Primary 6 – Term 2

Hi everyone. I hope you all had a lovely October break. Primary 6 have worked extremely hard last term with lots of excellent learning taking place. They have settled well into their new classroom and routines. I am very proud of how they have adapted to the changes and embraced the responsibilities that they have inherited this year. Here is an update of what is coming in the term ahead.

UNCRC

This is a new part to our updates and is the United Nations Convention for the Rights of the Child. We have looked at this convention as a class and chosen articles from it that we wanted to focus on as a class. We decided on the following: Article 19 – ‘We have the right to be safe’, Article 28 – ‘We have the right to learn’, Article 29 – ‘we have the right to work and play in a clean environment’ and Article 31 – ‘we have the right to play.’ The class understands that with these rights come responsibilities. For example, if they have the article ‘we have the right to be safe’, the children know that they have a responsibility to try their very best to keep themselves safe also and avoid unsafe situations. We will be learning about this through our assemblies and community times.

IDL

Our interdisciplinary topic of Tornadoes, Hurricanes and Wildfires will continue into term 2 as we only briefly started it last term. During this topic, children will learn about the responses that are available by the emergency services, charities and international agencies during natural disasters. The class will also develop an awareness of the processes that actually causes natural disasters. There will be opportunities for learning through social sciences, literacy, expressive arts, health and well-being and technologies during this topic. The children will also be encouraged to complete an independent research task on a famous natural disaster that interests them.

Literacy

The class are loving reading our class novel, ‘Wonder’ by R.J Palacio. They have been completing tasks relating to the text and I am really impressed with their understanding of the text as well as their ability to analyse it. We will continue to complete tasks relating to this novel right up until the end of this term. In terms of bug club reading, this will continue to be completed at home for homework and in class as personal reading time.

Our writing genre for the term ahead is report writing and this will link into our IDL topic of tornadoes, hurricanes and wildfires.  The class will be working on writing their piece, editing it and re-drafting it, focussing on layout in order to engage their reader. They will also look at headlines, sub titles and access all the success criteria that makes for an excellent report. This is when the children will access ICT in order to type their re draft piece of writing. The class will be encouraged to improve their writing through feedback received. In terms of the tools for writing, the children will continue to look at more sophisticated punctuation such as apostrophes, colons and semi-colons. I hope you will enjoy reading some of their spooky stories at our pupil progress meetings! They were absolutely wonderful!!

In terms of our listening and talking element of literacy, the children continue to contribute to discussions in relation to the class novel. They will also be encouraged to share their learning through a short independent research task which links into our topic.

As always, the class will complete handwriting every week within class and we would ask that this is promoted at home in terms of homework also.

Numeracy

The use of number talks to encourage different learners to use and understand different strategies will continue this year. The children show an excellent understanding of the strategies taught so far and are always eager to share their understanding with their peers. Alongside Mrs Terras, the children will also be looking at 2D and 3D shape as well as measure.

Our core learning through number processes will concentrate predominantly on addition and subtraction this term. We are still also going to be learning about money with a particular focus on budget and money management.

Health and Wellbeing

Our P.E. days are a Wednesday and a Friday. We are currently learning 8 different Scottish dance routines as we prepare to showcase this alongside other schools for East Ayrshire’s day of dance I November. I can honestly say, I am extremely impressed with the children’s attitudes and maturity when learning these dances. Our other topic within P.E will be football and the skills that are required for this. Alongside our football P.E. lessons, we will be taking a look at the ‘show racism the red card’ commitment made by the SPL.

Primary 6 already participate in mindfulness every day, this is something that the entire class benefit from and have been doing this since the beginning of Primary 4.

Our PATHS programme will help the children to develop positive relationships within the class and school.  Delving into the emotions that the children feel will help them to understand why they are feeling this way as well as giving them the tools to cope with these emotions. The children are also participating in the PATHS buddy scheme that helps support the infants in ‘how to play’ during lunchtimes.

Our core health and wellbeing teaching will focus on substance misuse and what affects these substances have on our bodies. Linked with our P.E. once again, we will look at how we accept people who are different from us individually, whether that is in colour, religion, culture, or even interests and link this to our R.E, and schools values.

R.E.

In learning about our faith, the month of November focuses predominantly on All Souls and All Saints days. There will be specific focusses on different saints as we move towards Advent and prepare for Christmas.

The class will also begin their Pope Francis Faith Award journey. This will span the remainder of their Mount Carmel journey with some of the award being completed this year and then some in Primary 7. The Pope Francis Faith Award is an award of the Bishops’ conference of Scotland, designed to help children show “signs of love” in their daily lives.

Expressive arts

This term, the class will be focussing on art through our IDL. We will look at blending colours and tones using different materials such as oil pastels and pencils. Mrs Terras will continue to teach music throughout this term. The children have enjoyed learning how to play musical instruments and this will be a focus moving forward into term 2.

ICT

The children have an excellent knowledge of how to use the computers and glow. They will continue to develop their understanding of how to research certain topics and how to transfer the information from what they have learned to a document that can be saved and retrieved at a later date. The children will also continue to practise emailing myself and their classmates (whilst using their emails responsibly and appropriately). This is the same as last term as we still need practise at completing these tasks. This will gradually become more difficult when we use attachments, hyperlinks and copy and pasting URL addresses for quick access to sites. The children will be using their knowledge of ICT to research natural disasters and will also use ICT to help present their findings to the class.

Modern Languages

This term will focus on learning how to describe objects using their colour and size in French. As the term develops, we will begin to learn about the French names for different animals.

I would like to take this opportunity to thank you, as always, for your ongoing support. This term will be a busy one and I look forward to seeing everyone again at our Pupil Progress meetings. If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate in contacting me.

Take care,

Mrs McCreadie