Spring Term 1 (2025)

Writing

In Spring 1, children will first be developing their writing skills in a First-person Narrative. They will use the remarkable exploits of Ernest Shackleton as inspiration for their own narrative about polar explorers. Children will learn to use dialogue to advance the action and show character, use semi-colons to separate independent clauses, and to use hyphens in compound adjectives, and will use their descriptive writing skills to create vivid characters and settings.

Next, children will focus on persuasive writing to create a job advert, using Shackleton’s famous advert for his Antarctic expedition in 1914 as a starting point. They will use modal verbs and adverbs of probability, and will develop their knowledge of persuasive language to write their own job advert for a place on the crew of a similar exciting expedition.

 

Reading

During Spring 1, children will explore the text, Shackleton’s Journey and develop their reading skills further through skimming and scanning to retrieve key information from the text. Children will learn to make inferences about the characters’ thoughts, feelings and motives to gain an insight into the perils of such a great expedition. The children will consider the use of both technical and descriptive language within the text and evaluate the effectiveness and impact on the reader. We will round off the journey by revisiting the children’s summarising skills with a focus on using evidence from the text to support their answers.

From this, children will continue to explore non-fiction through a range of explanation texts, in which they will be able to make cross-curricular links with both science and geography.

 

Maths

This term, the children will be continuing their multiplication and division learning journey, focussing on mastering the formal methods of short and long multiplication, as well as short and long division.

As well as this, the children will be focussing on improving their fraction knowledge, by learning how to use common factors and multiples to simplify fractions and find equivalent fractions. With this knowledge, they will then be able to compare and order fractions, add and subtract fractions with different denominators and mixed numbers, multiple simple pairs of proper fractions and divide proper fractions by whole numbers.

 

Science

During this term, the children will explore electricity! They will have the opportunity to make electrical circuits using a variety of different components. In addition to this, they will investigate what variables in a circuit will affect the brightness of a bulb and record their observations. The children will be true scientists when comparing and giving reasons for variations in how components function, including the brightness of bulbs, the loudness of buzzers and the on/off position of switches. To end their learning journey, the children will explore both renewable and non-renewable sources of energy and consider the impact they have on our environment.

 

History

In history this term, the children will be studying the Early Islamic Civilisation, learning bout the origins of the Islamic world as well as the impact it had on the world. They will be studying Islamic art, focussing on their use of tessellation, as well as how the ‘Silk Road’ ensured their success as a civilisation.

 

Geography

This term, the children will learn to describe and understand key aspects of physical geography, focusing on climate zones, biomes and vegetation belts. We will explore the difference between the three physical features before spending time developing our understanding of different biomes typical in North America. The children will then have the opportunity to compare two contrasting biomes.

 

RE

In RE, Year 6 children will be learning about rituals, focusing on the ritual of Wudu as part of prayer in Islam, and the celebration of Eid-ul-Fitr at the end of Ramadan. They will reflect on the importance of rituals to Muslims and about any rituals children have in their own lives.

 

PE

In Real PE this term, the children will be developing their cognitive awareness in sport by developing their stance and footwork skills, showing an awareness of space/others to make good decisions. Children will also engage in competitive games, applying basic principles of attacking and defending.

In Real Dance, children will learn to make good decisions while applying and developing a wide range of dance skills. They will create actions and sequences, improving flexibility, strength, technique, control, and balance. Students will also perform dances, exploring a variety of movement patterns to enhance their creativity and co-ordination.

 

PSHE

In PSHE this half term, Year 6 children will learn to take responsibility for their own safety. They will explore respectful online and face-to-face behaviour, the risks of sharing content, addiction, emotional needs, and the impact of unmet needs. Students will also discuss the laws around drugs, alcohol, and independence.

 

Computing

The children will be continuing their learning from last term to design, create and evaluate an effective webpage. They will explore websites and learn how to draw a webpage layout that suits its purpose. They will retrieve their knowledge from last term when searching for images, understanding the importance of following copyright rules. As well as this, in e-safety this term, children will be learning to explain how others online can pretend to be someone else and why this might happen.

 

Spanish

This term, the children will further develop their language skills by learning to give and follow instructions using new vocabulary in Spanish. They will gain more confidence when using this new knowledge through practising their speaking, reading, writing and listening skills.

 

Art

Throughout the Spring Term, children will be mastering their skills in painting, in the context of narrative art, and will discuss how artworks can be interpreted in different ways depending on the context. They will explore the storytelling in the works of John William Waterhouse and Norman Rockwell, before exploring how colour and composition can have symbolic meaning and be used to communicate a story in a painting. After practising these skills, they will then use this knowledge to create their own artwork that tells a story.

 

Music

By the end of this half term, the children will have played and performed in solo and ensemble contexts, using their voices and playing musical instruments with increasing accuracy, fluency, control and expression when playing calypso bass line, chords, melody, melodic ostinato, rhythmic improvisations. They will have improvised and composed music for a range of purposes using the inter-related dimensions of music. They will have worked together to create their own version of Calypso Sparkles.

 

Design Technology

In D&T this term, children will be applying their scientific knowledge of electrical circuits to create a motorised, light-up fairground ride that will be controlled by multiple switches in a parallel circuit. The children will be designing their product by conducting research to help them create their final design and prototype, before creating and evaluating their final design.