Welcome to Year 6 Kipling Class

Year 6 provides a challenging final year in primary school for our eldest children aimed at preparing them for their transition to their chosen secondary school. Expectations are very high in all aspects of school life as the children are exemplar role models: setting the highest standards of behaviour, attitude, responsibility and academic ability for the rest of the school to follow.  In order to promote the student’s status as role models, they will wear the prestigious black tie with red stripes.

This year, we are able to once again embrace our tradition of a Buddy System whereby our Year 6 children will have the opportunity to spend time with their Reception buddies: sharing stories; playing games; and carrying out art and craft activities together, encouraging our youngest children to develop their reading, speaking and listening skills and social skills.  

House Captains are elected democratically, and our elected Year 6 children will be responsible for leading the houses and totalling weekly house points which have been awarded across the school.  There are many other responsibilities delegated to our Year 6 children throughout the year which help the school to run smoothly.

Learning at Home 

In Year 6, you can support your child by: 

  • Practising and encouraging daily reading, helping your child to select text from a range of different genres and responding to their reading both orally and through meaningful written responses in their Reading Record books.  
  • Reading aloud to your child regularly to promote reading for pleasure as well as modelling intonation and expression.  
  • Keeping on top of times tables: knowing multiplication facts and related division facts up to and including 12 x 12.  as well as the inverse such as 121 ÷ 11 = 11  
  • Encouraging independence in tasks at home as well as preparing themselves for school each day including checking they have all the equipment they need.
  • Practising the words on the statutory Year 5 and 6 spelling list which can be found in your child’s Reading Record book 
  • Helping them to recognise and recall square numbers as well as the first 10 prime numbers (2, 3, 5, 7, 11, 13, 17, 19, 23, 29) 


You can find the Year 6 full curriculum map, showing you the topics we cover and when, on the school website.  This is a working document and subject to change throughout the year.  

Homework  

Weekly homework will be set on Fridays on Seesaw and will be due in the following Wednesday.  Please check over your child’s homework before uploading it.  

PE 

Both Kipling class and McGough class will have PE on Wednesdays.  Information regarding hair and jewellery can be found by looking at the Uniform Policy on the school website. 

 

Mrs Bell, Mr Lewis and Miss McGill

Bawdsey Manor residential visit

Mrs Bell and Mr Lewis' groups

Miss Darvill's group

Mrs Havord's group

Miss Lamb's group

Daily update - Monday

We have arrived safely and the children have settled into their dorms really well.

Everyone is very happy with their roommates- a job well done! 

At 5pm we will be heading out for some games.

Dinner will be at 6pm followed by Ambush (group Hide and Seek in the woods) at 7pm.

We aim to be tucked up and fast asleep by 9pm!! Watch this space! 

Mrs Bell

 

 

A big hello again from Bawdsey Manor on this lovely sunny Tuesday! 

Our first night away went without too much trouble. Dinner was delicious and there were many clean plates with quite a few children requesting second helpings. We got back to our dorms at approximately 8.15pm after a thrilling game of Ambush in the woods- real bats were flying freely around us as we wandered into the woodland area -in the pitch black darkness- to play group Hide and Seek. 

Most of the children were keen to test out the showers on our return so once everyone was freshened up, we headed down to the main Manor Hall for a bedtime story. This is a grand, large space with dark wood walls and chandeliers- very impressive! 

We headed up to bed about 9:15pm and many of the children were fast asleep way before the 10pm curfew.  

Today, we have enjoyed a packed day with the following activities completed by different groups - Giant swing; Rifle shooting; Climbing; Archery; Buggy building; Sensory trail. There was a visit to the shop at 12:30pm for the children to stock up on some holiday goodies and souvenirs- who doesn’t need a ‘I ❤️ Bawdsey Manor’ Lanyard? 

We’ll be heading down for dinner again at 6pm this evening before we head off to enjoys songs around the campfire tonight. 

We are having a great time! 

Thursday Thrills from Beautiful Bawdsey 

Another fun-filled 24 hours has passed since my last message and I think you can see from the photo of my watch screen that we completed so much! That’s right- there is no error- nearly 27,000 steps completed yesterday! 

We definitely have some budding trapeze artists amongst us as a lot of our children completed the Trapeze activity on Wednesday- they whizzed up the climbing pole and leapt from the platform to hit the large orange ball that dangled just out of reach some distance above the ground (I’d guess at 8 metres up!).

The zip wire proved to be a huge hit with everyone as we zipped down at high speed- literally hitting the ground running upon landing. 

We developed our team building skills with some orienteering and practised our compass and map reading skills as we hunted down clues hidden around the grounds.

Some groups completed the challenge course whilst others wove their way through an obstacle course wearing blackout goggles. Get those washing machines ready as there was rather a lot of crawling and scrambling taking place! 

Thursday and Friday involves us all taking part in abseiling and a coastal walk whilst ‘mopping up’ on activities some groups have not yet experienced from earlier in the week. 

The children truly have had a memorable few days away- one we know they will be talking about for weeks to come. Such exciting trips cannot take place without the dedication and commitment of the staff who have attended this week- all of whom have left their own husbands/partners/children/families behind for 5 days. It’s no easy task staffing a residential- we literally are ‘on duty’ 24/7 and not just the 5.45am-11.30pm hours that the first/ last children wake/ fall asleep.  My grateful thanks go to Mr Lewis, Mrs Havord, Miss Darvill and Miss Lamb who have accompanied myself and the children this week. What a great team! 

We’ll see you all at approximately 4pm on Friday afternoon. Please remember to let us get the children back into the school playground safely before whisking them away. Please do not meet us from the coach. An adult needs to ensure every child is dismissed safely and this is best done in the playground. 

If I have medication for your child, this will need to be handed back in person.  Please see me at the end once the children have been dismissed. I am happy to keep hold of travel sickness pills until next week and just sort out the more ‘pressing’ medications first if this is easier for you. I’ll keep any uncollected medications safe and I’ll have these to hand during home times next week.

We’ll see you all very soon. Only one more sleep to go. 

Mrs Bell 

Wonderful Wednesday news from Woodbridge! 

Well, last night was a doddle when it came to bedtime! After a jam-packed day of back-to-back activities and our evening campfire sing-song session, the children practically crawled back to their dorms tired, full of dinner and ready to sleep! Hooray! 

Today we are celebrating as someone turns 11! We have had sweets to help our friend celebrate his birthday and there were banners and balloons hung from his dorm door. 

Today’s activities have included:

Orienteering

Trapeze

Zip wire

The sensory trail

The challenge course 

We’ll finish off tonight with a challenge called Splash where the children have to work in teams to solve clues. Each clue earns them some equipment to help them build a protective case for a water balloon. I wonder who will win… and who will get soggy! 

As educators, one of the highlights for us during residential trips, is seeing our children enjoying the great outdoors with their friends without an electronic device in sight. Watching them interact with each other; develop teamwork and social skills; learn new life skills and recognise strengths they never knew they had is so incredibly rewarding and pleasing to see. We’re so proud of our children already for what they have achieved in such a short time. 

Please rest assured that we will be sharing many photos on the Year 6 website page once we are back to school and are able to download all the pictures we have taken on the school cameras. We are all having a busy, wonderful time. The children are happy and safe.  

On another high note, the food continues to be a big hit! 

DERIC

In school we use a method to support our reading called DERIC, which stands for Decode, Explain, Retrieve, Interpret and Choice.

This term we have been reading the book Beetle Boy in DERIC lessons.  Here are some examples of our lesson slides used to get the children thinking about, and responding to, the text.

Homework

Our homework is posted on Seesaw.  You can see instructions for using Seesaw here.