Aspin Park Academy

Welcome to

Aspin Park Academy

  1. Children
  2. Year Groups
  3. Year 6

Welcome to Year 6!

 

Our Newsletters

Our Curriculum Newsletters provide parents with an overview of the half terms teaching and learning in year 6.

Autumn 1 -  Vikings

Autumn 2 - South America

Spring 1 - Britain at War WW2

Spring 2 - Crazy Climates - Climate zones

Summer 1 - Local History - Victorian Knaresborough

Summer 2 - Rivers

In Year 6 teaching and learning is focused on completing the final stage of primary school education and preparing the children for their transition to Secondary School. The classroom environment is designed to help create independent learners with the use of working walls, Maths, Reading and English areas and a designated intervention space for small groups to work in.

 

RESIDENTIAL

Thank you to everyone who attended the TEAMS meeting tonight with Bushcraft about our residential - we are even more excited to go now after seeing the videos. Please don't worry if you were unable to make the meeting, please see the Parent Page on the link below.

Parent's Page - The Bushcraft Company

An information sheet will be coming out later this week. Please see below.

Parent Handout 5 Day

There will be a further meeting to go through the specific details during the Spring Term once activities and food choices have been finalised. A polite reminder that the deposits need to be paid by 11th January to secure your child a place on the trip.

If you have any questions, please speak to your class teacher. Thank you.


English

 

Reading

In Year 6, Reading is taught through the use of quality whole class texts which have been carefully selected to challenge and inspire our learners. We have whole class daily reading sessions linked to our class novel which is linked to a current curriculum area. We develop reading comprehension skills through the use of VIPERS (Vocabulary; Infer; Predict; Explain; Retrieve and Summarise) to teach all areas of the curriculum reading domains.

We also teach a discrete weekly comprehension lesson which enables our children to apply the VIPERS work which they have done during the week. We pride ourselves on the range of high-quality texts available in our class reading areas, which the children can access daily.

 

Writing

In Year Six, we write for a wide range of purposes and audiences linked to our year group topic. These writing activities have a mission statement, which allows the children to put their writing into a context to ensure it is meaningful. In Year 6 we focus heavily on incorporating all taught grammar skills into their independent writing and developing their independent editing skills to improve the quality of their writing. Children are proud of our ‘Writing Wall’ where each child’s work is celebrated and then kept in our ‘Wonderful Writing Books’ which is a fantastic collection of their published written work.

 

 

Maths

Maths is taught daily following the White Rose scheme, which builds on prior knowledge and skills. Maths lessons follow a daily sequence of Morning Arithmetic followed by a main maths lesson which includes: KIRF practice (please see the Maths page for more information), Active Mental Maths. The main body of the lesson begins with a concept or question, recaps previous learning, formal teaching of fluency, reasoning and problem solving.  In Year 6, we try to make Maths lessons as fun and active as possible using our outdoor environment as much as possible. Children have the opportunity to self -select a range of challenges depending on their confidence promote independent learning.

 

In Year 6, it is expected that children have learnt their times tables up to and including 12 x 12 and continue to improve the speed of recall of these facts. We use Times Time Rockstars in school and at home to develop these skills.

PE

6S PE Day - Thursday

6PR PE Day - Friday

All pupils should arrive at school in their PE kit. This should include a white t-shirt, black joggers/shorts/skort/leggings and trainers/pumps. Our PE lessons follow the PE PRO scheme of work. 

 

 

Other Subjects

In Year 6, we have some inspirational units of work which allow the children to explore their understanding of the world we live in today. Many of our lessons are enquiry led with an over-arching question which the children investigate.

Science: We study Light, Electricity, Classification/Micro-organisms, Evolution and Inheritance, Circulatory System, Healthy Living (including puberty).

History:  In History the children study: Vikings, World War Two and Victorian Knaresborough.

Geography: In Geography, we will be learning about South America - The Amazon, Crazy Climates and Rivers.

Computing: We use Purple Mash to look at online safety, spreadsheets, blogging, coding and adventure stories.

Music: Our lessons continue to follow the Charanga scheme framework where the children are exposed to a range of musical styles and use instruments to improvise and perform.

French: We use Language Angels to teach French.

RE: We follow the North Yorkshire syllabus for RE. During each RE topic, we study a variety of world religions and make comparisons between the similarities and differences of different beliefs.

PSHE: We use the Jigsaw scheme of learning which covers the topics of: Me in My World, Celebrating Differences, Dreams and Goals, Healthy Me, Relationships and Changing Me.

Homework

Children are given a Maths and English homework each week alongside their spelling and KIRF tasks. We take this opportunity to recap skills taught during the week. Children are also asked to log onto Reading Plus and Times Table Rockstars from home.

Homework is given on a Friday and is due in on the following Thursday.

 

OTHER INFORMATION

SATS

In Year 6, all children across the country take part in the National SATs tests. This Year the date of the tests are from Monday 12th May - Thursday 15th May 2025. Throughout the year, the Year 6 Team will hold some additional meetings to share further information about the tests and what we do at Aspin Park to best prepare your child so that they run as smoothly as possible with little disruption to our exciting curriculum.
The children complete tests in the following subjects:
Spelling and grammar test
A grammar test - 45 minutes
A spelling test of 20 spellings 
Writing continues to be a teacher assessed score and there is no test in this subject.
Maths
Arithmetic- 30 minutes
Reasoning Paper 2 - 40 minutes
Reasoning Paper 3- 40 minutes.
Reading
Reading test which includes 3 different texts and sets of questions- 1 hour.
Some Secondary Schools use the SATs to group the children by their scores as they enter Year 7- however this can change so please do ask at any open evenings at the Secondary Schools to find out the current procedures.