Dear Parents and Carers,
I hope that you have all had a very good break and welcome back to a new term at Skyswood. Both Mrs. Morrish and I would like to take the opportunity to thank you for the kind and generous cards and gifts from both you and the children – we hope that everyone enjoyed their Christmas! The letter below will outline what we are covering this term. If you have any questions, please feel free to come and talk to me at any point!
In English this term, we will be attempting many small and different writing units and tasks. This will allow the children a good opportunity to write across a number of different genres and also help them to produce some excellent finished pieces for their year 6 writing portfolios. Spellings will be focused around a particular spelling rule each week. Spellings related to this rule will be given out on Monday and will be tested on Friday. We will also be doing times tables and mental maths against the clock every Friday and your children will choose a table or a mental maths topic to learn each week. Guided Reading will be done on a rotational group basis, meaning that each group will have more time to read and study longer books. Reading at home continues to make a big difference and I have been very impressed with how the children have responded when asked to read for prolonged periods at home, either as part of their guided reading group or when undertaking their hour long free reading.
During Maths we have a few small topics left to cover before the SATs in May. We will be working on graphs, circles and 3D shapes before re-visiting some of the more tricky topics like fractions, algebra and ratio. Every Friday we will have an investigation/puzzle solving lesson and every Monday morning the focus will be on calculations.
The children will study two topics this term in Science – ‘The Human Body’ and ‘Electricity’. We pause our History this term and focus instead on Geography, where we start a long unit based on mapping and mountains! This unit will culminate in our trip to Snowdonia and in the children using their skills around contours and map design to create models of mountains. In Art the children are studying sculpture and creating their own ‘Animals in Action’ pieces based on mouldable metal. We will have an RE week in the afternoons of the week before half term and the focus will be religion in the community. Music lessons will be taught by Mrs. Salway where the children will be building up to Royal Albert Hall concert in March. French will be taught by Mrs. Cheshire with a focus on clothes and shops and Computing will see the children create their own Stop Motion films!
The children will have two PE lessons in school every week. These will usually take place on a Tuesday and Friday afternoon. One of these lessons will usually take place outside and children are encouraged to bring in trousers, jumpers, under layers and gloves. Our first outdoor unit will be football and indoors we will cover indoor athletics. Children who own football or rugby boots may bring these in for outdoor lessons on the field when the weather begins to improve.
As the children are now in the Upper Juniors, it is important that they become responsible for remembering to bring their homework in on the correct day. Homework this term will, more often than not, be related to SATs style questions. It will be set on Friday and due on Tuesday. This gives the children one less day to complete their homework, but will allow us a chance to go through the questions and provide feedback on a Tuesday afternoon.
Our reading slots are Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday between 9am and 9.40am. If anyone would like to help with listening to children read then please let me know!
Outside of the classroom it is a busy term, with Basketball, Indoor Athletics, Hockey and Tag Rugby tournaments as well as a full fixture of football and netball matches. Other trips this term include singing at The Royal Albert Hall on Sunday 15th March and the class ‘Crucial Crew’ trip on Thursday 26th March.
With Snowdonia fast approaching, another note for your diary is the evening of Tuesday 24th March when there is an information evening ahead of the trip.
Yours sincerely,
Mr David Oswin and Mrs Teresa Morrish