19.9.25

 Year 6,

What a week! This week you have ordered and compared numbers, found them on a number line and worked with negative numbers. In English, you have built detailed sentences and then applied our work on verbs and adjectives to write emotive paragraphs about a picture from our book 'The Arrival'. In science, you classified animals on their similarities and differences and in Spanish you applied your learning on colours and clothing to build expanded noun phrases in Spanish. This afternoon, you also got to complete some preparation work for our trip to Sky Studios which is in just over a week. You worked in groups to create ideas for a short advert. Remember that even though only 3 groups will have their ideas used, you will all be participating in the filming and editing of these. We also had elections for House Captains - well done to everyone who took part as it was lovely to see the time and effort you put in, and congratulations to our winners. 

 Next week, in maths you will begin the next block of learning. You will be revisiting addition and subtraction, common factors and multiples. In English, we will continue to build writing up using inspiration from 'The Arrival'. In science, we will learn about a specific classification system used by taxonomists and try to use it. 

Home Learning Pages:

Maths - pg2-3

Grammar - Pg8-9

Last week I also shared your Half Term project with you. I have copied it below as a reminder.

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

- Sky forms and Arbor for the trip must be completed for you to be able to participate. If your adult only signs the top section of the form, you will be able to participate but must not have a role that means you are on camera.

- PGL - you need to be registered on Arbor to be included in our numbers. We will be providing these to PGL shortly so check with your adult that this is done. 

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 😊