Weekly Update – Year 6
Tuesday 1st September – Meet the Teacher 6:30pm, meet in the school hall.
Thursday 3rd September – Public Holiday : school closed
Monday 7th September – ESF Secondary Application open on Gateway
Wednesday 9th, 16th, 23rd, 30th September – Year 6 Swimming : letters to go home soon
Wednesday 9th September – Introduction to the PYP : new parent information session 6:30pm
Thursday 10th September – Year 6 Trip to LEAP : more info to follow
Friday 11th September – PTA Bowling Function : please send money and slips back to the PTA office asap
Friday 18th September – ESF Secondary Application on Gateway closes
Monday 21st September – International Day of Peace
Thursday 24th & Friday 25th September – Staff Training Days : school closed
Monday 28th September – Public holiday : school closed
Wednesday 30th September – Dress casual day : please bring money to support Community Chest
Thursday 1st October – Public holiday : school closed
Friday 2nd October – ESF Staff Training Day : school closed
Tuesday 6th October & Thursday 8th October : 3-Way Conferences (students need to attend) – you will be asked to sign up via The Gateway soon.
Welcome back to school!
We have had a smooth start to the year and it was great to see all the children arrive with smiling faces on Monday morning.
The teachers just have a few reminders to start off the year…..
Stationery – can you please help your child collect all the stationery that they need for the year and ask them regularly when they need replenishing? It makes it very difficult for your child when they can’t lay their hands on the things they need quickly.
Healthy Snacks – we have noticed this week that some children have bought into school snacks that are not so healthy. Can you please try and encourage your child and your helper to pack a healthy snack for school? We would really love to see a reduction in boxes of sweets brought in for snack, bags of crisps for lunch and big packets of biscuits that are shared among groups of friends. We do need to be careful about children sharing food due to allergies and medical alerts, so the children will be asked not to share food at school.
Deodorant – as the warmer weather is still upon us can we give a gentle reminder about each child wearing and re-applying deodorant at school. The classrooms get very smelly after the children being out in the playground during breaks and PE times.
All the teachers and EAs really appreciate your help and support in these matters. Thank you so much.
Secondary School Applications for our Year 6 Children
This week in Year 6 we were introduced to the new Year 6 teacher who will be working with us this year. We welcome Mr Hoskins to Hong Kong and BHS and know he will really enjoy being part of our Beacon Hill family.
We had our first Year 6 talk from Mr Pheasant on Tuesday morning where he reminded the children of the great responsibility that comes with being at the ‘top of the school’. We also began to establish our classroom routines and encouraged good organisation with ourselves, our thinking and our belongings.
This week we began work on our new Unit of Inquiry on Conflict. We looked at unscrambling the central idea and starting thinking about types of conflict that we might see in the playground. We also spent lots of time this week assessing the children in various areas such as spelling, writing, maths and reading.
Year 6 Unit of Inquiry 1
Transdisciplinary Theme : Sharing the Planet
Central Idea : People’s responses to conflict may impact the quality of human life.
Lines of Inquiry – We will inquire into…
- causes of conflict
- conflict resolution and management
- consequences of resolution
Concepts : causation, perspective, responsibility
Learner Profile : principled, open-minded, communicator
Attitudes : co-operation, tolerance, empathy
Number Maths – Place Value
Central Idea : The base 10 place value system extends infinitely in two directions
Children worked on a pre-assessment for Place Value this week and we will work to sort them into their Number groups based on their ability and knowledge in this area. Number Maths will begin next week and will be held each Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday.
Strand Maths – Measurement
Central Idea : Conversion of units and measurements allows us to make sense of the world we live in.
This week we began to unpack our Central Idea for our strand topic and we also worked on pre-assessing the class on their knowledge of measurement. The children will stay with their class teacher for Strand Maths.
This week during our English time we really focused on assessing the children in the different areas so that we can best group them and understand where they are at. Over the next few weeks we will be continuing to assess them on their reading comprehension and assigning them their leveled readers or confirming them as an independent reader. We do envision that by the end of the year all children will be able to choose their own reading books in preparation for secondary school.
We also wrote our summer recount where the children were able to describe in detail their summer holidays and we will use these to group the children and formulate their writing targets. Spelling tests were also begun and the children will use these to form the basis of their personal spelling words.
Our writing genre for this term will be ‘Exposition’ and we will begin introducing the children to this form of writing next week.
Spelling : Spelling Journal investigations and spelling homework will begin soon, we will let you know via this Weekly Update what the children will be required to do.
Reading : We will introduce the new Reading Journals next week and the children will start their weekly reading reflections very soon. For now they can ensure they are reading at home each night for at least 20 mins on a book of their choice.
Number Maths : Number Maths homework will be set each week by the Number Maths teacher and it will begin soon. We are currently getting the Mathletics programs, courses and groups set up so the children will be able to work on their ‘Are You Ready?’ tasks and continue to do Live Mathletics. Their Mathletics passwords will remain the same as last year.
- Mr Hoskins – Mathletics
- Miss Fearn – Mathletics
- Miss Fisher – Mathletics
- Mrs Davis – Mathletics
UOI : Unit of Inquiry homework will begin soon
Thought of the Week : “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world”. Nelson Mandela