Mathematics and English Transition Units

1. Mathematics and English Transition Units Training session NationalLiteracy and NumeracyStrategies

2. Objectives • To introduce the Year 6 mathematics and English transition Units • To set out the purposes of the units • To explain the next steps for children as they enter Year 7

3. Structure of session • Introduction and overview (10 minutes) • Review of mathematics unit (30 minutes) • Review of English unit (30 minutes) • Next steps and summary (5 minutes)

4. Why have transition units? • Maintain progress to the end of KS2 • Create and sustain pupils’ interests • Supplement existing assessment information and involve pupils • Provide opportunities for pupils to demonstrate what they know, understand and can do when they transfer to Year 7

5. Why have transition units? • Offer pupils curriculum continuity and similar teaching approaches • Help teachers plan for and maintain progression • Transfer work with pupils who can develop their early success • Teachers can identify strengths and weaknesses to inform planning

6. Are these units needed? • Initiatives exist to strengthen transition and have helped smooth pupils’ transfer • Local projects have had a positive impact on curriculum continuity • Units are linked to the National Strategies and the Frameworks that most schools use to plan mathematics and English • Units promote a common approach in Years 6 and 7

7. What are the units? • Taught towards end of summer term • Mathematics unit provides work for one week • English unit provides work for two weeks

8. What are common features? • Maintain lesson structures of DML and LH • Sustain common teaching approaches • Stimulate thinking and imagination • Consolidate and apply skills and knowledge to • solve problems, reason and self-assess • deepen understanding and engagement with text and authors’ use of structure and language

9. Mathematics Unit

10. What is the Mathematics Unit? • Entitled: Calculation and problem solving • Five linked lessons with objectives from Framework’s Year 6 teaching programme • Resources and OHTs provided • Unit 9 of summer term Year 6 pilot Unit Plans

11. What is the focus of the Mathematics Unit? • Solving problems using the four operations and different calculation strategies • Developing children’s communication and reasoning skills • Setting problems that are followed up in the Year 7 mathematics Unit

12. What is the structure of the unit? • Each lesson begins with an oral and mental starter that leads into the main teaching activity • Emphasis is on direct, interactive teaching with full involvement of children • Plenary sessions review pupils’ learning and contain self-assessment tasks

13. What is the purpose of the mathematics unit? • To establish continuity in teaching approach between Years 6 and 7 • To engage children in mathematical reasoning and problem solving • To set and maintain high expectations • To provide an assessment profile of pupils for use in Year 7

14. What is in the mathematics unit? • Built around four problems • First problem asks children to imagine using only 3p and 5p coins to make different payments and reason why all payments are possible • Other pair of coins introduced for homework task • Possible extension - why do some pairs of coins work while others do not?

15. What is in the mathematics unit? • Second problem “Hit a Million” transfers letters to numbers to find word values • Draws on pupils’ knowledge of multiplication, introduces prime factors • Possible extension – find words with square values • Covers two lessons and introduces self-assessment sheet to children

16. What is in the mathematics unit? • Third problem asks children how a square cake is shared when cut into squares • Involves division and multiplication of decimals • Leads into discussion infinity and convergence • Possible extension – explore decimal pattern for 1m² cake

17. What is in the mathematics Unit? • Fourth problem asks children to interpret information and find sum collected • Involves calculations and systematic recording • Possible extension – increase each contribution by percentage • Complete self-assessment sheet in plenary

18. A mathematics problem • A bookshop uses only £2 and £5 gift vouchers • How does the shop form packs of vouchers worth £9, £17, £23? • Gordon says: “With £2 and £5 vouchers, packs of any value are possible.” Is Gordon right?

19. How should the mathematics unit be used? • Annotate and modify the daily lesson plans to make them work for your pupils • Prepare support and extension materials • Undertake teaching activities with whole class and keep class together • Use key questions to probe thinking and assess understanding

20. How should the mathematics unit be used? • Generate sharing of ideas and discussion of pupils’ methods • Encourage use of jottings to help thinking • Monitor use of formal methods of calculation • Keep key objectives in mind during plenary

21. English Unit

22. What is the English Unit? • Year 6 Term 3 Units (after the national tests): Poetry, Authors and Texts,Extended Narrative Writing, Impersonal writing • Year 6 Planning Exemplification 3: Extended Narrative Writing • English Transition Units: Authors and Texts

23. What is the rationale behind the English Units? • Application/consolidation • Maintain progress • Extension/deepening • Motivation • Engagement and reinforcing the pleasure of reading

24. What are the English unit’s objectives? • To use a reading journal to raise and refine personal responses to text and prepare for discussion • In the reading journal, the pupils will describe and evaluate the style of a writer by summarising, comparing and contrasting elements across their novels and making connections to and comparisons with another writer/other writers

25. What are the Unit’s objectives? • In composing journal entries, the pupils will use, as appropriate, complex sentences and appropriate technical vocabulary when summarising, comparing and contrasting. • They will also have the opportunity to investigate the language used in novels.

26. Who are the suggested authors and texts? • Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo to be read in the weeks before the Unit • The Suitcase Kid by Jacqueline Wilson to be read during the fortnight of the Unit

27. How are the reading journals used? Favourite part - when Kensuke and Michael rescue the orang-utans Kensuke’s Kingdom I wonder if someone really could survive that long I wanted Kensuke to go back to Japan to look for his family.

28. How are the reading journals used? Did you visit any tropical islands so you could make it realistic Michael Morpurgo Why is the narrator called Michael like you? How did you get the idea of someone living on an island for so long?

29. How are the reading journals used? Dear Aggie I always read your letters page in the paper, and I know my problem might not seem very serious compared with some people’s, but to me it is. My mum and dad split up a while ago, and I take it in turns to stay with them. The trouble is that my mum’s moved in with a man who’s got a daughter my age, which is 10, and I can’t stand her. Andrea has been reading about others’ problems - perhaps hoping to find an answer to her own Complex sentence containing three subordinate clauses to get the information in economically

30. Day 1 planIntroduction to Reading Journals • Shared text, sentence and word level work • Use Ch3 of Kensuke’s Kingdom to introduce idea of log/journal and the range of types of journal entry (Resource sheet A). Introduce the idea of using a reading journal. Briefly show examples of entries from a reading journal (eg sample texts 1, 8, 9) to show how a reading journal can be used. T8 • Independent/guided work • Pupils start their own reading journals by writing two or three comments they would like to make to Michael Morpurgo about any aspect of Kensuke’s Kingdom and two questions they would like to ask him about it. T1, T8

31. Day 1 planIntroduction to Reading Journals • Plenary • Sample pupils’ responses. Focus on and explore a wide range of reactions/ responses T1, T8 • Class novel • Begin reading TheSuitcase Kid to class. • Possible homework suggestions • Pupils begin to read own chosen texts; they record initial comments and questions T1

32. Overview of Y6 Literacy Unit • Pages 1 – 17 planning for Y6 and Y7 • Pages 18 to the end – resources for Y6 and Y7 • Pages 7 and 8 - Y6 plan

33. Next steps and summary

34. Year 7 English Unit • Extends the use of the reading journal • Based on short story by Michael Morpurgo ‘My Father was a Polar Bear’, reproduced in full • Examines relationships • Reinforces work on complex sentences

35. Year 7 Mathematics Unit • Builds on Year 6 Unit’s objectives • Supports approaches to calculation developed in Key Stages 1and 2 • Sets work in similar contexts to that used in Year 6 Unit • Extends work and problems – use of negative numbers in coins problem

36. Next steps into Year 7 • Ensure children’s work and assessments are made available to secondary schools to build on when they use the Y7 Units • Explain to pupils that the work in secondary schools will draw on all they have learned during the Units

37. Summary • Units offer curriculum continuity and progression in two subjects • Units promote similar methods and styles of teaching • Units provide some common additional information to teachers on pupils’ achievements in core subjects