Pupil Curriculum Booklet and Guide to Year 6

2019/20

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Contents: Introduction 3

ADT 4

Drama 5

Field Trips 6

History 7

Maths 8

English 9

French 10

Latin 11/12

Geography 13

Science 14

Computing 15

Music 16

RE 17

PSHEE 18

Sport 18

Digital Literacy 19

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INTRODUCTIONYear 6: the year of exams. This means hard work and responsible behaviour. This is when you are almost in secondary school! You are also the role models for the new boys in the Senior House. You will be doing a Pre-Test and interviews for schools you want to go to, but don’t worry because you just have to relax and study well. There is nothing to worry about: just try your best.

During Year 6, you will be completing your Pre-Test which happens in November. This is two mornings of online testing to do with Maths and English. There are 4 parts:

- English comprehension and Grammar;- Verbal Reasoning;- Non-Verbal Reasoning;- Mental Arithmetic.

By the time you sit these tests, you will be familiar with how to answer questions and the style of the test which is different to what you will have been used to. These are important tests but there is no need to worry because you are helped so much in English and Maths that nothing came as a surprise when we sat them. It is important to realise that, if you work hard at the beginning of Year 6, that you will be ready!

Then of course, depending on where you have applied, you might be sitting 11+ exams and everyone will be interviewing in different schools. Paul, Adam, Catherine and Chris helped us last year to prepare for these interviews; sometimes in groups and sometimes by ourselves. This was really helpful, but don’t turn up unprepared. You need to be reading lots, especially current affairs and the news! We suggest you get ‘The Week Junior’ and some science magazines like ‘How it works’.

Mindfulness

It is also really important that you take some time for yourself this year. There is a lot to do and sometimes it can be overwhelming, but don’t worry, it is normal to feel like this. Mindfulness is a really great way to manage any stress you might have, the best experience we had with Mindfulness was with Headspace for kids. You can find out about this here: https://www.headspace.com/meditation/kids

Little but often: revise a little but often! Also….make time to do fun stuff and relax

Read a wide range of books and news sources e.g., BBC, BBC Newsround, The Times. You may be asked questions on what’s happening in the world.

Everyday just put 5min towards reflecting on how you have done.

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ADT:

In ADT, you will compete in the Saatchi competition where you will draw/paint a 2D piece which can be about anything in your imagination. After the competition, you will make your 3D sculptures for the Fourth Plinth competition. Both of the works that you did will be presented in a gallery in the hall (Junior House) for all to come and see. ADT will occur inside the carousel of Drama, ADT and Music. This means you will need to be productive in the lessons, especially if you need to finish your pieces for the competition. ADT is taught by Oliver, a change from last year as you had Claire. We enjoy ADT very much, as you can express your thinking into a form of Art for others to decipher and enjoy.

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DRAMA

‘To be or not to be’. Our amazing drama teacher Niyazi will be sending you to a dungeon which will be set in Middle Earth. After that, you will make your own play. I know that sounds hard, but you will have a lot of help; it will be an extremely joyful thing to do and will be a Greek Mythology play. Drama is connected with Music and ADT. In Drama you might get to pick the music of the play; you are also going to make your monologues. You will work on staging, blocking, projecting your voice and character development. You can also join Drama Club, which is even more exciting and takes your acting and creative skills further!

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FIELD TRIPS

In Year 6, you will go to many places that you could not go to in Year 5. This year, you might even go abroad! There will be a French trip and you will go to PGL. At PGL, you do zip lining, buggy building and many more. There will be another Geography trip to Kew Gardens, where we went round a track observing the different floors of the Rainforest and other species of wildlife. During the end of the summer term, you will go to Thorpe Lakes with Year 6 and Year 7.

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HISTORY

History in Year 6 is great. At first, you learn about King John and his older brother, Richard I. You also learn about the Magna Carta, which King John was forced to sign. During the year, you will also learn about the plague that killed half of England’s population and how it even arrived in England. In addition, Kyla will teach you about

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Richard II, who became king when he was about your age. You will also cover the Peasants’ Revolt. You learn about the Hundred Years War and the battles fought in it. At the end of the year, you will have a brief review of the Wars of The Roses.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/cbbc/shows/horrible-histories

Britain’s bloodiest Dynasty-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLhMDlPcDRBKS5uCN_8iZgR-boDrpZcwDl

The Birth of Magna Carta | History - David Starkey's Magna Carta Youtube

The Peasants' Revolt Of 1381 - Part One (Medieval History Documentary) | Timeline-Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kq9sbtFCR8

MATHS

In Year 6, though it was a busy year, as Maths was central to the exams, you will still learn topics you will need in the build-up to Common Entrance. However, you will not need to worry about preparing for Common Entrance, as this will start next year. In Year 5, your teachers would have already started preparing you for the exams so there should not be so much worry. The Maths lessons will split the class into three

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sets, as you are already familiar with (Richard Hull, Jeremy Chong and Trausti Sverrison) and each lesson will happen once a day. Your curriculum is split into Number, Algebra, Ratio and Proportion, Geometry and Measures, Probability and Statistics. These will be all very familiar and many of you will already have had lessons teaching you these and the different sections inside these. The only worry is that you need to try your very best in your application for exams. We personally enjoyed the Algebra section, as it is one of our favourite types of Mathematics. During the year, there a few competitions one can enter, these include: the Brighton 789, Kangaroo, Primary Maths Challenge, Junior Maths challenge, Mathematical Olympiad and Pangea. The first term is predominantly focused on exams. After the Christmas break, Maths will start to turn to a more topical focus and then the end of year exams. However, there is no need to stress; you will get a good mark if you listen in lessons. Homework will be every weekend and that will usually be on MyMaths or a paper to take home and finish. However, during the first term you will only get Maths and English homework so you can focus on exams. Including MyMaths, there are some other websites similar to MyMaths such as Mangahigh, Atom Learning, Mathletics and Mathsworkout.

‘If you’re struggling with Maths, just use the suggested websites including MyMaths, Kerboodle or Mangahigh)’

English

Similar to Maths, John, Chris and Catherine will teach English every day, except for one. English in many ways, will be very similar to Maths: three sets, and a focus on exams. During the year, Maths will be focused on long answer questions (6 marks,

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10 marks, P.E.E.L and creative writing). During the second term, the focus will still have some reference to P.E.E.L and creative writing, but will start to divert to persuasive writing, utopias and dystopias, narrative writing and more topics that are interesting. We found utopias and dystopias the most interesting as it links to The Hunger Games, 1984 and Blade Runner (Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep). The homework is usually comprehensions or writing exercises. A new website just like with maths that you will be able to use is Atom Learning.

FRENCH

Through your years before Year 6, you would already have learnt French for some time. In year 6, you will be building upon your knowledge and learning new grammar, mainly by learning some new vocabulary such as jobs, sport, music, in town, etc.

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Lessons will happen twice a week, with one of the lessons split in half: one for a normal lesson with Tina and a speaking lesson with Rachel. There will also be a French trip were you will learn more speaking. There is also an excellent website for French called ‘Vocab Express’, where homework will sometimes be set, but is possible to complete without permission. On the website, you can see your peers ‘points’ creating a nice competition feel. We found the website very helpful for vocabulary learning, as well as new words.

LATIN

Latin will be an entirely new subject for you. It consists of learning new grammar and vocabulary, some of which you might be already familiar with (languages derived from Latin). Latin will be different from French, as it has fewer rules to remember and

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spelling is quite self-explanatory, but this does not mean that you can relax in lessons: Latin is still a subject you will need for Common Entrance. Latin books will be a little different from what you are accustomed to: they are a printed version of books your teacher Rhian has written herself; thus, your teacher has a full grasp of your understanding in one book! During the course, there will be ‘vocab tests’ where you have to learn a list of vocab to prove that you have understood the section you are learning in class. The homework will usually be revising the vocab for the test, however, sometimes it might be a translation, or drawing, or a comprehension. Latin also has a website going with it called Quizlet. You might have heard of it before, if not, it is a website that helps you revise using flashcards, games and small tests. We personally enjoy Latin a lot, not just because it will help other language learning but also because it is something that I have not learnt about properly before.

Here is exactly what you will be learning about:

Latin Curriculum Overview

Autumn TermGrammar / Syntax Vocabulary Background Topics

sum (present tense) 1st conjugation verbs (present

tense) nominative & accusative

(sing/pl) prepositions + accusative case 1st conjugation verbs (imperfect

tense) 1st conjugation verbs (perfect

tense) sum (imperfect & perfect tense)

genitive case (1st declension nouns)

dative case (1st declension nouns)

Vocabulary lists

1, 2, 3 & 4

The Adventures of Achilles The Seeds of Love A Wedding & a Birth Stolen Love The Seeds of War

Spring TermGrammar / Syntax Vocabulary Background Topics

ablative case (1st declension nouns)

vocative case (1st declension nouns)

2nd conjugation verbs (all tenses) 2nd declension nouns (masculine) 2nd declension nouns (neuter) questions introduced by –ne

Vocabulary lists 5, 6, 7 & 8

The Adventures of Achilles First Blood Wounded Pride Trojan Triumph

Summer TermGrammar / Syntax Vocabulary Background Topics

3rd conjugation verbs (all tenses) Vocabulary lists The Adventures of Achilles

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4th conjugation verbs (all tenses) mixed conjugation verbs (all

tenses)

9 & 10 Patroclus The Rage of Achilles

GEOGRAPHY

In Geography, topics that you will cover will be: Population and Settlement, Weather and Climate and OS map symbols/ location knowledge. Each of these topics have a relationship to Science and to last year. Law, who you are already familiar with, will teach these. Geography has some very fun field trips that include some trips outside

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London sometimes even outside Britain, like Iceland last year, which I am sure many of my friends and you enjoyed (if you went).

YEAR GROUP

CHRISTMAS TERM EASTER TERM SUMMER TERM

Year 6 Population and Settlement

Weather and Climate

OS Map skills

SCIENCE

During year 6, Science will be a very interesting lesson, where experiments would be common. Unlike other lessons, Science will be taught together in three subjects: Physics, Biology and Chemistry. This in a way is better for learning Science, as your teachers can link all different subjects together to improve your understanding. Inside

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the lessons, you will be taught by Jinal and Alexis and learn about Mixtures and Separation, Acids and Alkalis, Living Things and Their Habitats, Electricity, Animals including Humans, Light, and Evolution and Inheritance. Many of these topics will be related to investigating as we said before. Science will relate to Maths a little, i.e. Graphs. Homework would usually be a small comprehension, reading, revising to prepare for exams, lessons or just learning. We love Science as it describes how the earth works; I also enjoyed the field trip to Kew Gardens.

Mydynamic learning.co.uk

Quizlet.com

COMPUTING

In computing, you will learn about ‘Python coding’, a little bit of Scratch and some HTML. Most of your learning will be Python based, on a website called Trinket. Paul Saliba who will help you with your understanding of coding, will teach your lessons. During the year, you will also learn E-Safety, Excel, making good presentations and

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accessing databases. Along with these, you will be competing in the Bebras competition. We really enjoy computing, for as technology grows, it will be very helpful to know at least the basics of how a computer works and how coding can shape our lives. Computing will also have a similar club running which is called ‘Hackers’, of which you would have heard before, where you would do coding as well.

Hour of code-code.org

Code club-codeclub.org

MUSIC

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In Music, you will learn about Great Composers, Instruments of the Orchestra, Music Genres, Music Theory, Singing and Vocal Development, Musical of the Term, Composition using Sibelius and Audacity, Aural Skills, Performing and Keyboard Skills. You will focus on a musical every term and make PowerPoints for an instrument, a musical, for example: High School Musical, and a famous composer. There will be some choir trips, so sign up for the choir quick if you like to sing.

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

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In R.E you will be taught by Paul Keyte and Adam O’ Connor. You will learn about Jean Vanier, who came up with the charity L’Arche. He helped disabled people who have traditionally not experienced the love they deserve. It also relates well to English as we do comprehension activities about parables which supports us in preparation for the pre-test and examinations later in the year. You learn about the crucifixion of Jesus, how the disciples lived and died as martyred Apostles, Philosophy and ethics. In the spring term, you learn about the death of Jesus from four different point of views and you will compare. In the summer term, you will learn about the Creation story. You might watch some videos about the disciples and look at paintings and statues by sculptures and artists.

SPORTS

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Sports in Year 6 is challenging. There are more competitions and the games are a lot harder. You will play schools like Highgate and Arnold House. You will still play the same sports, but you will be playing with the Year 5s as well. This will be your first time playing with them, so you can experience playing with people who playing style varies from your own group. The children in Year 5 will try their hardest to be in the A team, so make sure you make the most of your trials. It doesn’t matter if you are amazing at the sport, it is your attitude and your teamwork that counts. In the Games sessions don’t hog the ball because a Year 5 is on your team, so share it with them. When you are doing cricket, or any sport lesson, bring your own equipment.

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PSHEE

During PSHEE in Year 6, we explore a variety of societal and practical problems including Identity and relationships. We have always loved PSHEE, because it gives us the opportunity to talk about and discuss issues that we all face. During the year, we studied the following topics:

Term 1: Being Me in My World

Term 2: Celebrating Difference (including anti-bullying)

Term 3: Dreams and Goals

Term 4: Healthy Me

Term 5: Relationships

Term 6: Changing Me (including Sex Education)

DIGITAL LITERACY

Not just ICT! Our access to the digital world is really important in Year 6. We learn about how to be safe online and about how to select relevant sources from the internet. We also have to communicate even more effectively to make technology work for us in a range of subjects, such as science and when doing project work in History. Using different apps and websites can be confusing because there are so many, but selecting the most useful ones can also be fun. It is important for you to realise that most subjects teach us digital literacy in one way or another and hopefully you will be able to navigate the online world sensibly and successfully. You will definitely need it for your future careers!

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