an RE enquiry, thinking about whether it is better to express religion through arts and architecture or charity and generosity. We will be learning about the beliefs of Christians and Muslims through this big question and will stage a debate.
Later on in the term will will start our brand new geographical enquiry. We are going to be learning about climate change and sustainability both in the UK and across the world. There will be opportunities to consider environmental issues and some ethical questions. There are lots of resources here if you want to start your learning.
Term 3
Our historical enquiry for this term begins our WW2 learning. We will be finding out how the war started and why evacuation was so important. We will use evacuees own stories to learn about their experiences and explore what rationing was. We will then use this importation to help us plan wartime meals using rationed foods and then create these as part of our DT learning.
In RE, we will be think about "What does religion say to us when life gets hard?" During this enquiry, we do focus on beliefs surrounding death. We appreciate that this can be a sensitive subject and we offer the children any support they need.
Term 3
This term, we will embark on an exciting electricity unit designed to deepen scientific thinking and practical skills. Building on prior knowledge from Year 4 the children will be learn to:
- Associate the brightness of a lamp or the volume of a buzzer with the number and voltage of cells in the circuit.
- Compare and explain variations in how components function—such as bulbs, buzzers, and switches—based on circuit changes.
- Use recognised symbols when drawing simple circuit diagrams.
- Plan controlled experiments, changing one variable at a time (like voltage or wire length), and observe effects.
- Take repeated measurements of brightness or buzzer volume with increasing accuracy.
- Record their data using diagrams, tables, and graphs.
- Use findings to predict, refine experiments, draw conclusions, and present their results with scientific reasoning.
In term 1, we will be learning about classification. We have talked about the different characteristics that plants and animals have, how Carl Linnaeus created a classification system for them and how they could be grouped by these characteristics. We have begun to design our own creatures that we are classifying.
Later on this term, we will be learning about micro-organisms and how they can help us in our everyday lives.
Brush up on you knowledge and complete a quiz here!Quiz
In year 6, we are mainly following the White Rose order of topics, which allows the children to build on their previous learning in small steps.
Term 1
We are currently learning about Place Value. This includes using larger numbers up to 10,000,000; multiplying and dividing numbers by 10, 100 and 1,000; rounding; and using negative numbers.
Once we have completed this unit, we will be moving on to Four Operations which includes many of the skills the children will use in later life: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. We will be learning how to do this with increasingly large numbers, using formal written methods (including long division) and beginning to think about the early stages of algebra.
Term 3
In term 3 we will be using our fractions knowledge to learn about ratio. We will then move on to algebra. This is an area that the children believe is going to be too hard- convincing them that they can do it is the first challenge! However, they will be experts in algebra before they know it! Finally, we will use our place value and fractions knowledge to link to decimals.
Brush up on your "Order of operations" knowledge here:
Homework
Homework will be based on skills we have been learning that week in school. If you feel your child needs more practice, please go to TT Rockstars and enter their login (found in their homework diary).
Term 3
This term we are going to be learning about World War 2 in history. As this is such a huge topic, we are going to start this term by looking at Life on the Home Front in English and write a non-chronological report.
For the second part of the term we will be doing some narrative writing from our class text, Goodnight Mr Tom. The children will write the next part of the story from Will's perspective.
Term 1
For the first part of term one, Sycamore Class are going to be learning about how to write journalistically. We will be learning about how to use correct language, the difference between direct and reported speech, how to use exaggerated language and how to interview members of the public. We will then write our own newspaper report using all that we have learned.
For the second part of the term, we will be learning about the story of Macbeth, doing some drama around it, writing scripts and creating characters.
gps
In spellings we are using the Read Write Inc spelling scheme. The children will bring home some words in their homework diaries which I will also publish on Seesaw. Please practise these with your child and add suffixes/prefixes as needed.
In GPS we will be learning about different sentence clauses and active and passive voice. We will also be learning about bullet points and colons/semi-colons. Our homework will be mostly based on these topics.
Term 1
Frank is being bullied - for what, she's not sure. Being smart? Being different, perhaps. One day, after the bullies throw her bag in the middle of a huge patch of stinging nettles, Nick Underbridge comes to her aid - a strange boy that everyone makes fun of at school for his hugeness and odd, unidentifiable smell.
As Frank and Nick become friends, Frank discovers something strange and wonderful in Nick's basement - and an explanation for what holds him apart from the others at school.
A sometimes sad and sometimes wry tale of bullying and fitting in, The Song From Somewhere Else is also a magical tale about how - sometimes - people might feel alien to us, but that families are universal, whoever you are.
Levi Pinfold's stunning, intricate and moody illustrations add an extra layer of atmosphere to this heartfelt and beautifully strange story.
Winner of the Kate Greenaway Amnesty CLIP Honour in 2018.
Term 2
Pig Heart Boy by Malorie Blackman
All Cameron wants is a 'normal' life - friends, swimming, school, family.
But most normal thirteen-year-olds don't desperately need a new heart because theirs doesn't work properly.
One doctor offers hope. Cameron could - if he and his parents agree - take part in a radical and controversial procedure involving the transplant of a pig's heart into his human body. It's risky. And it's never been done before . . .
While Cameron comes to terms with the idea, he finds the world around him is much, much less accepting. But surely everyone will understand that it's better to have a pig's heart that works than a human heart that doesn't - won't they . . .?
Term 3
Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian is the unforgettable story of young Willie Beech, evacuated to the country as Britain stands on the brink of the Second World War. A sad, deprived child, he slowly begins to flourish under the unlikely care of grumpy old Tom Oakley. But then his new-found happiness is shattered by a summons from his mother to return to London. As the weeks pass by Tom begins to worry when William doesn't answer his letters, so he goes to London to find him, and there makes a terrible discovery.
Winner of the Guardian Children's Fiction Award.