Cressing Primary School

Dear Parents,

Firstly, welcome to Year 6! All the children have settled really well and are now becoming used to the routines and expectations of Year 6. They are really engaging with the learning and are enjoying having responsibilities around the school.

This year is extremely important for your child as it is their transition from primary education to secondary school. I am sure that you are aware that you need to apply for your child’s secondary school place by 31^st October. Please take the opportunity to attend secondary school open evenings. Remember if you do not apply by this date, your child may not be able to go to the school of their choice.

The children will take their Standard Assessment Tests (SATs) in the week beginning 13^th May 2024. I realise that this may seem a long way off, but it will soon come round. We do not wish to add pressure to your child, but we do aim to prepare them and reach their potential. Secondary schools do take note of these results and make predictions for GCSEs based on them! Therefore, good attendance is key - we don’t have time to repeat learning and some topics are only learnt once in the year.

Please support your child to complete their homework on time and encourage them to read frequently, discussing the contents of their books with them. Encourage them to read magazines, newspapers, poetry and information texts, even if these are on the computer.

We will be carrying out a full set of SATs tests as a baseline. We will share these results with you.  To pass the tests your child needs to attain a standardised score of 100. Scores range from 80 to 120. A score of greater than 110 is considered to be at ‘greater depth’.  If your child has scored 97, they may need to gain a further 12 marks to reach 100 as each mark on the standardised score is worth several marks.

We have many months of learning; encourage your child to achieve their best. I always emphasise that progress is extremely important and will always praise this over achievement!

House Keeping

• PE days are Wednesday and Friday.
• Homework is given out on a Friday and should be in school by Thursday. If your child is away on a Friday, they will still be expected to collect and complete their homework.
• Please send an email to the office if your child is allowed to walk home on their own.
• If you need to contact me urgently, please do this through the office - they will forward the email to me; however, during a working day I rarely have time to look at my emails and anything that is an emergency may therefore be missed.
• No pencil cases are needed in Year 6 but the children may use their own pencil cases in the afternoons if we are colouring etc.

Key Adults

Mrs Shelter- Class Teacher 4 days a week (Tuesday- Friday)

Miss Wild- Class Teacher 1 day a week (Monday)

Learning Support assistants - Mrs Gambell, Mrs Vota and Miss Belmont

This Term’s Learning

Our main theme is ‘China’. This is a Historical theme- we will be studying the Chang Dynasty. We will be writing non-chronological reports about China; looking at Chinese Dragons in art and poetry; cooking Chinese food in DT; in Geography we will look at the physical features of China and maps of different scales. Our Science does not link to our theme but it will link with our Wellbeing Week as we are studying healthy living and the heart.

In Maths we will continually practise arithmetic skills, multiplying  and dividing by 10, 100, 1000, continue work on fractions and explore decimal numbers.

Residential Trip

We will be running a residential trip at the end of the summer term. We will be going to Danbury and we will confirm the dates with you very soon.

We all look forward to working with you. Please do not hesitate to contact us with any queries

Kind Regards the Year 6 Team