12.9.25

Year 6,

How quickly has this week gone?! It must be down to all of the hard work this week… You have covered place value up to ten millions in maths and covered verbs, synonyms, and begun reading 'The Arrival' in English. In history you considered crimes and punishments and how they have changed between the past and present day ready for our new topic. 

This week you also had your first trip - Crucial Crew. It was great to see you so engaged and showing how great you are. You learnt CPR from the ambulance service, the importance of fire safety from the fire brigade, cyber security and the dangers of carrying a knife from the police, the risks of vapes from the Herts nurse service and healthy vs unhealthy friendships and relationships from St Albans and Hertsmere Women's Refuge. I hope you'd all agree it was a fun and informative way to cover lots of difficult topics. 

On to next week, in English we will be exploring the text of 'The Arrival' further before writing some description based on the text.

In maths, we will be looking at ordering and comparing numbers and working with rounding of numbers.

In science, you will be working with the topic of living things and their habitats by looking at classification.

In history, we will be focussing on Crime and Punishment specifically within the Roman period.

In art we will begin our first topic of Craft and Design: Photo Opportunity.

You have been set your English and maths home learning for this week, which many of you have already finished. Remember it must be in on Monday.

Home Learning Pages:

Maths - pg1

Grammar - Pg2-3

This week I have also shared your Half Term project with you. I have copied it below should you wish to begin this weekend.

500 Words Challenge

I would like all Year 6 children to write a piece that could enter the BBC's 500 Words Challenge. All you need to do is write a story you would love to read in 500 Words or less.  Spelling, punctuation and grammar are not marked - it's all about creativity! It is up to you as to whether or not you submit your story officially but you are still expected to bring a copy of your finished piece into class on 20^th October to share. We will be participating in a Live Lesson in September which can support this if you are finding it challenging, but feel free to begin writing as soon as inspiration hits you.

For those who enter the competition, 50 finalists will be invited to a star-studded grand final in February 2026, which will be supported by Her Majesty The Queen. If that's not enough, each winner will also see their story be read aloud by a superstar celebrity on TV, which will be shown as part of a special 500 Words programme with The One Show. The official panel of celebrity judges, Sir Lenny Henry, Malorie Blackman, Francesca Simon, Charlie Higson and Frank Cottrell-Boyce will crown the winners. 

There are also lots of prizes to be won - each winner will take home a bundle of books and the gold winners also win 500 books for their school library. In addition to the book prizes, each of our winning stories will receive a framed illustrated cover produced exclusively by top children's illustrators.

Children can only submit one story each. There are very few rules on 500 Words but a few points to remember:

All the stories must:

• Be 500 words or less (title is not included in the number)
• Be written by an individual and not a group
• Be a child’s own original idea
• Be prose, not rap or poem

Stories must not:

• Give any personal details of the child, including their name
• Recount an historical event (but they can use a real person or historical character as a source of inspiration)
• Be created, written or developed by AI

In every 500 Words competition, all stories are judged on the following criteria:

• Characterisation
• Plot
• Originality
• Language
• Enjoyment

Reminders

You should be:

 -        Reading 5 times a week and completing a reading journal activity once a week

 -        Practising spellings each week between the pre-test and test; writing spellings at least 5 times and writing 10 of them into sentences (ensure that these are high quality and make sense) in your Home Learning Journal (set on Monday and completed for Friday)

 -        Completing the piece of English and piece of Maths set each week (set on Wednesday and completed for Monday)

 -        Practising maths on Sumdog

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Cresswell 😊