Aspen class

Our teaching team:

Class teacher- Miss Alice Hunt

Class teaching assistants: Mrs Cooper (HLTA- am), Mrs Tonkin-McLeod (am), Miss Noyes (pm)

Class overview:

Hello and welcome to Aspen class webpage!

Aspen class is the year 6 class of Old Buckenham Primary school. In Aspen class we understand the importance of celebrating the achievements of our pupils as they approach their final months of Primary School as well as supporting them in their transition into High School We understand that this is a daunting time for many and therefore are commited to making this transition as smooth as possible. In ensuring this, we work closely with all selected high schools and include a positive focus on transition in the Summer term. Further information regarding transition will be provided following High School selections later on in the year.

Our class team feel that the most important aspect in having a successful final year at Primary School is to develop strong relationships with children and their families, allowing them to open up about any concerns or worries they may have. We always strive to celebrate achievements in Aspen class- no matter how big or small! This is also replicated in our whole school environment where childrens work is frequently applauded in our special mention and values assemblies.

We follow the National Curriculum as a starting point for our learning, but we are constantly looking for ways to enhance children's understanding and learning as well as adapting work to fit the individual needs of our children. In year 6, we encourage our children to be as independent as possible. This is implemented through provided our children with the knowledge, skill and resources they need to independently apply themselves. Our curriculum for each half term is outlined in our class newsletters which you will see attached on our class page.

The 'Old Buck' way:

Embedded within our school ethos is the mantra: 'Ready, Respectful and Safe'. These three words are taught throughout all parts of our curriculum and are at the heart of our whole school approach. Our children should expect to hear this language frequently from all staff members and as a result we have seen children becoming more confident to be able to talk about these words and understand what they mean, giving real-life examples for each of them!

Our Values:

At Old Buckenham, we also have 5 core values which we teach our children explicitly throughout our curriculum. 

These values are:

               Respect                 Honesty                Communication              Teamwork              Resilience

We have a whole school approach to these values, focusing on one each half term whilst still making frequent reference to each of the values during our lessons. Our half-termly value is celebrated every Tuesday in a Key Stage 2 assembly, where a child who has embodied the value in a particular way is awarded a certificate from our Headteacher (Mrs Mitchell).

Our curriculum:

In Aspen class we use the National Curriculum for England as a starting point and then implement various schemes to best support the delivery of each subject.

English writing- In our writing lessons we use The Write Stuff by Jane Considine to guide our teaching. The combines experience days, sentence stacking and a clear independent writing sequence to enable children to extend their writing and make progress.

English reading- We follow a whole class reading approach to teach a variety of texts across the year. We use these lessons to teach the fundamentals of reading comprehension, from retrieval to inference and sequencing. We aim to use a broad range of texts from War Horse to Zlata's Diary, Dirty beasts and Investigating the Victorians. 

Maths- In Maths, we use White Rose maths as the fundamental start of our maths teaching. We teach in block units to support embedding of concepts. To improve fluency, we frequently recap key knowledge and skills with a main focus on times tables. 

Science- We use PLAN matrices to deliver our science. This scheme has a core focus on imrpoving working scienfically skills alongside developing scientific knowledge.

Further support:

To try and support your children further we will continue running SATs booster sessions. These are as follows and are run on a invite basis: 

Reading- Wednesday AM

Maths- Wednesday PM

SPaG- Thursday PM

We encourage you to continue to support your children with their learning at home. Here are some useful links for you to use.

Times table rockstars: Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com)

Spelling Shed: Spelling Shed - Spelling Shed - The Science of Spelling

Boom Reader: BoomReader — The Digital Reading Record

Crystal Explorers: KS2 English free game - Grammar, spelling and punctuation for primary school pupils - Crystal Explorers - BBC Bitesize

Class Email Address: year6@obps.set.education

To support our ongoing partnership, we want to strengthen our communication with you. Therefore, we have a class email address in place. This is another method whereby you can get in touch with us to discuss anything important with us.

Year 6 SATs