Weekly News 3rd - 7th November

Welcome back after a well deserved rest. We hope you all had a great mid-term break and are ready to start where we left off, with lots of hard work and fun! We start our second unit of inquiry this week , A World of Trade, which promises to be another busy unit.

Reflections – 20th – 24th October
The children well and truly earned a week’s rest following the last week of our first unit of inquiry Vote for Me. Lots of children, parents and teachers assembled for the Year 6 Election Day on Thursday, 23rd October and were treated to a lot of persuasive and passionate speeches from the 10 party leaders, all vying for the votes of the electorate (photos of the day can be found on the class blog). Congratulations to all the children who worked so hard on their campaigns. Well done! Thank you also to the parents who attended the elections and supported the children throughout the unit. The hard work now begins for the winning political parties The Improvers and The Smartie Party who must now turn their attention to following through with their election promises. Stay tuned!

Weekly News: 3rd —7th November

Unit of Inquiry
We now begin work on our second unit of inquiry A World of Trade. The central idea to this unit is that people trade to gain what they need and desire.

The unit will see the children inquire into:
• the reasons why trade has evolve
• the ways in which trading makes people interdependent
• issues of fairness in trading.

The four teacher questions that will guide our inquiry are:
1. Why do people trade?
2. How does trade influence people’s lives?
3. How can we be responsible consumers?
4. What has value?

During the first week of our unit we will begin familiarising the students with the central idea and the main concepts of the unit. We will start with a role play activity based on a community in Papua New Guinea that still relies on barter as the main source of trade, examining the advantages and disadvantages of bartering as a form of trade. At the end of the week we will be asking the children to bring in any items from home that they would like to trade as part of our own Trading Day. It is important to note that whatever the children decide to bring in to school on this day must be something they (and their parents) are willing to part with permanently! Alternatively, children may decide to offer a service that they could use in trade negotiations.

Mathematics
This week the children will revise and complete work on mental and written strategies for subtraction. On Wednesday, during maths groups, the children will be tested on their knowledge and understanding of both mental and written strategies for addition and subtraction. We will also revise data handling concepts covered so far in the year, such as graphing, recording and interpreting data. As money will be a major focus throughout our current unit, we will also begin to revise and introduce basic money concepts this week and in the weeks ahead. A big focus will be on adding, subtracting and multiplying amounts of money (up to 2 decimal points).

English
During our second unit we will continue to consolidate and develop persuasive writing and speaking skills. However, the main focus throughout the unit will be on convincing others to purchase particular products and services (from the point of view of advertisers and suppliers). We will once again resume our reading groups this week and will focus on the history of trading, particularly in early history where barter and more traditional forms of trade existed. We will continue to revise and focus on using correct grammar and punctuation in our written work this week, particularly in relation to full stops and capital letters (especially in the case of proper nouns).

What can I do to help?
• Don’t forget to check the class blogs to find links to sites that will support your child in their class work. Look for the A World of Trade link in the Unit of Inquiry menu box to find great websites and information for you and your child.
• Make sure your child is doing the required homework each night. Remember the recommended amount of homework is 40 minutes plus leisure reading - children do need time to rest and play. If your child is unable to do the required homework, please notify your child’s teacher in your child’s student diary. As was the case before mid-term break, those students who have clearly rushed their work and not completed their homework to an acceptable standard will not have their work marked.

Upcoming Events and Reminders:
• Tomorrow (Tuesday, 4 November) is school photo day for Year 6. Please make sure that your child has their full school uniform on this day. For those students that have PE on Tuesday, children will need to make sure that they change into their full school uniform during break time. Year 6G will have their photos taken during period 6 while Year 6B will have their photos taken during period 7.
Students are invited to buy a box of attractive Christmas cards (20 cards for 10 Euros. The cards include envelopes. 4 Euros of the money will go to the school and 6Euros will go to a school in Soweto in South Africa.)

With thanks,
David Barrett, David Gocentas and Ms Isabel Costa Pereira