A huge welcome to my new Year 6 class! This week I have spent time getting to know my lovely new class and hopefully the class now know me a lot better too! Although we have spent time getting to know the Year 6 routine and expectations, we have also hit the ground running, and made a good start to our learning.

I know Year 6 is a big year, not just for the children, but also for you parents too! Your (not so little) baby is getting ready to make that transition to high school next year and this is their last year of Primary school! With this is mind, I want to make sure that this is a successful and positive year for all. As a Year 6 team, we will work collaboratively with parents and children to ensure all of the class achieve their full potential and we will support you in any way we can. Yes, Year 6 is a challenging year, but it is also such an exciting year full of opportunity and responsibility. I look forward to sharing this journey together.

In RE this week our focus was on Mary, the mother of God. As we missed Our Lady’s special feast day in August, Mrs Allen asked each class to reflect on Mary and create a class piece of art and prayer for our hall display. In class, everyone drew an image of Mary and together we wrote a prayer. We chose Eleena’s image as the one for our class piece. We also planned our shared worships this week, ready to start leading them in our little groups from next week.

Here is what we have been up to this week…

In Maths we started back with our ‘Fluent in 5’ from day one and I must say, I have been really impressed with the arithmetic skills in this class so far! In our Power Maths, our focus has been on place value up to 10,000,000. The class have done incredibly well with place value so far and we have looked at some challenging problems as a class too.

In English our first piece of writing was a letter to me (Mrs Murphy!). Everyone in the class wrote a letter introducing themselves and outlining their dreams and aspirations for Year 6 as well as any concerns or questions they had. This was a formal letter, structured in clear paragraphs. This is a great opportunity for me to see each and every one of their writing skills, and what their targets are.

In History our new topic is ‘What can the census tell us about local areas?’ First of all, we needed to explore what the word census actually meant! Once we understood that it was a survey that gathered lots of information on households, we then looked at an example of a census from 1851….we soon realised it was Queen Victoria’s. After exploring this particular census we then did our own class census, gathering certain information on each other.

🌟 AWARD WINNERS! 🌟

The Golden Award went to Oscar for being a kind and considerate learning partner.

The Writing Award went to Gabriel his beautiful presentation and quality editing skills.

The Maths award went to Kourtney for being able to recognise where she had made a mathematical error.

📌Notices📌:

PE days- Wednesdays this half term.
Water bottles-these need to be filled and brought in each day and taken home to be cleaned at the end of each day. Each child in the class was provided with a school water bottle-please can you ensure these are the bottles that are brought in daily and not their own water bottle from home.
Spellings- I gave the class a spelling test this week and they will come home with their spelling lists to practice next week. New spellings will be given on a Friday and they will be tested on them the following Thirsday.
Reading books - we have not yet completed a STAR Reading test, so the children do not have their new ZPDs yet. As soon as they are complete, the class will come home with a reading booking within their ZPD range. Until then, they have all picked a book from the library as their home reader for now. Please ensure they get their reading records signed every time they read at home.
Homework- I have not set any homework this week. From next week, homework will be set on a Friday and due for the following Wednesday (I check work has been complete on a Thursday morning). In terms of expectations, I will set Maths & English units on IXL , ask for at least one Bedrock lesson to be completed and spellings and times tables will be set too. Times table tests will be on a Friday morning and spelling tests will be on a Thursday morning. I do ask that the class continue with their home reading, and get their records signed.
Head Boy & Girl - All those who have shown interest in being Head Boy or Girl this year will need to prepare a speech to deliver to teachers & pupils. I have asked that those interested write their speech at home and bring them in next week. I am happy to proof read any speeches and/or give tips/prompts!
Other roles & responsibilities- In Year 6 every child in the class will have a responsibility. All of the class will be prefects and we also have roles such as librarians, dining hall monitors, digital leaders, assembly set-up team…. I think it is really important for all the children to take on more responsibility as they enter Year 6; this is also good preparation for high school!
Contact information- if you need to contact me for any reason, please email using year6@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk.