Year 6 Curriculum Page

Welcome to the Year Six Curriculum Page, where you can discover more about the creative curriculum we cover throughout the year!

Religious Education – To Know You More Clearly

At Holy Cross, we follow the RED Religious Education Directory: To Know You More Clearly, which supports children in deepening their knowledge and love of God through scripture, tradition and lived faith. The curriculum is structured around six branches, one per half-term:

1. Creation and Covenant

2. Prophecy and Promise

3. Galilee to Jerusalem

4. Desert to Garden

5. To the Ends of the Earth

6. Dialogue and Encounter

These branches help pupils explore salvation history, the life and mission of Jesus, the story of the Church, and the call to live out their faith today. Each year group builds upon this foundation, encouraging children to reflect, question and grow spiritually. The curriculum is closely linked to the liturgical year and supports our prayer life, worship and Catholic mission throughout the school.

English

The children will explore a range of different genres and texts. Through these different texts, the pupils will exercise a variety of skills including: word reading, comprehension, grammar, spelling, drama/performance, text mapping, planning, editing, re-drafting and character building. Each half-term, we will focus on specific genres to ensure that a wide breadth is covered throughout the year, exposing the pupils to different text styles, purposes and audiences, text features, grammatical structures and genre-appropriate vocabulary.

In addition to exploring new genres, the children will also have the opportunity to revisit and further develop their skills in genres they have previously studied. This will enable the children to apply, extend and improve both their skills in reading, writing and spoken language. 

Throughout year 6, the children will read a variety of whole-class, quality texts which have been carefully selected as they include a range of age-appropriate themes, rich vocabulary and diverse characters for the children to explore and that link, in some cases, to the wider curriculum, including history, geography, science and PSHE. The pupils will have the opportunity to focus on different genres as well as the application of grammar, spelling and punctuation in given contexts. 

A simple guide to the grammar terminology used in Year 6 can be found at the top of this page.

The selected quality texts this year include:

Autumn 1 - Oranges in No Man's Land (Elizabeth Laird)

Autumn 2- Diver's Daughter: A Tudor Story (Patrice Lawrence)

Spring 1 - Boy in the Tower (Polly Ho-Yen)

Spring 2 - Boy in the Tower (Polly Ho-Yen)

Summer 1 - Tom's Midnight Garden (Philippa Pearce)

Summer 2 – The Final Year (Matt Goodfellow)

Spelling

As the curriculum focusses heavily on spelling, we are encouraging the children to practise their spelling rules at every opportunity. The pupils are actively encouraged to read whenever possible, to expose themselves to new and more adventurous examples of vocabulary that they will then be able to apply to their own writing. The children have also been given copies of the statutory spelling list for both Years 3 and 4, and years 5 and 6. They should revise the year 3 - 4 list and will continue to learn spellings from the Year 5 - 6 list throughout this year (A copy of this list can be found in the centre of your child's reading record). The children will participate in weekly spelling tests based on words from the lists they have been provided with. Any opportunity to practise the list at home with your child would be extremely beneficial to their progress. Each week, pupils should access Spelling Shed to support them with their target spellings.

The year 5 and 6 statutory word list can be found below. Word mat copies of both lists can be found at the top of this page.

Make spelling practice more creative with your child by writing the spelling out in dotted formation, in different colours and patterns. This interactive approach helps children retain and retrieve the information more readily.  The children have access to Spelling Shed, an excellent programme that enables them to practise spelling in a range of different ways. 

Reading

As a class and whole school, we love, celebrate and encourage reading.  To nurture this love for reading, the school have kindly allowed the children to choose a library book of their choice, which they can take home, and they have time to read this selected book for pleasure during allocated times in the school day. 

The children also have a daily reading lesson lasting thirty minutes, in which they participate in active reading including choral and echo reading; developing their prosody and performance skills, and exploring new and ambitious vocabulary. 

In year 6, it is also crucial that we prepare the pupils for their end of KS2 assessment in reading and pupils, throughout the year, will have plenty of opportunities to practise explicit comprehension skills in addition to their reading lessons. During these focussed sessions, we will be focussing on texts/extracts that facilitate discussions; asking questions surrounding retrieval, inference, vocabulary and the use of grammar for example. 

Mathematics

This year, the children will revisit a number of the mathematical domains, whilst being introduced to some new and exciting areas of maths. The different domains will be spread across the school year, ensuring that the children have the opportunity to learn, practice, and apply their mathematical skills to support and challenge their ability level.

The  curriculum focusses upon three key skills: fluency, problem-solving and reasoning. Once children have secured their understanding of a skill (fluency), they will then address this skill within the context of a written problem and, when asked, they will work to prove their answer through reasoning. This is where the children apply their mathematical knowledge to make predictions, test and prove theories, and to reason/explain mathematical patterns and rules.

The mathematical domains that will be covered over the school year include:

Number & place value

Addition & subtraction

Multiplication & division

Fractions, decimals & percentages

Measure

Geometry

Statistics

I have included a useful website address below. Copy and paste the address to access a more in-depth break down of the maths curriculum for each specific year group:

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-curriculum-in-england-mathematics-programmes-of-study/national-curriculum-in-england-mathematics-programmes-of-study#year-6-programme-of-study

The children will participate in weekly arithmetic and reasoning tests. This will familiarise them with test papers and will provide ample opportunity for them to practise their arithmetic and reasoning skills throughout the year. The results of these practice papers will be recorded and their progress monitored. This is to help identify any specific areas that require further development for individuals or, indeed, the whole class. Tests will be free to take home (once data has been recorded) and the children can use them to revise from. Please do look at these with your child.  

http://uk.mathletics.com/ 

https://ttrockstars.com/login 

Science

Throughout the year, the children will be exploring and applying their scientific skills to a range of different scientific topics including:

- Living things and their habitats – Classification

- Light

- Animals including humans – circulatory system 

- Evolution and Inheritance

- Light

- Electricity

Within each topic, the children will have the opportunity to explore, predict, reason, investigate, record data and evaluate their findings through scientific enquiries and experiments. Each class will have 'Science Ambassadors' who will be in charge of assisting with the set-up of practical activities; taking class photographs during experiments; promoting science across the school and organising science events and competitions. 

History

Each half-term, year 6 will be focussing on a different topic in history, following the Opening Worlds scheme:

Autumn 1 – The Maya

Autumn 2 – Mediaeval African Kingdoms: Ethiopia and Benin 

Spring 1 – Cities in Time: This Manchester Man 

Spring 2 – to be confirmed*

Summer 1 - Era of the Second World War 

Summer 2 - to be confirmed* 

Geography

Each half-term, year 6 will be focussing on a different topic in geography, following the Opening Worlds scheme:

Autumn 1 – Energy and Climate Change 

Autumn 2 – Ethiopia

Spring 1 - Changing Birmingham 

Spring 2 – Jamaica 

Summer 1 – Enquiry Focus 

Summer 2 – Enquiry Focus (continued)

*During the summer term, year 6 will have the opportunity to select and plan their own geography enquiry. 

Physical EducationPE will take place on Tuesday this term (Autumn) and year 6 will attend swimming lessons. Throughout the year, PE lessons will be taught by Mrs Griffiths and/or outside specialised coaches to develop the children’s understanding and significance of physical exercise and nutrition. PE also seeks to strengthen children’s communication, collaborative and competitive skills through dance, gymnastics and competitive sports. It is important that children come to school in their PE kits on the designated day that term to ensure they are ready and prepared to participate fully, safely and comfortably in the physical activity that week. During the different seasons, PE kits may alter slightly to adapt to the weather conditions. Any items for PE kits can be purchased through the office. 

Art and Design

The pupils will be enhancing their artistic techniques through the experimentation of painting, drawing and sculpting with a range of materials. We will be learning about significant artists, architects and designers who have influenced the world we live in, and use our interpretive skills to create our own pieces of art. Each child will have their own sketchbook to record their findings and evidence their artistic creations. Their beautiful artwork will be displayed around the classroom and on the school website to showcase their observations, imagination and artistic flair! 

Our Art topics are:

Autumn 1: Printing and textiles ( Batik); introducing  perspective -. Artist: Patrick Hughes

Spring 1: Drawing / sketching ; 2 point perspective and illusions Artist: Escher; Islamic art

Summer 1: Painting and collage; Artist: Patrick Caulfield /Pablo Picasso

Design and Technology

The DT curriculum consists of four main areas: Design, Make, Evaluate and Technical Knowledge. Over the course of the half-term, we will cover these four areas as the children will participate in creative and practical projects where design and make and object for a specific purpose. Using their evaluative and technical knowledge, the pupils will assess its strengths and decide upon the areas that require further improvement.

Our DT topics are:

Autumn 2:  Food and nutrition Can street food save us?

Spring 2:  Structures.  Design, make and evaluate a treehouse

Summer 2:  Electronics. More complex switches Design, make and evaluate an alarm

Music

Year 6 will be taught Music following our scheme of work called ‘Charanga’. During the year, the children will learn a range of new songs from different parts of the world. The children will have the opportunity to accompany the songs using different instruments and playing a variety of rhythms. 

PSHE/RSHE

Our PSHE lessons cover 3 main areas:

-Relationships

-Living in the Wider World

-Health and Well-being

For our RSE lessons, we will be following the programme Journey In Love.

For our RSHE lessons, we will be following the programme Life to the Full.

BRITISH VALUES

Throughout the school year the children will be taught about 'British Values', which they will practise in all subjects across the curriculum. It is an important aspect of their learning, and will focus upon democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect, and tolerance of those with different faiths and beliefs.

The children will take part in the election of numerous school and class representatives, exposing them to democratic practice; the children who wish to be elected will perform demonstrations and write speeches which the class will listen to. The class will then vote for the person/s they wish to elect.