Welcome to Puffins!

Our Year 6 children are taught by Miss Patchett on Mondays and Tuesdays and by Mr Cross on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Fridays. We also have Mrs South, Mrs Baker and Mrs Grocock working in the class.

You can easily get in touch with the class teachers by emailing puffins@starcross-primary.devon.sch.uk .

In the first part of the Summer term, the Puffins are working hard preparing for the SATs tests but there is much more to the term than that!

The children will be preparing for secondary school, as well as celebrating their time at Starcross by taking part in the Leavers’ Trip, the Year 6 show, and making their pages for the Yearbook.

Below is some information about the subject areas we will cover this term.

Literacy

The children will start the term by studying how authors describe settings and characters, and how they create atmosphere in their writing. The children will also learn about persuasive writing in holiday brochures, letter writing and writing diary entries. As a class, we will continue to read books together including The Creakers by Tom Fletcher (one of Mr Cross’ favourites!).

We also continue to consolidate the children’s knowledge of spelling and grammar through regular work in literacy lessons.

Please keep supporting your child with regular reading at home.

Maths

A lot of our maths work this term will be revision of areas the children have already learned about, as we prepare them for the SATs and the start of secondary school. The maths learning will be practical and use physical resources as much as possible. As the weather improves, we will take our learning outdoors as much as possible.

Please support your child’s maths learning by keeping up with regular Doodle Maths and TTRS work at home.

Science

This term in science, we will learn about light and the children will carry out practical experiments to prove that light travels in straight lines. We will also learn about evolution and inheritance, and the children will explore how scientists classify living things. The class will get to create their own weird and wonderful creatures of their own!

If your child has any books at home to do with our science topics, we would love to see them.

Computing

Our work in computing will cover keeping safe online, using different programmes to create their own work, and some coding work using Scratch and other websites. The children will also learn how to judge the reliability of information they find online which is an essential skill in our modern world.

PE

Our PE topics this term will be athletics, ultimate frisbee, tennis and swimming. We will let you know the details for the swimming lessons nearer the time. Our PE days will be Mondays and Thursdays so please send your child to school in full PE kit on those days. We will do more PE outside in this term, so please make sure your child’s PE kit is suitable for the weather.

RE

In RE this term will learn about Islam and what it means to be a Muslim. The children will have the chance to compare different religions and study different beliefs. We will then move on to comparing the beliefs of Humanists and Christians.

PSHE / Jigsaw

Our Jigsaw units this term are Relationships and Changing Me. More information about some of the Jigsaw lessons will be sent out to parents later in the term.

Design & Technology

Our DT focus this term is textiles and through an exploration of insulation, we shall be designing and making some of our own cosy shoes/slippers.

Music

In Music pupils will be exploring music composition for film. Composers use moving images (and often story) to inspire, shape, and structure their ideas. In this unit we will use clips from the 1981 film Chariots of Fire as a basis for creating an accompaniment and extended melody, and exploring harmony to create a new soundtrack for the moving images.

Art

The local British Legion has asked if Starcross pupils would create art pieces to help them celebrate the King's Coronation. Puffins will be using techniques such as sketching, blending and fine line work to produce portraits of King Charles III.