Welcome to Class 6!

Croeso i Dosbarth 6!

Teacher: Mrs Xiberras	Learning Support Assistant: Mrs Owens

Hello and welcome to Class 6! My name is Mrs Xiberras and I am the class teacher. Working alongside me is Mrs Owens, our Learning Support Assistant.

Communication

Contact us on Class6@stmellonsprm.cardiff.sch.uk

Twitter (X) - @stmellonsprm                     https://twitter.com/stmellonsprm

Google Classroom Code - wuxp5n6

The 'Teacher to Parent' text messaging service will be used when required.

Overview of the Day

8.55 Children arrive and settle down to complete their Morning Activity / Register​

9.05 – 9.25 Worship ​

9.25-10.45  Literacy, Languages & Communication​

10.45 – 11.00 Snack / Break Time​

11.00 – 12.00 Mathematics & Numeracy​

12.00 – 1.00 Lunch​

1.00 – 1.25 Guided Group Reading​

1.30 – 2.45​ (Topic/Science/RE/ICT/Welsh)​

10 minutes daily mile​

3.00 Daily Welsh Activities​

3.20 Home Time  

Important Dates

6th January - Children return to school

31st  January  - INSET Day School Closed to Pupils

7th February  - Mid Term Reports sent out to parents

Week commencing 3rd Feb  - Chinese New Year Celebration PS1&2 

3rd February  - Children’s Mental Health Awareness week

10th February – Valentine Disco PS1 & 2- 3.30-4.30pm,   PS3 4.45-5.45pm 

13th  February – Year 4 Family worship 9.15am & coffee morning 

17th February - Whole School Islam Celebration Day

21st February – Last day of term

24th  – 28th February – Half Term

3rd March - Return to school

 4th March - Eisteddfod

6th March – World Book Day

7th March – 16th March STEM week

7th & 8th April – Parents Evening 3.30-5.30pm

28th March – Nursery Mothers Day Celebration

7th April – Easter Celebration Week

10th April - Year 3 Family Worship 9.30am & coffee morning

11th April - End of Term

Easter Holidays – 14th April - 25th April

Classroom Routine

Please bring a bottle of water to school daily, clearly labelled with your name. Healthy snacks can be purchased from the snack trolley (ordered via ParentPay) or brought in from home. 

Our PE day is TUESDAY - children should wear their PE kits to school every Tuesday.   PE kit is a white polo shirt (or your house colour) and grey or black shorts/joggers & trainers.   Plain kits please, no patterns or large logos. 

Children should wear school uniform each day (apart from PE day). 

PLEASE LABEL ALL ITEMS OF CLOTHING. 

Context

Our topic this term is 'Make a change, make a difference'

This term, we will be working collaboratively to find out about Welsh governance; and the different levels within it, e.g. local, devolved, national. We will look at how councillors and members of the Senedd are elected and why. We will even visit the Senedd! We will find out how our local community is governed and how Welsh people, past and present, have influenced Wales today, e.g. Anuerin Bevan. We will be investigating how Wales supports human rights and our influence with Fairtrade. We will be finding out how we support Fairtrade in Wales. By the end, we hope to have used our persuasion skills to set up a school pupil parliament!

LLC -  Persuasion letters, autobiographies, Eisteddfod work

Maths and Numeracy - Area and shape, algebra, measure, multiplication and division

Humanities - Governance, human rights, injustice and inequality

STEM - Visit from an engineer and engineering competition (design engineering), health and disease

RVE - Should commitment and sacrifice be a part of life? Gurdwara as the Sikh place of worship. UN Convention on Human  Rights of the Child (UNCRC). 

Expressive Arts - A focus on Welsh artist John Harvey, looking at layering and watercolours.

Pupil Voice Questions

• How does the Senedd work?
• How many people work there?
• Why is it important to work there?
• How many votes do you need to work there?
• How much money does the Welsh government spend on Cardiff airport?
• Why don’t they put a cap on the retirement age?
• How are the Welsh government tackling the homeless situation?
• Why is this part of Cardiff so poorly maintained compared to the other parts of Cardiff? Why doesn't the Welsh government not seem to care about the roads?
• Why does the Welsh government allow horses to be chained up next to busy roads?
• Why does the Welsh government keep raising tax?
• What would you class as fair trade?
• How is fair trade good for people?
• When was the first Welsh Government created?
• Why was the Welsh Government created?
• Who invented Fairtrade? When was Fairtrade invented?
• How do you become part of the election?
• Why did Wales make our own government?
• What are the different roles in the Senedd?
• Where do the people with different roles sit in the Chamber?
• I want to find out how they make decisions on things like how do they decide on certain things if people have different decisions.
• When we vote for a new prime minister how do they know if someone is lying about themselves?
• When they are debating and the person in charge thinks that it is getting too loud and stuff like that will they actually kick the person out?
• How many laws can they make?
• How much money do they make?
• Who made Human rights?

Planning

 Weekly planning will be available on Google classroom, where you can see what the children have been learning about that week. Please see the Inquiry planning document below for our topic.

Our Inquiry Planner:
Please click here for our inquiry planner

 

 

Please click here for our homework grid

Weekly homework – Numeracy / Literacy alternated each week. Usually based on something we have learned that week. Set on Friday, due in on Wednesday. Please submit via Google Classroom or send to our class email.

 - Times Tables Rock Stars - click here for information for parents. 

 

The Four Purposes

The four purposes are that all children and young people will be:

Ambitious, capable learners who are ready to learn throughout their lives.

Enterprising, creative contributors who are ready to play a full part in life and work.

Ethical, informed citizens who are ready to be citizens of Wales and the world.

Healthy, confident individuals who are ready to lead fulfilling lives as valued members of society.

Our Christian Value

Our Christian value this half term is 'Justice'.

Meaning: fairness in the way that people are dealt with. For example: The winner has been disqualified for cheating, so justice has been done (which means a fair situation has been achieved). Justice often has a lot to do with rules and laws.

Please click here for our justice handout 

“Learn to do good and seek justice. (Isaiah 1:17)  

Literacy, Languages and Communication

In Year 6 our Literacy sessions will develop a range of skills including: Reading, Writing and Oracy. Each session will feature the following:

- An engaging warm up (Consolidating past skills or developing new skills)

- Concrete learning (Development of Literacy skills)

We will be working on developing our reading, writing and oracy through a range of genres. We will begin with researching Welsh governance and influential Welsh people, moving on to writing persuasion letters and autobiographies. 

Reading continues to be an extremely important part of your child's learning. We take part in Guided Group Reading sessions daily.  

                                                                     

We will also be continuing to develop our Welsh language skills through daily Helpwr Heddiw sessions.

Mathematics and Numeracy

In Numeracy this half term, we will be working on area and shape, algebra, measure, multiplication and division. We will build on our knowledge of written calculations. We will continue to use Doodle Maths regularly.  Please encourage the children to use this regularly at home; it really does make a difference to the children’s confidence and ability in maths. Each maths session will have:

- Engaging warm-ups (Range of Number work or introduction of new skills)

- Concrete learning (Development of Numeracy skills)                 

Times tables games - Learn them all here!

Times Tables Games for 7 to 11 year olds (topmarks.co.uk)

Times tables games and songs 1-12 - BBC Bitesize

Welsh

The Welsh language is very important to us. We encourage both staff and children to use incidental Welsh both inside and outside of the classroom. We enjoy our daily Helpwr Heddiw sessions to support children in learning new phrases by playing fun Welsh games. 
This term we will be focusing on 'Hamdden' (Leisure).

Modern Foreign Languages

MFL is under review at the moment. It is a section of the 'Languages Connect Us' in our Literacy Curriculum.

Internet Safety

At St Mellons, we promote the use of 'SMART' rules, as we know how important it is to stay safe online.

Please encourage your children to use these 'SMART' rules at home too. 

For more information please visit https://hwb.gov.wales/zones/online-safety/key-information/primary-learners/ 

Jigsaw and PSHE

 

The Curriculum for Wales is now a statutory requirement since September 2022 for all schools in Wales. It has a key role to play in helping children and young people navigate the world safely. Welsh Government wants education to help our children to develop as healthy, confident individuals, ready for the next chapter in their life after school. Relationships and Sexuality Education (RSE) encompasses the knowledge, skills, dispositions and values that will empower learners to:

• support their health and well-being

• develop healthy, safe and fulfilling relationships of all kinds, including those with family and friends, and in time, romantic and sexual relationships

• navigate and make sense of how relationships, sex, gender and sexuality shape their own and other people’s identities and lives

• understand and support their rights and those of others to enjoy equitable, safe, healthy and fulfilling relationships throughout their lives.

Please click here for more information curriculum-for-wales-relationships-sexuality-education-code.pdf (gov.wales) 

Healthy Schools

 

We are very proud to be promoting a healthy school. We encourage all children to eat healthy during snack and lunch times. 

We are able to provide snack for your children in school at a daily cost of £2 per week / £14 per term. Please pay via ParentPay.

Please ensure that your child has a labelled bottle in school daily, containing water only. We have fresh drinking water fountains, where the children can refill their bottles.

For advice on how to make a healthy packed lunch, please visit: https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes/ 

Active Travel

WOW is a pupil-led initiative where children self-report how they get to school every day using the interactive WOW Travel Tracker. If they travel sustainably (walk, cycle or scoot) once a week for a month, they get rewarded with a badge. It's that easy!

Please support us on our Active Travel mission by encouraging your child to walk, cycle or scoot to school, or use Park and Stride. This will help keep our bodies healthy and help reduce our carbon footprint!

Picture News

                     

During our worship time on Mondays, we have been discussing Picture News, challenging ourselves to use new, ambitious vocabulary to describe our feelings and opinions. We have been learning about current news, topics and events. 

Useful Links

Practice maths for 10 minutes a day on Doodle Maths to make great progress.

Click here to visit the Times Tables Rock Stars site to practice your tables....  who's going to be the first Rock Hero in your class?  Practice your maths skills by playing against other children all over the world. 

Reading books: every child has a reading book from our library and they may take them home to read.  Home reading books can be changed whenever necessary. 

Ask your teacher for your HWB password.  On Hwb you can...

• access Google Classroom
• access your personal Hwb email
• use online Microsoft software (Word, Excel, Powerpoint etc)
• use J2e
• and much, much more.

Practise coding skills on Scratch

Multiplication Grid Game

Hit the Button

https://hwb.gov.wales - Hwb Collection of online tools provided to all schools in Wales by the Welsh Government

https://www.purplemash.com - award winning cross curricular website for  primary school children. It enables children to explore and enhance their knowledge in a fun and creative way.

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ - Great online games for curriculum areas

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/levels/zbr9wmn - BBC Bitesize

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html - Lots of online games linked to different areas of the curriculum

https://www.learn-welsh.net/welshgames - Online Welsh games

https://corbettmathsprimary.com/5-a-day/ - Corbett Maths - 5-a-day Challenges

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/ - White Rose Maths - Reasoning Challenges

Explore rivers - BBC Bitesize

 

Meet the Teacher 2024:

mrs xiberras meet the teacher 2024.pdf