Bitterne Manor Primary School

Y6 Kestrels

🦅 Welcome to KEEN KESTRELS!

Dear BMPS Families,

A very warm welcome to our Year 6 – Keen Kestrels class page!

Here you’ll find everything you need to know about life in Year 6, including our curriculum topics, daily routines and key expectations. Year 6 is a special and significant year — children step into leadership roles across the school, prepare for SATs and secondary transition, and grow enormously in confidence, independence and maturity.

If you have any questions at all, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are really looking forward to working in partnership with you this year and supporting your children as they soar through their final year at primary school.

Kind regards,
Mr Abbott (and Mrs Southwick)

🌟 A Day in the Life of a Keen Kestrel

A day in the life of a Keen Kestrel...

Our school day runs from 8:30am to 3:20pm.

8:30am – Gates open. Children enter through the class door and begin early morning activities.
8:45am – Assembly.
9:00am – Maths.
10:00am – Guided Reading.
10:45am – Snack and break time.
11:00am – English.
12:00pm – Lunch.
1:00pm – Registration and ERIC (Everybody Reading in Class).
1:15pm – Foundation subjects (e.g. Science, History, Geography, Art, Computing, PE, RE, PSHE).
3:00pm – Whole class story and reflection.
3:20pm – Home time.

Year 6 lessons are designed to stretch and challenge pupils, encouraging deeper thinking, independence and strong study habits. We also focus heavily on resilience, organisation and preparing children for the transition to secondary school.

🌟 Helpful Reminders

P.E. Day: Monday – children should come to school wearing their P.E. kit.
Please bring a clearly labelled water bottle daily.
Ensure all uniform is labelled with your child’s full name.
Children may bring a healthy snack for morning break if they wish.

💬 Communication & Celebration

We use Class Dojo to award reward points and recognise effort, positive attitudes and excellent achievements. Stories are shared regularly with photos of the fantastic learning taking place in our classroom, so you can see your child in action and stay up to date with important messages. Please check Dojo frequently.

A little look at our classroom....

🏠 Helping at Home

📖 Reading

Continue to encourage your child to read widely and regularly. This could include:

Bug Club books
Library books
Books from home
Newspapers, magazines, websites and information texts

Try discussing what they are reading:

What did you enjoy about this text?
Was there anything you disliked? Why?
Did you notice any themes, patterns or connections?
How did the author create a particular effect?

Reading aloud to your child (even in Year 6) still has huge benefits — it models expression, vocabulary and sentence structure that feeds directly into their writing.

✍️ Writing

Encourage children to write for different purposes — stories, letters, reports or even creative projects. Before they begin, talk through their ideas and how they plan to structure their work. Afterwards, ask them to reflect:

Did your writing have the impact you wanted?
What worked well?
What would you improve?

Developing reflection skills now will greatly support them in secondary school.

➗ Maths

Fluent times tables are still essential in Year 6. Regular practice on Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) helps build speed and confidence, which supports many areas of the maths curriculum.

💻 Home Learning & Online Resources

Children are expected to read daily. They can also consolidate learning through:

Bug Club (online reading)
TTRS (times tables practice)
Purple Mash (curriculum-based activities across subjects)

Consistent home support makes a real difference in Year 6 — not just academically, but in building independence and responsibility.

Year 6 is a year of leadership, ambition and preparation for the future. With high expectations, encouragement and strong home–school partnership, our Keen Kestrels will leave primary school confident, capable and ready to take on their next adventure. 🦅✨