It’s that time of year when year 6 students would usually be making their final preparations for their SATs; they would actually be taking place next week! Although students don’t have any exams to work towards this academic year, it’s really important that they continue to work hard at home, as it can be a huge step up from year 6 to secondary school, especially this year when students could possibly have up to 6 months “off'‘!
Although they may feel that they had put a lot of work into their SATs, this will definitely not go to waste! Anything that they learn in year 6 is then needed when they get to year 7; some schools will begin by recapping some of the topics that they previously studied but they will all begin to build on these topics, whether it’s ratio, algebra, adverbial phrases or their comprehension skills… it is all important for next year!
First of all…maths! All year 6 students will know the importance of reasoning and problem solving; there is a huge emphasis on these in the maths papers (particularly papers 2 and 3). So what is reasoning? There are a variety of questions on the reasoning papers but it’s all about applying your maths knowledge and logical thinking to a question or situation to figure out the outcome.
In English, it’s important to keep on top of all of the grammar that you have learnt, as well as your spellings, writing and reading skills. It may seem like there is a lot to carry on with, but it will help you enormously when you start secondary school, as you won’t feel behind and you will be off to a great start!
At INICIO, we help all of our year 6 students to feel prepared for the challenges ahead by continuing with their own hit-list of topics and getting started with some of the year 7 topics too.
In maths, we begin by recapping all of the key arithmetic skills and revise the use of these in context. Our attention focuses on reasoning skills; making sure that they are ready for, and ahead of, the year 7 autumn term.
In English, we begin by recapping a number of grammatical aspects, such as identifying the parts of speech, as well as using key literary devices in descriptive and creative writing. We also work on a number of shorter length comprehensions, to maintain their ability to locate and retrieve information from within a text with ease, as well as make relevant inferences.
“Thank you so much for all your help, support and encouragement over the past months - we feel Joseph has grown in confidence and know this has been invaluable for him moving on to secondary school. ”
We know that a lot of students feel like they want a break at the moment, after putting so much work in at school in the run-up to what would have been SATs week next week. We can help to keep their confidence and motivation high and continue to improve their maths and English skills, with the guidance and support that is missing when trying to learn or revise alone at home. Just get in touch if you’d like a helping hand :)