Spring Term

We hope that you had a lovely Christmas break. May we take this opportunity to thank you for the cards and presents that were gifted to us. It was very kind of you all and we are very grateful. As always, we enjoy working with our Year 6 pupils and feel sure that they will continue to progress in 2023. Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.

Reading

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. At Latchmere, we prioritise reading and have carefully chosen a variety of texts which your child will study this term. To develop fluency, we use a number of strategies such as choral reading (whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. These are based on comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference, summarising, making links, prediction and vocabulary.

In Year 6, we will be studying War Boy by Michael Foreman.

There is also a fantastic range of fiction and non-fiction texts link to our World War II topic.  Recommendations are in the ‘Year 6 Recommended Reading list’ which can be found on the school website. Reading books and reading records should be brought to school every day. As discussed in lessons, your child should maintain a regular reading habit at home and complete at least two in-depth entries per week.

Maths

Our curriculum is based on the White Rose Maths programme. This research-based initiative ensures that the skills and concepts children taught are fully embedded before moving on. The children are taught strategies such as bar modelling and have plenty of opportunities to use manipulatives such as counters and dienes all the way through the school.

This term, we will be focusing on ratio, algebra, decimals, fractions and percentages, area and perimeter and statistics.

Children should also use the Times Tables Rockstars programme to increase their quick recall of multiplication and related division facts.

Curriculum Highlights

In the spring term, our main topic is World War II. We will explore reasons for the outbreak of the war from different perspectives and consider the reasons for, implications and repercussions of conflict in general. As well as learning how the normal environment of children’s lives changed during the war, especially due to evacuation, we will also be looking at how World War II affected people locally and globally. In science, our topic is electricity: we will conduct experiments by varying components within different circuits and learn about renewable energy sources.

For more information about the spring term learning, please refer to the ‘Overviews and Programmes of Study’ on the website.

Key dates

6H Class Assembly  Friday 13^th January – 6H parents are invited to join us for a 2:50pm performance in the Drama Hall. Please arrive, in good time, at the main school reception.

World War Two exhibition, Imperial War Museum, London – 6B & 6L Tues 31/1/2023 and 6C & 6H  Wed 1/2/2023     

We are very excited to add this trip as it will allow pupils to build their knowledge on the WW2 topic which they will cover in the spring term. In addition, each child will take part in a documentary-making workshop where they will get the opportunity to work in a team and produce their own film. We will require parent supervision with this trip. If you would like to help, please email to the school office or speak to the office staff.

Junior Citizenship Workshop at Chessington World of Adventure – Friday 3^rd February AM

Children will have the opportunity to meet a number of representatives from different organisations and agencies which will help them prepare for their move to secondary school and increasing independence. Organisations represented include the police, fire brigade and health workers. Students in the past have found this an extremely valuable and enjoyable trip.

We will require parent supervision with this trip. If you would like to help, please email to the school office or speak to the office staff.

Rainbow Theatre World War Two workshop – Wednesday 8^th February 2023

This fast-pace workshop allows children to understand what life was like during World War Two for ordinary citizens. Encouraged to dress up for the day as an evacuee, the children take part in re-enactments with experienced actors.

Lastly, we wish all of you and your children well during this final year at Latchmere.

Thank you in advance for all of your support.

Kind regards,

The Year 6 Team