Any Year Six teachers out there?

[KingscoteStaff]

I'm sitting here planning new curriculum Maths for the next six weeks.

Has anyone planned the Algebra units yet? There are the 4 objectives, but I am struggling to plan activities for them. The all seem to be 'algebra lite' - getting the children to use skills without actually explaining how the algebra works. There are 2 'algebra' questions in the Sample paper, but one is a 'working backwards' question using inverses and one is a trial and error search for 2 numbers.

I think I'm confused because for the last 3 years I've taught the Level 6 syllabus of explicit algebra skills, which is clearly NOT what is being called for now.

What's everyone else doing?

[PenguinPingu]

Year 6 teacher here. Can't help on that one specifically as I am not planning the maths (shared planning) so haven't looked at it yet but I may be able to get back to you next week once I've looked.

Generally though, how are you coping with these curriculum changes? I'm in a low income area state (our kids usually have to make huge amount of progress in Y6 to get near nat expectations but now it is even more of a push) and finding the coverage increase tricky. A lot more to get through as the year group jumped from old to new curriculum so lots of gaps. Used to revise L4 topics with many of them to get them their L4s but now having to teach all the old L5 standard.
I'm all for higher expectations but struggling with getting it all in and time to embed and push them up to the harder questions.

GPS is similar and we've been told writing deadline is earlier...

[KingscoteStaff]

Current cohort is, shall we say, 'tricky'...

2 form entry, and I spent last year down in Year 5 trying to bring one of the classes up to expected level, and am now back in Year 6 with the other class. One benefit is that I replanned all the Year 5 Maths last year, so at least we don't have a hideous gap this year.

We have 65% EAL, so SPAG is a challenge.

For the writing, they have to show secure evidence of all the performance descriptors to be 'at' the ARE, so we are assessing every piece of independent writing to double check we've got evidence.

Our writing levels were moderated 3 years ago, so cross fingers that they won't come back to us this year.

I am spending far too much time replanning the (completely changed) history, science and geography, because I like it!

One more hour to finish 'Circulation', then off to a party!

[toomuchicecream]

No longer a year 6 teacher - safely in year 1 dealing with addition and subtraction to 20! But I am Maths Leader and did MaST. There are two resources I've shared with staff that year 6 have told me are really, really useful - the White Rose Maths Hub schemes of learning www.dropbox.com/sh/m8cffya8voqqgg1/AAANai1CLUB0AKVs9wBVuElza?dl=0 as they have fluency/reasoning/problem solving sample questions for each objective. Great for pitch and expectation, and our year 6 teacher is planning whole lessons round these. The other really useful one is the NCETM assessment for mastery stuff www.ncetm.org.uk/resources/46689 (If you're not already registered then you'll have to to access them, but it's free).

And if you haven't already seen it, then this site sites.google.com/a/aetinet.org/aet-mathematics/home/page-number-2/curriculum-design has resources for year 6 to practice for the arithmetic test - about 1/2 way down on the right.

Good luck - I certainly don't envy you trying to bridge the gap between the new and old curriculums!

[PrincePondicherry]

Watching with interest. Not a teacher, just a home ed mum, but doing yr 6!

[theluckiest]

Oh god, I am a Y6 teacher and already the icy fingers of panic are starting to creep up my spine. I sweat blood planning exciting and engaging lessons to generate good writing, have spent hours teaching approaches to reading / trying to cover the SPAG curriculum / developing 'mastery' approaches for maths....and I still don't think we're anywhere near covering everything.

Some of the writing objectives are so unbelievably vague and/or pointless. (eg. Why is there so much emphasis weighted towards using semi-colons???! Does this REALLY make writing good?)

This is my 3rd year in Y6 and just at the point where I knew what I was doing, the rug got pulled and I've fallen down the SATS rabbit hole.

It's just like climbing a mountain where you can't see the top. Or indeed, know if there is one!! And having pointless hurdles to climb on the way...

Anyone else feel like this?!!

[KingscoteStaff]

Oh my goodness, have you seen this:
www.gov.uk/government/publications/2016-teacher-assessment-exemplification-ks2-english-writing

[TeenAndTween]

May I ask a question?

If a y6 DC (mine) is not at the 'working towards' y6 standard, then what kind of 'standard/level' will they be given?

[spanieleyes]

They will be classed as "Pre Key Stage 2" and will be assessed against the same criteria as year 2 children. This will also apply to those children with dyslexia who cannot spell most of the year 3/4 words and so cannot be assessed as "working towards".
We estimate that the "working towards" level ROUGHLY equates to an old level 4c and the "working at" is roughly a 4a/5c. We can only say roughly because the two systems are measuring two entirely different things. With the old curriculum, children were assessed on creativity and imagination in conjunction with the more technical aspects of spelling and grammar. The new curriculum puts the emphasis firmly on the technical aspects of grammar and transcription ( spelling and handwriting) and creativity and imagination has to firmly take a back seat.

[TeenAndTween]

Thank you.