Curriculum Newsletter English and

Curriculum Newsletter
April-June
Summer Term 2014
Year 6
Subject and
Teacher
English and
Humanities
Overview
Ms Lynsey Collis
Mr Adrian
Jordan
Description
YEAR 6 ENGLISH/HUMANITIES
Ongoing Skills built into each unit of work; Grammar skills, Reading
Comprehension and Spelling.
WEATHER AND CLIMATE
Geography; The students will be finding out how weather and climate around
the world impacts on people’s lives, as well as the effects of climate change
and what we can do to safeguard our planet. They will use their own school
made weather station to record daily weather information.
Mrs Sarah
Phoenix – Mrs
Cindy Aoki
English Fiction; Narrative Poetry, Personification Poetry
Students will explore a variety of modern, historical and cultural poetry,
including the classic narrative poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes.
Ms Shireen Abou- They will explore and identify the use of onomatopoeic words, similes,
Abbas
metaphors and powerful images in poetry. They will be asked to use these
poetic techniques in their own writing.
English Fiction; Novel Study; Clockwork by Phillip Pullman
Through the short novel ‘Clockwork’ by Phillip Pullman, students will
develop their comprehension skills and understanding of character, plot and
narrative devices used within stories. They will be asked to write short
descriptive passages uses metaphor, adjectives and similes all of which have
been studied through the previous units of this terms work.
EAP students will be working towards achieving a level of English that allows
them to be assessed by UK National Curriculum Levels. With Y6, we will
focus on re-enforcing topics covered in English and Humanities, as well as
reading comprehension skills. We will allow students to acquire language
skills through listening, speaking, reading and writing activities. Most exciting
Ms Shireen Abou- of all, our students will have the opportunity to create their own movie trailer.
English For
Academic
Purposes
Abbas
Mathematics is based on the UK National Curriculum and classes are taught
in ability sets to best meet the needs of each individual student. Students will
be able to move between sets after further assessment.
Mathematics
We aim to facilitate your child’s transition between Pre Prep and Senior
Overview
Mr Darshak
Pandya
Mr Balal Farooq
Mr Peter
Rizzardini
School Mathematics. Students will be given the opportunity to refine their
skills and solve Mathematical problems. Extension work is available during
the lessons for students with a prior knowledge of the topics that we will be
covering. A variety of interactive resources will be used during lessons and
children will be expected to reconcile their learning at home.
Year 6 Mathematics – Summer 2014
Negative Numbers
Percentages
Capacity
Probability and Pie Charts
Perimeter
Time
Reflection, Rotation and Translation
Division
Proportion
Prime Numbers and Factors
Science
Overview
Mr Russell Van
Niekerk
Mr Martin Towse
This term we will start by studying Seeing Things. This is a Biology topic and
will give the students the opportunity to investigate how we see, what makes
shadows and how light travels. Students will finish this topic by producing a
shadow puppet show that will bring together what they have learnt. Microbes
will be our next topic. Students will learn about useful and harmful microbes
and have the opportunity to make yogurt and bread.
Our final topic will be called The Athlete. Students we will study the science
of sport and investigate how our bodies can achieve sporting excellence shown
by some athletes. At the end of the topic students will explain how sportsmen
and women, and the professionals they work with, use science to help them
improve their performance. Students will plan and carry out practical and
investigative activities, both individually and in groups.
There will be a glossary of words supplied for each topic.
Art
Overview
In Year 6 we will be continuing our work on Friedrich Hundertwasser looking
at his use of line and simplified shapes and the ability to stylise a building into
patterns and organic forms. We will be doing a clay piece in the style of
Hundertwasser and then paint this using the similar bright colours of
Hundertwasser.
Mrs Sarah
Grimshaw
The key skills underpinning learning in Art will be to develop creativity and in
so doing, confidence and competence while working with materials. Students
will engage with various artworks and discover their visual, tactile and sensory
qualities. By analysing and reflecting on other's work and on their own the
students will aim to gain an appreciation of various styles used in Art.
Drama
Overview
The major focus for this term in Drama is to continue developing confidence
when working with others and speaking/performing to the class. This will be
done mainly through practical activities. The continuation of developing basic
Drama Skills and Techniques will also be important.
Mrs Sarah
Grimshaw
Music
Overview
Ms Jenny Finch
ICT
Overview
This term we will be studying the life and works of William Shakespeare, and
in particular, the play ‘Macbeth.’ We will look at character and motivation,
themes and ideas, language and the play in Performance. The work will
culminate in a Shakespeare Performance afternoon in April.
Students will continue to work on Programme Music. In this project, they will
engage in performing, listening and composing tasks. They will continue to
develop their knowledge of notation and the history of music and will begin to
develop their compositional ideas in a more structured manner. Their
compositions will reflect a theme that they have chosen and will tell a story
through the use of a variety of musical devices. Students will also engage in a
song-writing task later in the term, where they will continue to deepen their
knowledge of chords, as well as developing an awareness of the relationship
between lyrics and melody.
This term we aim to build on the skills learnt last term to produce a number of
presentations. The first presentation will involve writing a hypothesis, and
Mr Peter
Rizzardini
then testing this hypothesis by surveying the class. The students will then
present their results to the class using PowerPoint incorporating tables made in
Word and graphs made in Excel. The focus will be on explaining and
interpreting their results and presenting the information they have learnt to the
class.
Topics and Assessment Tasks will be available on the VLE2.
French
Modern
Foreign
Languages
Overview
French
Mrs Isabelle
Henderson,
Spanish
Mrs Elise
Rickford
Design and
Technology
Overview
Students will revise the vocabulary of description of self, adjectives to
describe one’s personality and adjectival agreements. They will be introduced
to the singular forms of the first category of verbs (–er ending) and learn about
the places where people live. In addition, students will revise nationalities and
countries and the verb être. Finally, they will finish by learning how to
describe and talk about their house and their bedroom.
Spanish
The students will continue with work that will give them a platform for basic
interaction and will help them to cope with a languages classroom. They will
learn classroom instructions, classroom objects and questioning words and
learn how to express a need for something. They will learn basic introductions
and the numbers up to 31. They will learn the days of the week, how to give
dates and learn about important dates in Spanish speaking countries. They will
learn the seasons and activities that would be appropriate to the different
seasons. They will learn the alphabet and colours and begin to learn about
word order and the grammatical detail related to the gender of nouns and
adjective agreement.
In Year 6 we will introduce the design process and then continuing with our
study of materials, this time working with fabrics to design and create aprons
that can be used for later practical work in Design and Technology.
Mr Paul Hogan
PE and
Games
Overview
Athletics
Students will have the opportunity to develop their technique and strategies for
running, jumping and throwing. The students will not only explore the basic
body movements required for running faster, jumping higher and throwing
Mr David Sargent further. They will also be introduced to the correct techniques for competing
in the recognized Olympics track and field events, such as javelin, shot putt,
Mr Adam Tuck
triple, discus, long jump, high jump, sprinting, long distance and relays. The
climax of this unit will be Sports Day on April 22nd when all the student in the
Miss Siobhan
Crowley
Prep Phase will be involved in athletic type events trying to accumulate points
for their House.
Rugby
Students will get the opportunity to gain familiarity with the rugby ball and
particularly the way that it is passed from one player to the next. The students
will be taught running with the ball, including dodging, side-stepping and how
and when to transfer the ball. The rules of the game, in particular the concept
of having to pass backwards, will be explored. The students will also
investigate the different types of kick that are important in rugby, including
place kicking, drop kicking and grubbers. Small sided and modified games of
‘tag’ rugby will be used to investigate passing and game play.
Net Games
Students will focus primarily on badminton, but will also explore other net
games such as tennis and table tennis. Through these games students will gain
an understanding of basic tactics and strategy, including court position,
maneuvering your opponent, feinting and serving. Within each game studied
the students will develop their technique beginning with how to grip the
racket. They will then explore how to serve correctly and effectively before
moving on to forehands, backhands and various styles of attacking shots from
drop shots to smashes. In individual matches and pairs the students will
develop their skills and understanding of the rules by engaging in modified
games and the full version of the recognized game itself.
Striking & Fielding
In this unit students will look at the generic skills inherent in all striking and
fielding games, such as catching, fielding, throwing and hitting. They will
explore how to catch using proper technique. They will also explore the
different types of throw available to them and identify when each type of
throw is most effective. Students will have the opportunity to investigate
hitting technique and how to ensure maximum reward consistently looking at
hitting for distance as well as hitting for accuracy. Students will learn the
rules and tactics to striking and fielding games primarily, but not exclusively
through softball.
Netball
Students will get the opportunity to gain familiarity with the rules of netball,
which are quite unique, particularly the way that it is passed from one player
to the next and the restrictions on movement around the court. The students
will be taught how and when to transfer the ball looking specifically at the
footwork rules and how to pivot. The rules of the game, in particular the
concept of which players can be in which zones, will be explored. Small sided
and modified games of netball will be used to investigate passing, movement
and game play.
Mandarin
Overview
Miss Rebecca Li
Mrs Maggie Li
Mrs Eva Zhao
Miss Stacy Gao
Pathway 1:(Non Chinese native speaker) – by Rebecca Li
During the Summer Term, Year 6 students are going to learn about Furniture,
Neighbourhood and Pets and Animals. They are going to learn texts
concerning these topics. Through the texts, they are going to learn key words
related to these topics and how to use them to communicate with classmates.
They are going to learn grammar and sentence structures and try to use them
to compose short pieces of writing.
Pathway 2:(Non Chinese native speaker) – by Stacy Gao
During the Summer term, Year 6 pathway 2 students are going to learn about
Travelling, Neighbourhood and School Events. They are going to learn texts
that concern these topics. They are expected to learn key words and phrases
related to these topics and how to use them in daily communication.
Moreover, they are going to compose a short piece of writing related to each
topic.
Pathway 3:(Near Native group)-by Maggie Li
This term, students will continue to learn the texts that are selected from
Zhong Wen. They will be able to read short articles fluently and understand
the meaning of the texts. Moreover, they are required to write and recognise
the new characters, phrases, and use the sentence patterns to make their own
sentence. Also, they will be able to write compositions.
Pathway 4:(Native group) – by Eva Zhao
The pupils will learn the local Mandarin textbook. They will learn different
types of articles and are supposed to know the differences between fiction and
nonfiction and the differences between explanation, instruction, poetry and so
on. Also, they need to read extra books to increase their views on Chinese
cultures. They also are required to compose different types of articles.
Homework
Year 6 students are expected to do up to a maximum of 1 hour of homework
each weeknight. Homework is usually set twice each week by Mathematics
and English and once each week by other subjects including Science and
Mandarin. Other subjects such as Humanities, Art, EAP, ICT, Music and MFL
may also set homework as needed.
All homework should be recorded by the student in their Student Planner. If a
student does not have any homework they should continue to read (in English)
and complete activities and tasks on Manga High and Myimaths.