Welcome back, to our P6 pupils and their parents. I hope you all had a wonderful summer holiday and are settling into the new stage. It was lovely to see everyone looking so smartly dressed in their school uniforms last Thursday and great to see all the gym bags ready for PE back on the pegs.

Health and Wellbeing

Our PE lessons will be on a Monday and Tuesday and we’ll also be continuing with our Fun and Fit 15 activity outdoors. As part of our Health and Wellbeing this term we will be participating in a wide range of fitness activities as well as developing our gymnastics skills. We will be discussing the importance of being ‘Active’ and looking at different ways we can achieve this. We have been involved in discussing the rights from the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and have selected five of these for our new class charter. It is important for the pupils to understand the rights to which they are entitled and ways in which we can respect these rights.

Language

This term the class are reading the novel, ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by Michael Morpurgo. We are developing skills in making predictions about the text, finding new and unfamiliar words, identifying and summarising the main ideas and demonstrating understanding through comprehension activities. Groups will then go on to read different novels where they will engage in paired and group reading. Open ended questions will be used to stimulate meaningful discussion and develop children’s confidence in talking about ideas, themes, events and author’s craft. During our listening and talking sessions the children will be encouraged to participate in discussion about ways in which they can respect each other’s rights. In writing this term we will focus on personal writing as we write a short autobiography. We will  develop skills in functional writing as we research and present information about our class topic on biodiversity.

Science

Our Interdisciplinary Learning Activities this term centre around our Biodiversity topic. We will study energy transfer, food webs, habitats, adaptation and lifecycles. We will later look at the topic ‘Separation’. Investigations focus on separating mixtures using the methods of sieving, decanting, filtering and evaporating. We will develop our skills in working cooperatively, using equipment carefully, observing and recording accurately and understanding a fair test.

Maths

We will be looking at calculations involving the addition and subtraction of 3 and 4 digit numbers and applying knowledge of place value when setting out calculations. We will discuss mental strategies for the mental addition and subtraction of 2 digit numbers. We will also be looking at fractions and where these are used in everyday life. We will be working on measure and carrying out some practical activities involving measuring in centimetres and metres, selecting appropriate measuring tools and converting between related units of measurement. We will look at the properties of triangles and describe properties of 2D shapes using appropriate terminology. We will investigate why particular shapes are used in the environment.

Technologies

Pupils will have access to our I-pads to compliment our learning across different curricular areas. In the ICT suite we will access web-sites to help us gather information about our science topics. We will continue to develop our word -processing skills as we type our autobiographies for presentation.

Outdoor Visit

As you already know we are going to visit Culzean on Friday 1st September to help enhance our knowledge of ‘biodiversity’. We will be taking part in a study of the woodland, looking for insects, animals and plants as well as having the opportunity to go ‘Pond Dipping’.

Homework

Pupils will be encouraged to keep a note of their homework activities in their new pupil planner which should be brought to school each day. They will be provided with regular weekly tasks in spelling, reading, maths and topic related activities.