Warwick Road Primary School

Year Six - Classes Cygnus and Eridanus

TEACHER WELCOME

INFORMATION FOR PARENTS

• The Year 6 school day starts at 8.45am and finishes at 3.15pm.  Your child must be lined up and ready to enter school at 8:40am.  Children should be registered and ready to learn by no later than 8:50am.  Please drop off your child on the grass area at the front of school.  At the end of the day, parents need to queue up the pavement on Howard Street and wait for their child to be sent out. Y6 children who walk home alone will be sent out first.    
• P.E for Cygnus takes place on Monday and PE for Eridanus takes place on a Thursday - please ensure that your child has a labelled P.E kit on this day. It is important that your child does not come to school wearing jewellery or earrings on this day as they will not be able to participate.
• In Year 6, we expect a certain degree of independence from our children. They are tasked to bring in their books at swap from the class bookshelf at their own leisure.  Every class in school has a library slot.  Eridanus have their library slot on a Wednesday and Cygnus have their library slot on a Thursday.  Please ensure that children have brought their books in on these days. Reading is embedded into our English sessions, and we have one whole class and one group guided reading session per week.
• With regard to homework, it is created and designed to target the needs of the children; this often takes the form of past papers.
• At the end of the last academic year, children were provided with the list of Year 5/6 spelling list.  Spelling will be taught discretely every week and children will be assessed on Tuesday afternoon.
• Year 6 teachers will provide parents with more information about the morning booster sessions - these are due to commence in the first autumn term. 

PARENT INFORMATION

'SATs' stands for Statutory Assessment Tasks and Tests (including some Teacher Assessment) and they're usually taken at the end of KS1 and KS2. As you may be aware, children in Year 6 will be sitting their SATs in May during this academic year. National tests are an important milestone in school life. They give useful information to your child’s teachers and to the government. But it’s important to get them in proportion. They are just one of the ways the school works out how well your child is doing. They shouldn’t be stressful -  in fact many children enjoy the change in routine, as long as they know they have your support and understanding. Look at the video below for more information on the SATs.

OUR CLASS RULES AND REWARDS

Our class rules were created with the children at the beginning of the year. The children have agreed to follow these rules unconditionally; these include:

• Listen when the teachers and others are talking;
• Put your hand up to answer or ask a question;
• Keep our classroom tidy and respect other the property of others;
• Concentrate and finish our work on time;
• Most importantly – have fun!

In addition to these, we have a new class target each week which is designed to help us to be the best year group that we can be.

In Year 6, we also utilise the ‘Going for Gold’ scheme which provides a consistent and fair approach to behaviour management; clear systems to reward good behaviour and sanctions for inappropriate behaviour; a system that allows children to take ownership of their behaviour and their rewards.

Going for Gold:

UPCOMING AND EXCITING EVENTS

We are incredibly passionate about maximising opportunities to take the children on trips and visits to enhance their learning. We believe that the broader range of experiences that the children have and places that the children visit, the more they increase in confidence and self-belief. Every visit that the children enjoy is utilised as an opportunity to further develop social skills, cultural understanding and language development, alongside the key academic aims of the visit. Class Teachers are always looking for new and exciting opportunities to enrich the curriculum.

We will begin the academic year with a visit to London.  The children will have the opportunity to visit the Houses of Parliament and the National History Museum! 

Other exciting events include a graffiti workshop lead by a graffiti artist, a science project and a geography fieldwork enquiry.

After the SATs, we aim to take the pupils on a weekend residential! More information to follow.

In the final week, we have a ‘Graduation Day’, where we will celebrate the achievements our lovely Year 6 children. Our special graduation assembly will highlight the contribution each child has made and each pupil will be individually presented with a certificate from the headteacher. This will no doubt be an immensely enjoyable and emotional occasion for our parents, children and staff.

HOW PARENTS CAN HELP AT HOME

As timing can be quite pressurised during SATs, it would be greatly appreciated if parents could read to and with their children at home. Increased fluency would help to ensure that children meet their full potential. It would be great if parents could ask probing questions in everyday contexts. For example, ask ‘Why do you think he/she did that?’ in relation to a film or television series; this would enhance their inference skills.

As problem-solving is an essential part of mathematics, we would appreciate if parents could help to bring maths into a real-life context at home. This could be as simple as measuring ingredients for a recipe, calculating a bill at a restaurant or even asking children to work out the percentage difference in a price reduction.

In the autumn term, we will hold a meeting between parents and the Year 6 staff. During this meeting, parents will be provided with exam materials to work through with their children. We will also provide tips on how to enhance their learning at home.