Year 6 2024 - 2025

Things to remember:

Children do not need to bring lots of things into school with them. Since they wear their tracksuits on PE days, the only items children need to bring to school include their packed lunch (unless on school dinners), a bottle of water with their name on (no juice allowed), their coat if necessary and their bookbag, which is used to carry their home readers and diary. Children can bring a pencil case into school if they wish, but these are not mandatory; all necessary resources will be provided for your child. 

Please make sure all of your child's uniform is labelled clearly with their full name. Each year, we have lots of jumpers, cardigans and jackets going missing and they end up in lost property because there is no name on there, so they can't be returned to their rightful owner. We know how expensive uniform is and don't want any of our children to lose it.

Year 6 routines:

Mondays: Dinner money and toast money should be paid on a Monday. All money (including the £10 per family School Levy payment) should be paid electronically where possible, to avoid children having to hand over money in school. Money can also be paid via the office. Also, our homework day is Monday. Homework comprises of a maths / SPaG task (20 questions), a set of spellings and times tables practise. These are all carried out on 'Emile'. Spelling battles take place on Mondays and are paper-based.

Wednesdays: Wednesday is PE day. Children can come to school dressed in their tracksuits on this day.  Children receive home reading books on Wednesdays, too. These should be returned to school each week so we can monitor the children's reading; new books are given out every other week. 

Fridays: Diaries  should be brought into school and taken home each day. We ask that diaries are signed once a week by a parent / carer and shown to the class teacher on a Friday morning to be checked and signed. This is an important part of our routine as diaries are a good form of home- school communication, so it is important that diaries are looked at and signed regularly. Please ensure you remind your child to show the teacher if they have any notes from home in their diaries. Children should also come to school in their school tracksuit on Fridays.

A little about life in Year 6

Year 6, as you know, is a busy year. Children in this class are the oldest in the school and as such, they have a lot of responsibilities. At St. Mary's, we try our best to ensure our children are prepared for the next step in their educational journey by encouraging them to grow in independence and to become more responsible. Please help your child by encouraging them to be as independent at home as possible (packing their own school bag, being responsible for completing their homework on time, getting their diaries checked and signed by a parent, etc). 

Another part of being in Year 6 is SATs (Standardised Assessment Tests), which are mandatory tests for all schools across the country. This is just a small part of Year 6, and while we work hard to do our best on these tests, we constantly remind the children that they are not the 'be all and end all' of life in Year 6. We work hard, but we have fun, too. Year 6 is the year we go to PGL; we put on a fabulous play each year; we fully immerse ourselves in the wider life of our school and we enjoy spending our final year in primary school with our friends and teachers. Year 6 is a wonderful year for all involved. 

Additionally, we have reward systems in place to encourage and reward exemplary behaviour. St. Mary's runs a whole school weekly system, where 1 child from all 4 houses (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) receive a sticker for being their class' 'Stars of the Week'. From these 4 children, one overall winner is chosen, who gets to take home the class trophy for the weekend. The children are extremely motivated by this system, particularly in Year 6, as some have the role of house captains and want their house to win.

In Year 6, we also have our own behaviour reward system, which involves punchcards. Children can earn a 'punch' on their card for fulfilling our school mission statement of 'Being the Best We Can Be', working hard, using lovely manners, making good progress, carrying out random acts of kindness, living out our core values (respect, passion, creativity, nurture and integrity) and for generally being helpful, kind and well-behaved. Once certain target numbers have been reached (i.e 10 punches), children can choose a prize. We have lots of prizes available for the children to choose from. This system works extremely well in Year 6 as it is positive, motivational and really reminds children of our behavioural expectations. 

Below, you will find links to some of the websites we currently use at school that your children are encouraged to access at home.