Year 6

1. Year 6 A Presentation to Parents Information and Guidance for 2018/19

2. Who is in Year 6?

3. Objectives of today’s meeting? • Give you an idea of what is on the Year 6 curriculum. • Allow you to have a better understanding of how we assess pupils. • Allow you to experience a Year 6 lesson and what they are like for your children. • Allow you to meet the key people in the Year group.

4. Reading • Reading will be taught through two main ways this academic year: • Fresh Start • Whole Class Reading.

5. Whole Class Reading • Teaching the whole class to read the same text means that all pupils can read with the teacher more often, moving faster through more or longer texts and benefiting from the teacher's expert explanations, modelling, questioning and feedback. • This approach was introduced in SRS last year in KS2 and feedback from the pupils was very positive. • Pupils read a shorter text with the teacher and they look at it in great detail. They find the meanings of unfamiliar words and answer questions based on the text. • Have a look at the text on your desk. This is the level at which we pitch WCR.

6. Whole Class Reading- sample text.

7. How to Help Your Child with Reading • Listening to your child read can take many forms. • First and foremost, focus developing an enjoyment and love of reading. • Read a little at a time but often, rather than rarely but for long periods of time! • Talk about the story before, during and afterwards – discuss the plot, the characters, their feelings and actions, how it makes you feel, predict what will happen and encourage your child to have their own opinions. • Look up definitions of words together – you could use a dictionary, the internet or an app on a phone or tablet. • All reading is valuable – it doesn’t have to be just stories. Reading can involve anything from fiction and non-fiction, poetry, newspapers, magazines, football programmes, TV guides.

8. Fresh start • Fresh Start teaches students to read accurately and fluently with good comprehension. It teaches them to spell correctly and compose their ideas for writing step-by-step. • At the end of Year 5 pupils were assessed to find their reading ability. These children have been grouped so that those who need more phonics will receive the help needed to improve their reading. When they have reached the required reading level they will move to the next stage- Whole Class Reading or Novel study in class. • The objective is that every pupil leaves SRS primary phase being a competent and fluent reader of the English language and therefore are comfortable to access the curriculum when they are reach secondary level education.

9. Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar • English lessons will have a grammar and punctuation focus. This is key for their GL assessments where GPS takes a big role. • Below is an example of a GPS style question from a GL exam:

10. Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar

11. How to Help Your Child with GPS • Encourage opportunities for writing such as letters to family or friends, shopping lists, notes or reminders, stories or poems. • Write together – be a good role model for writing. • Encourage use of a dictionary to check spelling and a thesaurus to find synonyms and expand vocabulary. • Allow your child to use a computer for word processing, which will allow for editing and correcting of errors without lots of crossing out. • Remember that good readers become good writers! Identify good writing features when reading (e.g. vocabulary, sentence structure, punctuation). • Show your appreciation: praise and encourage, even for small successes!

12. Mathematics • In Year 6 we will continue to use Maths No Problem for the teaching of Maths. • It is a highly structured approach to teaching maths and deepens the understanding of all children. Each lesson is based around an ‘anchor task’ (called ‘In Focus Task’) which the children explore using different methods. The children are encouraged to talk about their maths and explore their ideas fully, then work independently using the workbooks. • The tests we use to help assess the pupils will have a similar layout to the SATs papers. • Look at the sample questions on your table.

13. Sample Questions Maths Paper 1: Arithmetic

14. Sample Questions Maths Paper 2 / Paper 3 : Reasoning

15. Sample Questions Maths Paper 2 / Paper 3 : Reasoning

16. How to Help Your Child with Maths • Play times tables games • Play mental maths games including counting in different amounts, forwards and backwards- especially useful for their GL assessments. • Encourage opportunities for telling the time. • Encourage opportunities for counting coins and money; finding amounts or calculating change when shopping- use British pounds if possible!! • Look for numbers on street signs, car registrations and anywhere else! • Look for examples of 2D and 3D shapes around the home. • Identify, weigh or measure quantities and amounts in the kitchen or in recipes. • Play games involving numbers or logic like board games.

17. Science • GL curriculum- Year 6 science will follow the GL curriculum and therefore we will re-visit every topic in Key Stage 2 in preparation for their GL test. • We will also cover the National Curriculum for Year 6 and assess the pupils against this as the year progresses.

18. Year 6- how do we assess internally? • In Year 6 we will follow the National Curriculum for England. It is broken down in learning statements that we will use to assess the pupils. We will also use exams to inform our judgement. • Below is an example of what the statements look like for maths in Year 6.

19. Year 6- how do we assess internally? • Children will also do small internal exams based on the content they have covered in the term. These exams will be in Maths, English and Science. • These tests will help the teacher to inform their judgment.

20. How do we assess? • Your child will be assessed within Year 6 framework as 1,2 or 3. If they are not accessing the Year 6 content, they will be assessed against the relevant year group. • The most important thing to remember is that the judgment we make is based on three key aspects: the work in their book, their test results and the teacher’s judgement using the statements mentioned before.

21. Year 6- how do we assess externally? • Like previous year your child will sit GL exams in these year groups: • PTE/PTM 6 – Year 1 • PTE/PTM 7 – Year 2 • PTE/PTM/PTS 8 – Year 3 • PTE/PTM/PTS 9 – Year 4 • PTE/PTM/PTS 10 – Year 5 • PTE/PTM/PTS 11 – Year 6 • PTE- English PTM- Maths and PTS-Science

23. Year 6- how do we assess externally? • In Dubai, it is now a KHDA requirement that all students sit these tests annually, therefore we have replaced previous school based paper tests with the Progress Tests, rather than have our students sit two sets of end of year exams.

24. How to Help Your Child • First and foremost, support and reassure your child that there is nothing to worry about and they should always just try their best. Praise and encourage! • Ensure your child has the best possible attendance at school- punctuality is KEY. • Support your child with any homework tasks. • Reading, spelling and arithmetic (e.g. times tables) are always good to practise. • Talk to your child about what they have learnt at school and what book(s) they are reading (the character, the plot, their opinion). • Make sure your child has a good sleep and healthy breakfast every morning!

25. Please feel free to visit our classrooms where you can experience real life lessons taught by your Year 6 teachers and learn about the curriculum :