Asst. Principal for Year 6 Carmen Sacco Alamanda College Principal Lyn Jobson

YEAR 6 CURRICULUM OVERVIEWTERM 3 2019

PYP EXHIBITION

AN INQUIRY INTO MATHEMATICS

The PYP Exhibition is an important and exciting milestone in Grade Six. It represents a culmination of each student’s primary years of schooling, specifically their time in the Primary Years Programme. The Exhibition is an opportunity for our students to look back on the knowledge, skills, experiences and understandings that they have gathered during primary school and harness their areas of personal expertise and curiosity to develop their own unit of inquiry that gives a true representation of each individual as a learner.

This year’s Grade Six cohort carry the additional history of being the first to include students who have spent their entire schooling lives here at Alamanda. This is a moment to celebrate as these students will reflect on their growth and how it has mirrored that of our school.

Over the past few weeks, we have been asking students to reflect on their previous inquiries and identify the learning experiences that have stood out and stuck with them long after the lessons have ended. Students should be considering exactly what type of learner they are and in which areas they are most engaged.

To tune into the exhibition, our students will work with their teachers to reflect on the five essential elements of the PYP and how we use them to construct meaningful, challenging and engaging units of inquiry. Through their investigation of what it means to show the skills, concepts, knowledge, attitudes and action of the PYP, the Grade Six students will consider how their prior learning experiences have equipped them to learn in any context.

Our students will then reflect on and explore the six Transdisciplinary Themes of the PYP and consider the range of real-world community issues that we can connect to each theme. Students’ curiosity and interest in these issues and themes will form the basis of their exhibition groupings.

Once each group has been arranged, they will work with their facilitating teachers to plan their own units of inquiry, specifically tailored to their learning preferences. In this process, students will write their own Central Idea and Lines of Inquiry, essentially taking over the role from their teachers! The Grade Six students will consider how best they will learn and make an action plan to keep in control of their own inquiry learning throughout the rest of the term.

The Exhibition will build towards the last week of Term 3, in which we will invite families and the broader school community to view and celebrate the products of all the hard work. There’s a lot of hard work to come between now and then, but we can’t wait to get started!

Content Specific Links Students will be inquiring into their own personal areas of interest. This may lead them down the path of Science, Humanities, or the Arts. Student learning will take place across all areas of learning as they inquire into relevant links to language and mathematics within their own inquiry. This will look different for each student as they use their agency to unlock new pathways of learning within their own exhibition.

In Year 6 students take part in a meaningful inquiry into Mathematics. Using an Inquiry-Based Learning approach, students will be given the opportunity to apply all they have learnt in their years within the Primary Years Programme (PYP). This approach fosters an environment where students become active participates within their learning. They are able to participate in teacher-guided discovery of areas that are relevant to their individual needs, empowering each student to develop into independent and life-long learners.

YEAR 6 SPECIALIST SUBJECTS

PHYSICAL EDUCATION

The Level 6 curriculum supports students to develop knowledge, understanding and skills to create opportunities and take action to enhance their own and others’ health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation. Students develop skills to manage their emotions, understand the physical and social changes that are occurring for them and examine how the nature of their relationships changes over time.

The content provides opportunities for students to contribute to building a positive school environment that supports healthy, safe and active choices for everyone. They also explore a range of factors and behaviours that can influence health, safety and wellbeing.

In Physical Education this year, Grade 6 students will participate in the Sport Education Physical Education Program (SEPEP). During this program students will aim to develop their teamwork, leadership and strategic thinking qualities through a range of different sports. Students complete a Basketball and a netball tournament in term 3. Good thinking and communication skills will be critical for their team’s success during these units. Students will reflect on their performances to highlight their strengths and weaknesses and to make changes accordingly.

Throughout every PE lesson, students are expected to display the PYP learner profiles and attitudes to ensure that each student takes responsibility for their own learning and is respectful to the learning of others. We encourage all students to be risk-takers, inquirers, open-minded, effective communicators, caring and reflective during PE.

At Alamanda College, we aim for maximum participation in PE and ask for students to bring a drink bottle to all PE classes. If your child cannot participate in a PE lesson, then please send them to their PE teacher with a signed note outlining the reason for their non-participation.

Thank you,

PE Team

AN INQUIRY INTO LANGUAGE

The benefits of using an Inquiry-Based Learning approach include:

• Student centred learning• Curriculum driven by students

interests and questions, based around their individual needs

• Students are empowered by playing an active role where they determine how class time is spent, initiate communication and take responsibility for their learning

• Focus on the development of conceptual knowledge rather than skill acquisition

• Improved student engagement with Mathematics

• Strong focus on problem solving and the use of critical and creative thinking

• Links to real-world application

Our first Unit of Inquiry into Mathematics for semester two will be focused on the topic of Statistics and Probability as students construct their meaning of probability and work towards applying their understanding in a real-life context. Students will take control of their learning as they set goals, with support of their teachers, to improve themselves in a specific area of Probability. Students will be encouraged to apply their knowledge of the Inquiry Cycle in making relevant connections between Mathematics and the world in which they live. This practice will be closely linked with a strong reflective process as students continue to learn to articulate their new understandings within their learning journey.

In addition to the links to language and literacy made through the Grade 6 Exhibition, students will focus on building their reading comprehension through an author study of the works of Shaun Tan. Tan’s work will challenge and delight the Grade Six students as they dive into his unique worlds of wonder and creativity. Students will be encouraged to use texts such as ‘The Lost Thing’, ‘Tales From Outer Suburbia’ and ‘The Rabbits’ to draw connections between fiction and the real world and understand the importance of representing our inner lives through abstract expression.

The Grade Six students’ reading will also be expanded with the use of the ‘Four

Resources Model’ for comprehending and responding to selected non-fiction texts. Using this model, students will engage with the ‘four roles of the reader’ to build a multi-dimensional and flexible approach to understanding and making meaning from any given text.

These four roles are as follows:• Text Decoder, in which students

consider how the author’s choices relating to vocabulary and text features enhance a text

• Text User, in which students consider the purpose and genre of a text

• Text Participant, in which students make literal and inferential meanings from a text

• Text Analyst, in which students consider the connections between a text and the wider world

Highly effective readers make use of all of four of these roles in combination and students will be encouraged to practise their ability to identify how these tools can be put to use in different contexts.

To build their reading fluency and their capacity to discuss and debate texts, Grade Six students will also work in their literacy circles, exploring a range of rich and engaging texts with their peers.

If you have any questions, queries or concerns, please do not hesitate to contact your child’s classroom teacher. With parental support and partnership, we look forward to a positive and productive year ahead!

Kind Regards,

The Year 6 TeamCarmen Sacco (Assistant Principal), Tiffany Baldacchino, Patrick Nelson, Carin Shiell, Victoria Lang, Heidi Spies, Anthony T, Breannan Beattie and Jess McArdle.

YEAR 6 SPECIALIST SUBJECTS

ART

In Art, students will experience visual arts from artists - locally and globally, now and in the past, by men and women, and by people of different backgrounds. This term, they will be introduced to artwork from distant locations and will create artworks in response to Asian Arts and culture. The inquiry for Term Three is based around our central idea ‘Art connects to culture, history, people and places’.

Grade 6 students will create artworks inspired by Chinese contemporary artist Ai Weiwei. They will begin the unit by conducting their own research and viewing informative videos and interviews about the artist, including the ‘Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn’ 1995/2004. As a result, students will gain an understanding of how the artist expresses his social and political views through artmaking and understand his role as an activist. They will have the opportunity to ask questions about the artist and his artworks, continuing to develop curiosity for the arts. Students will use Thinking Routines including Perceive, Know, Understand in order to ask questions such as ‘What might the artist care about?’ and ‘What might be the purpose of this artwork?’.

As a part of the artmaking process, students will draw inspiration from Ai Weiwei’s 3D installation work where he incorporates everyday objects with a strong use of repetition. Students will work with armature wire to explore different wire techniques and investigate different ways to create and join shapes.

Ai Weiwei’s Forever Bicycles 2014,(1254 bicycles) will inspire the creation of individual wire bicycle sculptures. They will be suspended and displayed together to create a collaborative artwork at the Alamanda Art Show at the end of Term 3. Students will combine the art elements of line, shape, repetition and space in their own unique ways, exploring the possibilities of what a bicycle can be. They will reflect on their previous skills and knowledge of working with wire to inform their decision making and design process.

Along with the PYP learner profile, students will learn to take responsibility for the care of tools and materials and for their own and others’ safety in the

LANGUAGE

This term in LOTE, the students will have the opportunity, through their inquiry into, “Folktales Can Be Told in Many Ways for Different Purposes”, to explore the ways in which we discover and express ideas, feelings, nature, culture, beliefs and values; the ways in which we reflect on, extend and enjoy our creativity; and our appreciation of the aesthetic.

During Term Three, the Grade Six students develop their inquiry and critical thinking skills into Folktales and Fairy tales. They further develop their comparing, evaluating and creative skills while gaining more confidence in expanding their vocabulary and extending their knowledge using more complex sentence structures such as: “why(wèi shénme为什么？), how (zěnme le怎么了? zhěnme yang怎么样？), where (nǎlǐ哪里？), the use of idioms, “out of breath” (qìchuǎn xīxī气喘嘻嘻) and “bitterly” (bí qīng liǎn zhǒng鼻青脸肿), adverbs and adjectives such as, “fast, slow, happy, scared, worried” (kuài快, màn慢, gāoxìng高兴, hàipà害怕, dāxīn担心) prepositions, “in, on, at” (zài在), conjunctions such as, “because, although,

Art environment. Students will be open-minded to new concepts and ideas and be courageous when challenged with new skills and techniques.I look forward to continuing this creative journey with your child at Alamanda.Kind regards,Miss Wacker

not only …but also” (yīnwéi…suǒyǐ因为…所以; suīràn…dànshì虽然…但是), bùjǐn…érqiě不仅 …而且) and verbs etc. They develop the skills to confidently and independently use online Chinese video learning programs to create their own imaginative work pieces, which leads to researching, and creating a script on “Lady Cháng É Ascending to the Moon (cháng é bēn yuè嫦娥奔月) ”. The students have learnt how to relate the story of “Chicken Little (小鸡的故事xiǎo jī de gùshì)”. In Term Three, they will perform the story by using gestures and working in groups, drawing on Key Concepts of Communications, Connections and Culture.

Practising the writings of Chinese characters, and comparing the similarities and differences between strokes, radicals and characters is essential in Chinese language study. The students will further enhance their skills to improve the tones and accent in pronunciation and make an effort to remember the words and use them in sentence and story creation. Topics include days and dates, complex number, animals, sports, body parts, ordinal words, places, fruits, verbs such as, “fall (diào掉), run (pǎo跑), go (qù去), tell (gàosù告诉), hit (dǎ打), know (zhīdào知道), have (yǒu有)”; negative words such as, “not (bù不, méi没)” ; pronouns such as “I (wǒ我), you (nǐ你), it (tā它), he(tā他), and she(tā她)”; adjectives, adverbs and exclamation words such as, “oh, wow (àyà哎呀!,à啊!), ending word such as, “le了” and sentence structure such as, “This is (zhè shì这是)...;

SCIENCE

The Year 6 science curriculum will allow students to continue their chemical science journey by recognising questions that can be investigated scientifically. Students will explore how changes can be classified in different ways. They will identify the difference between physical and chemical change. Students will recap on the changes to materials that can be reversible, including melting, freezing, evaporating. Then focus on irreversible reactions, including burning and rusting.

Students in Year Six will be using a range of instruments and electronically generated sounds to create effects. The elements of music will be unpacked in detail and they will further develop their skills in reading music and how expression is added in sheet music. They will improve their technical skills through the chance to improvise, arrange and compose new material for a certain purpose. They will increase their musicianship by Performing new material in bands and refine their approach through the exploration and analysis of various genres of music and of different cultures and how certain concepts and feelings have been communicated within this repertoire.

Our focus for the year will revolve around our ability to thrive and how it can be influenced by human endeavour and ethical thinking. In particular, we will focus on certain artists that would be known as legends in their field and how they began from humble beginnings and developed their artistry to be the person they are today.

We will be using our PYP Learner Profiles to further our students’ skills as Knowledgeable with the new information discover in our lessons as well as reflective through the song writing process and accepting positive and constructive criticism to help produce a composition that the student is proud of.

MUSIC

That is (nà shì那是)….”, for introductions.

Cultural aspects include Mid-Autumn Festival and its myths and legends. Chinese songs include, “The Moon Represent My Heart” (yuèliàng dài biǎowǒ dexīn月亮代表我的心), Old McDonald Had a Farm, (wáng lǎo xiānshēng yǒu kuài dì王老先生有块地), Clapping Hands Happily, (xìng fú pāi shǒu gē幸福拍手歌). During the course, the students will concentrate on communicative, creative, organisation and self-management skills throughout their approaches to learning. They will apply the IB learner profile for personal development and social skills, aiming at being internationally – minded.

Experimentally identify evidence that a physical change has taken place by looking at change in shape or form, expansion and contraction, changes of state and mixing. Then identify evidence that a chemical change has taken place. Students will be able to explain how chemical change involves substances reacting to form new substances and investigate simple reactions. Finally, students will explain how the chemical properties of a substance will affect its use and explore how reversible changes can be used to recycle materials.