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Last term was full of exciting achievements and wonderful memories as our Year 6 children settled in brilliantly. The children showed great curiosity and enthusiasm as they explored our new topics and it has been a joy to watch their confidence and engagement grow.

We are incredibly proud of all the children who represented the school in sporting events outside of school, including the Cross Country event at Upton Court and our Girls’ Football matches. It has also been wonderful to see so many children immersing themselves in the various clubs offered at school.

Our parent workshop was a huge success! The children loved sharing their learning with parents and enjoyed carrying out activities together. The term was also packed with creative learning opportunities. During Art Week and DT Week, the children developed valuable skills such as drawing one-point perspective scenes, designing innovative devices and even creating digital 3D models of their inventions.

The absolute highlight of the term was our eagerly anticipated trip to Oxford Castle and Prison. This immersive experience brought our History topic to life, giving children a fascinating insight into past punishments and life in historical times. It was a perfect example of their curiosity and eagerness to learn. We are incredibly proud of all the Year 6 children for their hard work, enthusiasm and achievements last term.

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Music: This term we will be continuing to compose rap music, evaluating and improving our compositions. Children will work towards playing in two parts with a partner and focusing on keyboard technique, features of 90's music and performing.

We will move onto learning about how composers like Bach, Beethoven and John Williams create suspense in music, then we will be composing our own suspense music.

Art: During Art Week, children will be developing photography skills and techniques to design a range of creative photographic outcomes. They will be encouraged to create expressively in their own personal style and in response to their choice of stimulus, showing the ability to develop artwork independently.

DT: During DT Week in Spring 2, children will research existing playground equipment and their different forms, before designing and developing a range of apparatus to meet a list of specified design criteria. They will need to consider effective and ineffective designs and use a range of materials to build a playground structure.

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In Spanish, Year 6 will be learning about how to ask for a table and ordering food in a restaurant, recap foods, meal names, giving opinions and giving reasons.

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This term in PE, Year 6 will be focusing on basketball and tactics within the sport. The key concepts they will be focusing on are keeping possession and officiating, defending and applying attacking and defending tactics in game situations. The focus of the learning is to look at what makes an effective team with the focus on collaboration and communication. Pupils will learn why motivating each other is important when working in a team.

In the following term, children will be focusing on hockey. They will consolidate keeping possession, develop officiating and creating, understanding and applying attacking and defending tactics in game situations.

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Teams is our main form of communication between class teachers and parents/guardians. Please check this daily for updates and key information. The parent newsletter is sent out, via email, on Mondays. Please read this every week for most recent updates on events.

Every Monday and Tuesday: All Year 6 children will have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays and should come to school dressed in their PE kit on these days.

Thursday 13th January 2026 (3:30) : Parent Curriculum Meeting in your child's classroom

Friday 13th February: Last day of Spring 1

Monday 16th February - Friday 20th February: Half term

Monday 23rd February 2026: Spring 2 starts

Tuesday 24th February, Wednesday 25th February and Thursday 26th February: School Book Fair in the Lower Primary Shared Area from 3:15pm to 3:45pm.

Tuesday 10th March 2026: Parent Book Looks

Monday 16th March - Thursday 19th March: Parent consultation evenings

Friday 27th March 2026 (12:30pm finish): Last day of term

Your child's learning is so important to us. This is why their attendance should be 100%. In addition to this, please remember that school lessons start at 8:30am. Please ensure your child arrives at this time.

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Throughout the first half of this term, we will be exploring the classification of animals and plants. Throughout the unit we will be learning about great scientists such as Carl Linnaeus; looking at the different characteristics of a variety of animals and plants and creating our own classification keys to identify different living organisms. We will be carrying out different activities during this unit, such as creating top trumps cards of different animal characteristics.

Following on from this, we will be exploring the circulatory system and the importance of the heart in the body. The children will learn about the functions of the heart, blood vessels and blood and understand how the circulatory system enables the body to function. The children will be participating in an exciting and carefully supervised science workshop run by the team at ‘Hands On Science’. The workshop has been chosen to accompany the work that we will be doing this half term in our Science lessons on the heart and circulatory system. The children will then go on to answer their composite task question: How does the heart work?

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RE: In RE, Year 6 will be learning about Islam and discussing the question: How is the Qur'an vital to Muslims today? They will explore how the Qur'an is treated with respect, the Night of Power, interpreting sayings from the Qur'an and what Muslims believe about the Qur'an. The children will relate this to something important to them and how they would care for and respect this item.

We will also learn about whether belief in Akhirah (life after death) helps Muslims to lead a good life.

PSHE: In PSHE, children will be looking towards their future and will discuss their goals and hopes for the year ahead. They will analyse what makes a well-thought-out goal and think about ways they can help others. They will also work to set up a stall in school to raise money for charity.

We will then move on to our topic of Healthy Me. In this unit, we will look at how to manage stress, discuss emotional and mental health and explore how to take personal responsibility for wellbeing, as well as learning about drugs, gangs and exploitation.

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This term, we are exploring the topic 'Climate Change'. Throughout the topic, we will be focusing on map skills, including compass points and how to locate places on a map. From this, we will then begin to look at how trade from around the world impacts our everyday lives. This will include investigating how far the products that we use every day have travelled to be here. We will also explore and research the causes and consequences of climate change. The unit ends by understanding the impact that climate change is having on the Earth and how we can change this. The children will carry out various activities such as:

a balloon greenhouse demo

deforestation domino chain

melting ice and habitat loss

extreme weather cards matching game

They will build on this knowledge to help them complete their composite task. For this, the children will be writing a persuasive letter to King Charles about why and how they can help reduce climate change.

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Use the following links to information and videos on the topics that we will be studying:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z4g3f82#zssjwnb

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/discover/geography/general-geography/what-is-climate-change/

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Climate change refers to the shift in the Earth's usual weather conditions over many years.

Our world has been getting hotter due to things humans are doing, like burning huge amounts of fossil fuels, cutting down too many trees and over-farming crops and animals.

Climate change is the result of these actions and it's already putting humans, wildlife and the planet at risk.

But it's not too late. By working together, everyone can help. Our planet needs us.

Video Transcript Video Transcript

Fatima: Hey people in the past. Got to make this video for school, thankin' our climate heroes.

Fatima's friend: You actually makin' a video Fatima? Who'd you pick?

Fatima: These guys. Jus' people like us but years ago, that started livin' smart. Coz yeah, back in your day, the world was getting sick. People before you were feeding the atmosphere bad stuff.

Feedin' it too many greenhouse gases, like carbon dioxide and methane.

These extra gases were trappin' too much heat, stopping it from goin' into space. And all that heat was just stayin' here. Makin' the world get hotter and hotter. Changin' the climate.

Climate change. Heard of it? An' coz the world was gettin' hotter, you were gettin' all sorts of weird weather, makin' it a dangerous place to live and makin' it harder to grow food.

Things were gettin' seriously bad. So you all decided to do something about it. Takes a big person to be the change. And that's what you guys did, worked together to make a difference.

People used to be usin' planes and cars that let out fumes which polluted the air and added greenhouse gases to the atmosphere. It was bad for us, an' bad for the planet. But you guys changed all that, not flyin' when you didn't need to, changing cars powered by petrol to electric cars, an' takin' less journeys. And usin' bicycles, buses an' trains instead.

Coz the way we make energy affects the climate. Makin' energy by burnin' fossil fuels, like petrol, oil and gas - puts loads of carbon dioxide into the environment.

But you guys started usin' the energy of the environment itself.

Stuff like wind, solar and hydro power don't release greenhouse gases.

Fatima's friend: Hey Fatima? You eatin' that Snackz bar?

Fatima: Hey. You ain't havin' my Snackz bar. Leave it.

That's another big thing that was changing the climate.

What you guys were eatin'. Some people around the world were cutting down trees to make space for growing food. But this was messin' up the land and there were less trees to absorb carbon dioxide. An' sometimes that food was fed to cows and sheep which were burpin' and fartin' methane all over the place - even MORE greenhouse gases.

So instead you guys did something about it and started eating smarter. Just like I do now.

Basically, you guys started living smart. You became your best selves to give the planet the best chance.

So thanks for being my climate heroes.

In the Earth's atmosphere there are small amounts of gases known as greenhouse gasesGreenhouse gases Gases such as water vapour, carbon dioxide, and methane, in Earth's atmosphere that trap heat. . These include carbon dioxide (CO₂), water vapour and methane.

Greenhouse gases form a layer around the Earth, which acts like a kind of fluffy blanket, trapping some of the heat radiating from the surface of the Earth and stopping it from escaping back out to space.

Due to a combination of human actions, our layer of greenhouse gases has been getting steadily thicker and, as a result, the Earth has been getting hotter. This is known as global warmingGlobal warming The increase in Earth's average temperature, mostly caused by the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. .

Over the past 150 years, the average temperature on our planet has increased by just over one degree Celsius.

That might not sound like much, but the amount of energy required to heat something as enormous as our planet by just one degree is equivalent to five atomic bombs going off in our atmosphere every second!

In fact, the Earth is now hotter than it has been in over 100,000 years.

Energy

Since the start of the Industrial Revolution about 150 years ago, humans have been burning huge amounts of fossil fuelsFossil fuels Natural fuels such as coal, oil, or gas formed from the remains of plants, animals and other organisms that died millions of years ago. , such as coal, oil and gas, to provide us with useful energy for heating and electricity.

Most of our cars, lorries, ships and planes rely fossil fuels too.

Food and farming

Humans have been chopping down billions of trees to provide wood and to clear land for farming, so there are now fewer trees to absorb carbon dioxide from our atmosphere.

To make matters worse, when the dead trees are burned, all the carbon that was stored inside is released back into the atmosphere as more carbon dioxide.

The use of modern intensive farming techniques is causing the soil to be repeatedly churned up, releasing the carbon stored in the soil back into the atmosphere as even more carbon dioxide.

To produce meat and dairy, humans have been farming more and more livestock (cows and sheep), which release methane in their burps and farts.

Did you know?

Around 15 billion trees are being cut down every year. This releases about the same amount of carbon dioxide as driving 600 million cars.

Some areas of the Amazon rainforest in Brazil are being cleared at a rate of three football fields every minute.

There are around 1.5 billion cows on our planet. An average cow produces enough methane in a day to fill 15 party balloons!

Watch this clip from Blue Peter as Mwaksy and Maddie find out about carbon dioxide and the pioneering work of climate scientist, Eunice Foote.

Extreme weather

All of the extra heat energy trapped in our atmosphere, as the result of greenhouse gases from human activity, is causing major changes to our climate and producing more extreme weather.

Areas of the world that were already hot are getting even hotter and drier, increasing the chances of heatwaves, droughts and forest fires.

The extra heat is also causing more water to evaporate from our oceans to form clouds, so areas that were already wet are getting even wetter.

This increases the chances of other types of extreme weather, such as storms, hurricanes and floods.

Melting ice and rising seas

In the oceans, the extra heat is not only making it harder for sea creatures to survive, but it is also causing ocean water to expand, leading to rises in sea levels.

Warmer waters, along with warmer air, also leads to melting ice.

Climate change affects us all

Extreme weather and rising seas are already affecting many parts of the world, destroying the homes of humans and animals.

Changes in climate are also impacting our ability to grow food crops and to access clean drinking water, and increasing the spread of diseases.

Scientists are concerned that unless we make radical changes now, things could get a lot worse.

In the face of such a big problem, it's understandable that you might feel worried or like you can't do anything about it.

But we can all take responsibility and work together to fix this!

Major changes need to come from governments and businesses, but scientists say that if we all make small changes to our lives too, together we can have an impact.

There are lots of ways you can get involved. Be creative and follow what interests you or where you think you can make a difference.

Speak to people about how you feel. Listen and share ideas with them. Your actions will inspire others.

You are never too small to make a difference.
- Greta Thunberg

A pledge is a promise we make to do something. Writing down our pledges helps us to remember them.

Using what you've learnt in this lesson, make your own pledge to protect the world against climate change.

You could use words, drawings, collage or anything which feels special to you.

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What is climate change? - KS2 - The Regenerators

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Learn about the causes and impacts of climate change with this online lesson for children aged 7 to 11 from BBC Bitesize - The Regenerators.

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Throughout Spring term, we will be reading Goodnight Mister Tom by Michelle Magorian. To help support children's understanding of the text, we will be exploring many significant events such as World War Two, The Blitz and The Holocaust. We will be looking at extracts from other books that explore evacuees such as Carrie's War. This links in well to the experience of the main character in Goodnight Mister Tom.

We understand that this is a sensitive topic but also an important one that has made history.

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1. Read at home daily. Take a look at the helpful tips above for how you can best support your child when they are reading with you.

2. Ask your child about their current class reader and any background knowledge they have learned.

3. Discuss books that you are reading with your child. Make predictions and ask lots of questions.

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During Spring 1 we will be converting units of lengths and mass, interpreting line graphs and pie charts, measuring angles and looking at angles in different shapes.

Throughout the term, we will continue practising a variety of SAT-style arithmetic and reasoning questions covering all previously taught topics. There will be a particular focus on percentages, fractions, long division/multiplication and BIDMAS in arithmetic. We will also work on extracting key information from word problems and determining which operations to apply.

In addition, we will complete arithmetic practice papers throughout the term, giving children the opportunity to reinforce all types of questions and develop effective time management skills in preparation for the SATs.

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1. Ensure your child completes their weekly Complete Maths homework independently. This will give us information about what children need support with, so we can give them the specific help they need. Homework will be set each Friday and is due by the following Friday.

2. Ensure your child is practising their times tables as this forms a vital foundations for many mathematical concepts. Your child will have a login to the Times Tables Rockstars (TTRS) website - this is a fantastic tool to aid children with their times table fluency. To login to the TTRS website, click here.

3. Continue asking your child to tell you the time at different points in the day on an analogue clock. Push them further by converting analogue to digital time.

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During this term, the children will be studying The Nightmare Man, a story based on the theme of fear.

In Spring 1, we will begin by focusing on a non-fiction information text about nyctophobia (the fear of the dark). The children will research a phobia of their choice and use this research to write their own information text.

In Spring 2, our learning will develop further as we explore how to create suspense effectively. The children will build upon suspense toolkits from previous years, focusing on grammatical features such as varied sentence structures and the use of ellipsis, hyphens and colons. Using the phobia they researched in Spring 1, the children will then write their own suspense stories.

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1. Help them learn the Nightmare Man model text. All children are expected to be able to retell the story from memory.

2. Ask your children to retell the model text regularly.

3. Quiz your child on the features of the toolkit. As a challenge, see if your child can find any of these features in any of the books they're reading.

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1. Encourage your child to identify all their great qualities and all the things they can do well.

2. Encourage your child to practise mindfulness on a regular basis. This could include slow, gentle breathing exercises, listening to calming music or sounds etc.

3. Watch real life religious experiences here for extra knowledge.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/ks2-religious-studies/z6pbqp3

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Free classroom resources for teaching religious studies lessons to 7 to 11-year-olds.

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1. Use the following link help understand what a classification key is and how to use it:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z3nbcwx

2. Use the following link to read about the circulatory system and build knowledge on our upcoming topic:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9w9r2p

3. Ask your child questions about what they have learned in Science each week.

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Animal groups

Animals can be divided into groups or 'classified' by looking at the similarities and differences between them.

Animals are divided into two main groups. Animals that have a backbone are called vertebrates. Animals that don't have a backbone are called invertebrates.

Vertebrates and invertebrates are divided into smaller groups. Vertebrates, for example, are divided into fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals.

There are many different groups of invertebrates too. They include invertebrates which have soft bodies such as jellyfish, worms and molluscs (like slugs and squids). There are also groups of invertebrates with hard bodies, such as insects, crustaceans and spiders.

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Creatures can be grouped together by similar characteristics. Discover more in this KS2 Bitesize Science guide.

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1. Encourage listening, lyric writing, beat-making or discussing how music creates mood and tells a story at home.

2. Support designing and building small models using everyday materials, talking about safety and materials.

3. Help children practise taking photos, exploring angles, light and talking about what makes an image effective.

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Practice the following Spanish words at home:

1. una mesa ( a table)

2. quisiera ( I would like)

3. por favor ( please)