Autumn Term 2026
Year 6
"Never stop trying to improve your life, even when things are at their worst."
Street Child by Berlie Doherty
The Victorians were people living during Queen Victoria's reign (1837–1901), a time of unprecedented industrial growth, technological innovation, and vast expansion of the British Empire. This era was marked by dramatic social change, with rapid urbanization leading to both great prosperity for some and harsh living and working conditions for the working class, especially children. Despite societal inequalities, the period also saw significant progress in areas like education, public health, and the arts, laying foundations for modern society. Over the course of this topic the children will look at the impact the Victorian era has had on the UK and the wider world.
English
This term in Year 6, children will explore a wide range of writing genres. Some writing opportunities will be linked to our topic work, while others will draw upon recent experiences and events that are meaningful and relevant to the children. There will be a strong focus on developing and applying ambitious Key Stage 2 vocabulary, alongside subject-specific technical vocabulary connected to our curriculum topics.
Pupils will continue to embed and refine their grammar, punctuation and spelling skills, ensuring they showcase these confidently across all pieces of writing. We will also encourage children to consider their intended audience and purpose when writing, helping them make effective choices as writers. In addition, children will be taught specific editing techniques to enable them not only to identify and correct errors, but also to improve and enhance the overall quality of their work.
We will be starting a new historical adventure story this half term; Street Child by Berlie Doherty and will be reading this to support our topic. We will also have other short texts to be used as our guided reading texts. Within guided reading, we will continue to work on our vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising skills.
Mathematics
We will begin Autumn term by looking at place value and number, building on work done in the same area throughout the previous years. From there, we will move into the four operations of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, finalising our understanding of methods we will take into secondary school.
After that comes two units on fractions which will explore the different ways we can use the four operations with fractions, use them in word problems and compare them with percentages and decimals. The term finishes with a measurement week looking at converting units.
Any children still unsure of any of their times tables are encouraged to practise on Times Tables Rock Stars as this secure knowledge is key for the maths curriculum this year.
Understanding the World
This term the children will be exploring the historical inventions and industrial changes in the Victorian era and learning all about light. They will learn about Victorian history, compare modern schooling to Victorian schooling, learn about famous inventors and inventions from the Victorian era and see just how much life has changed.
The aim of topic lessons in Year 6 is to provide children with memorable and engaging learning, opportunities to extend their learning and provide a variety of different ways for children to achieve.
This term the children will also take their learning outside of school as they will visit Hampton Gardens for a ‘light’ themed workshop, to complement our topic on Friday 2nd October and more details will follow soon.
In RE, the children are going to begin their unit of Judaism. They will begin by exploring the symbols and holy text within Judaism. We will then prepare for a visitor in Autumn 2.
Expressive Arts and Design
This half term in Year 6, the children will be continuing to embed their knowledge of colour theory and painting. They will use Primary and Secondary colours to make Tertiary colours and explore how to create beautiful colours by keeping colour recipes to refer to in their sketchbooks. They will also improve their knowledge of mark making using a variety of paintbrushes of different sizes, to create beautiful paintings.
In Music, the children will begin their year by taking part in a very exciting music project, known as Finish This..., a project run by the English National Opera. Children will be developing a variety of musical skills, including composing and performing.
Personal Development
In PE in Upper KS2, children will continue to apply the multi-sport skills they have been learning in Lower KS2 to a variety of different sports. This will expand the children's understanding of the rules for different sports and look for opportunities to transfer skills across sports. In addition to this, children will begin to use aspects of teamwork, feedback and resilience to improve outcomes in sport.
Our PE lessons will take place on Tuesdays and Fridays.
This term in PSHE, Year 6 will focus on Citizenship and Family & Friends. Pupils will explore the importance of good manners, listening respectfully to the views and opinions of others, and understanding how to behave safely and responsibly online. Through discussions and practical activities, children will develop their understanding of how to be positive, active members of their community while building strong, supportive relationships with family and friends.
Computing
Inspired by our topic, the children will be using Really Composer to create an interactive scene. The children will follow the DARES process of design, apply, refine, evaluate and share to do this.
Modern Foreign Languages – French
We will continue to welcome Mrs Amos, our specialist languages teacher, to deliver our French lessons.
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