Toucans 2023 - 2024

Welcome to Toucans' Class Page

Our class teacher is Mrs Evans and our teaching assistant is Mrs Hulse. 

Miss Beattie will be teaching the Class on Mondays, Mr Beswick will support on some afternoons and Mr Ault will teach PE.

We are going to have an incredible final year together at Lostock Gralam Primary School.

Look what we learn about in Year 6:

Phase 1 2023 (February half term - May half term)

Writing

This term we will be focusing on two inspirational texts to support our writing. First, we will be focusing on writing a journalistic report based on the books ‘Jemmy Button by Jennifer Uman and Valerio Vidali and 'Island'  by Jason Chin. During this unit of work we will: Use passive verbs, use a variety of verb forms including the progressive and the present perfect forms, use a wide range of devices to build cohesion, use organisational and presentational devices to structure text and use colons to mark boundaries between independent clauses.

These texts will make links with our Science unit Evolution and will go alongside our enrichment text Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species.

Our second inspirational text will be 'Manfish' by Jennifer Berne which we will use to plan and write a multi-modal biography of Jacques Cousteau and our own imaginary adventure story. During this unit we will: Use relative clauses beginning with who, which, where, when, whose, that, use a wider range of devices to build cohesion: conjunctions, synonyms, adverbials, punctuation, use a colon to introduce a list and a semi colon within lists and use hyphens to avoid ambiguity.

Reading

Our Pathways to Read texts go hand in hand with the writing texts to support us to build our understanding of the theme, develop our vocabulary and develop our inference and deduction skills in order to answer a range of reading response questions.  

We begin with 'Exploring the Amazon' by The Literacy Company and 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell

Maths

During Phase 2 will be working to consolidate our maths learning on fractions, decimals, measures, ratio, proportion, algebra and geometry.

During our arithmetic lessons we will rehearse a range of mental strategies for all four operations, fractions, decimals, percentages, perimeter, area and algebra to answer accurately and efficiently.

History and Geography

During Phase 2 we will immerse ourselves in our whole school theme ‘Sing for the Songbirds’. We will be developing our understanding of the environment and the human impact on it. We will learn about the importance of the Sustainable Global Goals and the work of famous Courageous Advocates. We will discover what we can do to 'Make One Change' in order to make a positive difference to our school grounds and local area. 

We will learn about the geographical features and countries of South America and some of the endangered birds who live there. 

RE

During RE lessons we will discover the beliefs and values of Humanists and compare them to the religious beliefs we already know about. We will go on to explore the question: How are the resurrection and ascension of Jesus good news for Christians? through the Christian topic of Resurrection.

Science 

We will explore the topic of Evolution and Electricity.

Homework

Maths

Children in Toucans Class will be set a weekly maths and english homework to further support their understanding of the concepts we have covered in school. This homework will be set on a Friday and should be completed, marked and returned to school the following Friday. Your child will record the page number in the homework diary each week. 

If for any reason your child is unable to complete their homework at home, please encourage them to speak to Myself or Mrs Hulseas we would be happy to set aside some time to go through this with them. 

Times Tables

Times Tables must continue to be a  focus for us this year as fluency in the multiplication facts supports so many areas of understanding within the maths curriculum. I will set a weekly focus times table to practice alongside their maths homework.

These are a few popular games to play to support fluency in times tables:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button 

https://www.timestables.com/multiplication-games/

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/times-tables/coconut-multiples

Reading and Spellings

Over the year I will encourage your child to choose from a wide range of both fiction and non-fiction books from school to enjoy reading at home. When your child reads at home, either independently or with you, they should record this in their homework diary and have it signed by an adult. Children should spend 20 minutes reading each evening. 

Spellings will be stuck into homework diaries on a Friday and tested the following Friday. Please spend 5 minutes daily practicing your child’s spellings with them. 

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to get in contact. 

Mrs Evans