Upper Key Stage 2

As our children move into Upper Key Stage 2, our ambitious and nurturing curriculum continues; ensuring that all children leave Hillcroft equipped with the knowledge, skills and cultural capital to succeed in their next phase of education. 

In Year 5 and 6, reading lessons continue to focus on developing children’s fluent expressive reading, improving understanding of language within a text as well as developing a deeper understanding and comprehension of what children read.  Weekly Book Talk lessons continue in Years 5 and 6 and foster a love of reading and provide opportunities to discuss a whole class novel. Each Book Talk session is layered with open-ended whole class questions to tackle the three layers of the reading rainbow. Book Talk is structured with three reasons to read. The reasons to read are taken from ‘The Reading Rainbow’: these are the FANTASTIC, STYLISTIC AND ANALYTIC layers and they are designed to support all aspects of reading.  More information can be found here.

Our Writing curriculum continues to progress in Years 5 and 6 to ensure that skills are being revisited, embedded and built upon, creatively using The Write Stuff approach.  Lessons allow children to discuss and share vocabulary, with teachers modelling specific techniques to allow children to develop and practise these skills before moving on to plan and write their own.  The final part of the teaching sequence, allows children to reflect on their writing.  All writing is taught through a thoughtfully chosen text, which engages children and further promotes their love of English.  Children are provided with plenty of opportunities to practise these skills across the other areas of the curriculum.  We continue to use the RWInc, Spelling programme to ensure that phonetic knowledge is continually revisited and spellings are taught in a consistent and systematic manner.  

The Maths curriculum at Hillcroft Primary School follows the pedagogy of Teaching for Mastery. Children at Hillcroft learn through the explicit teaching of small steps, operating under one learning objective. Within this, mathematical, conceptual knowledge is deepened through effective questioning. The children are exposed to a range of resources to support their learning, including practical activities, pictorial and abstract problems to develop a secure understanding of mathematical procedures. The children are encouraged to develop their learning further, through their reasoning explanations and activities - the answer is just the beginning.  Children’s Times Tables learning is supported through the use of Times Tables Rockstars.  

Our topic-based wider curriculum develops skills and knowledge progressively taught year-on-year. Each topic is carefully selected to engage the children and cover the National Curriculum objectives for each subject.  Where appropriate, their learning is strengthened through engaging and memorable experiences and opportunities which are documented through each child’s individual Enrichment Learning Journal - to celebrate in years to come.  In Year 5, children are taught swimming as part of their PE curriculum and in Year 6 children have the opportunity to take part in a Residential Trip, as well as preparing for the end of year Production.

To see the available clubs offered to KS2 children, please follow this link: http://www.hillcroftschool.org/30/clubs 

Our Year 5 team is:

Class  Teacher	Class Name
Miss Mayhew	Larch
Mr Walker	Aspen

The Learning Assistants across Year 5 are: Mrs Matthews, Mrs Chappell and Mrs Rouse.

Our Year 6 team is:

Class  Teacher	Class Name
Miss Moss	Oak
Mrs Page	Acer

The Learning Assistant in Year 6 are: Miss Kolodziejczak and Mr Swierzewski.

For the current topics in Years 5 and 6 please see the Whole School Curriculum page.