What are your Year 6 children learning this week?

[AChickenCalledKorma]

Have got parents' evening for DD2 this Thursday. She's in Year 6.

The work she is bringing home as homework has been both tedious and very easy all year. I don't know whether it's because they are already doing lots of revision and consolidating what they already know. Or alternatively, whether she's suffering from a shift towards whole class teaching in a class with a lot of children who are struggling.

She says she's bored. But she's a sulky pre-adolescent, so she says that a lot!!

It would be interesting to know what other children her age are doing at the moment, so I can make a more informed judgement about what to say.

I teach year 6 maths. The first month is mainly consolidation, so place value and calculation. There will be some new stuff in there like a new multiplication method for example but mostly a reminder of core skills/concepts to counteract the slump after the holiday and prepare them for the new. We are now moving on to a new concept.

In lots of schools homework isn't necessarily representative of how difficult the work is in school as it is supposed to be independent so they prefer to give revision exercises.

You could ask if the school sends out a newsletter with the curriculum content for the half term, we do.

I always feel Y5&Y6 are not very challenging for bright children.

I am teaching Conversion of measurements in Maths, Newspaper reports based on the train scene in Stand by Me in English, different forms of government in Greek City states in History, writing manifestos for class council election in PHSE, decorating the Greek pots we made last week in Art, Adlestrop and I remember, I remember, the house where I was born in Guided Reading, activating yeast in Science, Tennis and Gymnastics in PE, creating sound tracks for performance poetry in Music and Harvest Festivals in Judaism, Christianity and Sikhism in RE.

I wish DD2 was in your class KingscoteStaff!

DS is in yr6 and says he has been doing a lot of writing and then up levelling the writing.

Also usual stuff like mental maths tests, spelling tests etc.

They have done a lot on WW2 (history) and he went on a school trip last week. He hasn't moaned about the work at all (but I fully expect him too when the pressure for SATS crank up!)

My year 6 is loving school. Mainly because the work is easy and he's finding plenty of time to chat to classmates (especially the girls this year!). I have no idea what he's been doing academically but his teachers say he's doing well and he's happy so I'm gritting my teeth and leaving him to it

DS1's been doing all sorts of stuff related to World War 1 - although I'm not sure what in particular as they've given up sending homework home after the last few years. We now get a sheet each for English and Maths each half term with key spellings, number facts and things that they should know and consolidate with approx 5 mins a day of work...

They've also just had a week based around rugby and the world cup (learning about different nations involved and their language, food, geography, customs, including learning to do a Haka, etc etc) which ds1 adored as he's rugby mad and ds2 hated in equal measure as he loathes rugby...

Have got a parent teacher meeting this week so will look forward to finding out more!

Am more hacked off that last year they were told that they weren't doing space as one of their Y5 topics as the curriculum had changed as had the topics, so they did yet another term on ancient history (so they've done Stone Age, Egyptians, Romans, Mayans, Mesopotamia, Ancient China, Ancient Greeks, and comparative ancient studies across even more ancient peoples) in the last 3 years. No real modern history (ie anything later than the Romans!) apart from in passing when studying America, there was a bit of American history in the topic. No Tudors, Stuarts, Georgians, Victorians or Edwardians from this country let alone history from elsewhere in the world. And now the curriculum has changed again so that Space is back as a Y5 topic and they're doing yet another history topic. OK so it is a bit more modern than previous years - but it seems that they have forgotten to look at this cohort's topics in total at the school and haven't given them a balanced overview that they would have had if they had been in either the year above or below (have friends with dc in both those years and they have done bits of history throughout time not just the ancient stuff, as well as more non-historical topics. DS loves history - but he loves the other stuff too and hasn't been challenged by having to do the same sort of thing for so long (and worse - repeating it in some cases).

Sorry, got a bit off topic there - rant over now!

So yes, I do worry that ds doesn't get challenged at school and gets disheartened when he sees other years do topics that he was really looking forward to and then they get dropped for his year. Not an ideal way to teach kids, particularly in Y6!

Writing and performing play scripts based on A Midsummer nights dream
Reading A cue for treason to link with Tudor topic in history. Maths Long division, creating animations in computing, science plants linked to visit to poison garden.

Kingscotestaff - this is exactly what my Year 6 DS is doing!! and loving :)

Ours are away at PGL!

My year 6 class is revising fractions, decimals and percentages, using 11+ questions as the basis of our work. It's a bottom set.