This week in Herefordshire 6

Week beginning Monday 13th October:

What a fabulous week we have had in Year 6! In English, we have continued our second book of the half term: ‘On the Move’. This week, we read the poem ‘Skeletons’ which outlines a memory of Michael Rosen’s father when he was living in Berlin. Can you remember what happened? What did he see? We used this poem as inspiration this week, turning the events into our own narratives. What happened in your narrative? What lovely description did you use to describe the city?

In History, we continued our topic: ‘Maafa’. This week, we learned about the Triangular slave trade, can you remember which continents were involved? We learned about what was traded between each of these continents and the long-lasting impact this had on each of the different environments and people who lived there.

In Science, we continued our topic: ‘Circulatory System’. This week, we learned how to measure our pulse rate from different areas of the human body. We focussed on three areas where it is possible to take your pulse: your radial pulse, carotid pulse and brachial pulse. Can you remember where you can find these on your body? We discussed the importance of reliability when taking measurements and how to calculate heart rate when we measure our pulse for less than a minute. Explain to your adult how we did this. Can you remember what your average resting heart rate was?

In Geography this week, we circled back to a topic that we studied in-depth at the start of the year: Climate Change. We learned about the different weather patterns across the world and discussed the impact of these patterns for the people and animals who live in each area. Can you remember what extreme weather events we looked at? Which countries are particularly impacted by these?

We hope you have a fantastic, restful half term and will see you when we’re back on Monday 27^th October.

Mrs Latty and Miss Wright. 

Home Learning

Home learning and spellings will be set each week on a Thursday and will be due in the following Tuesday. 

Half Term Home Learning

In school we have all been exploring our own Spirituality.

Spirituality can be thought of as a personal journey of feeling awe and curiosity, asking big questions about life, reflecting on experiences, and feeling a connection to something greater than ourselves, such as nature, other people, or the world at large. It's not the same as a religion, but rather a deep, personal experience of awe, wonder, and connection to themselves, others, and the world around us.

We have described this at school using the image of a tree:

The trunk and roots: our sense of self, our own Spirituality, what makes me, me!

The leaves: our own faith or belief system, how we live our lives and show our true selves to others.

The flowers and fruit: How we share our beliefs and character with others.

To help the children understand this and share their understanding with you, we would like all the children to find a leaf that they especially like over the half term break. It could be chosen for its colour, shape or just because of where it was found.

This could be a lovely opportunity to take a walk and enjoy the beauty of Autumn as a family. Perhaps the adults in the family could also choose a leaf and discuss what it is that they appreciate about it.

We would like children to note down why they chose their leaf, where they found it and what was enjoyable and special about exploring outside to find it. See below for an example.

Feel free to make this a whole family activity, we are exploring our uniqueness in Spirituality, so are hoping we will see lots of beautiful leaves coming in to school! The met office have predicted a particularly beautiful Autumn after a warm Summer, so enjoy your explorations!

The leaves need to be brought in to school by Wednesday 29^th October 2025 please.

Finding a way to name your child’s leaf would be helpful please, maybe put it in a food bag with their name written on the outside of the bag.

Example:

Spelling

The link below will take you to the spelling scheme we are working from in school.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/english/primary-spelling/

This document contains spelling strategies that are used in class, and can be used at home to aid learning new words:

Southborough's Spelling Strategies

Times Tables Rockstars! 

To keep practising the multiplication skills taught in class, and challenging yourself to keep the ones you already know fresh, don’t forget to log into your Times Tables Rockstars account.

You should be practising for at least 30 minutes a week.

We have a TT Rock Star of the week. Look out to see who the first one is!

https://play.ttrockstars.com/

Rapid recall of multiplication is essential for success in maths and Times Tables Rockstars gives you self-confidence, recognition and motivation to improve.

Challenge yourself to beat your score, build your knowledge and watch your confidence sore, as you become a Rockstar!

Please ask your class teacher if you need replacement log in details.

Reading

Please ensure you hear your child read regularly and record on Boom Reader using the parent app on your tablet/mobile no more than once a week:

boomreader.co.uk/parents

Some helpful questions to ask the children and check their understanding as they read have been pasted below. 

Children should bring their Accelerated Reading book to and from school each day. When they have finished reading their current book, children are asked to complete a quiz before choosing the next one:

https://global-zone61.renaissance-go.com/welcomeportal/6704864

Please note: pupil login details have changed slightly due to an upgrade that has taken place on the Accelerated Reader platform. Pupil login details (user name and password) should now be enter in all lower case (no capital letters at all). These login details are used each time your child quizzes a school reading book which carries an accelerated reading quiz code.