Whether you’re a new teacher with a year 6 classroom (welcome!) or a seasoned educator looking for fresh tips for managing your year 6 crew, you’ve come to the right place. While the seventh year of compulsory education is an exciting time for kids, it can also be an emotional and daunting experience as they get ready to close the chapter on primary school and embark on a new journey into high school.
So, it’s essential for teachers to equip students with the tools they need for the future and tailor the classroom culture to their needs while ensuring it is a memorable year for all.
The Teach Starter teacher squad has put their heads together and developed the essential list of Grade 6 teaching tips to help you and your students feel prepared and supported throughout the year. From ways to help work through stress and anxiety to creating a class time capsule to personal organisation training, read on to find a list of golden ideas for teaching year 6!
Teacher-Approved Year 6 Teaching Tips
Invest in Classroom Air Fresheners and Deodorant
Most Year 6 students are 11 to 12 years old, and that means many are entering a stage of puberty that equals increased perspiration. You can expect some funky body odours lingering around the classroom.
It’s worthwhile to pop some air fresheners or reed diffusers around the room to create a pleasant aroma for learning and subdue any stinky smells. As students can be unaware or caught off guard by this body change (we’ve all been there!), you can keep a stash of deodorant in the classroom for students to discreetly use.
You may also want to highlight that body odour is an entirely normal thing and a fact of growing up. It’s a great lesson to weave into your social emotional learning in relation to being respectful and understanding of each other.
Create a Stash of Feminine Hygiene Products
With puberty also comes menstruation, and many students in Year 6 experience their period for the first time. This can be a daunting time for young women, so it’s an excellent idea for teachers to keep a discreet stash of pads and tampons on hand for girls to access when they need them and ensure they feel comfortable coming to you to get what they need.
You may also want to keep mini heat packs that girls can use to relieve cramps and inform them that they can visit the school nurse to administer pain relief medication if needed.
Again, it is also essential to teach not only the girls in your class but the boys too, that menstruation is totally normal and should not be something that is embarrassing.
Looking for free hygiene products? U By Kotex offers free menstrual kits for teachers to keep in the classroom!
Encourage Leadership and Ownership
As Grade 6 pupils are the seniors of primary school, younger students often look up to them as role models, so it’s a great time to teach responsible leadership and take ownership of tasks. After discussing common leadership traits such as problem-solving and decision-making, you can encourage your students to reflect on their strengths and areas for growth. As the year progresses, get your class to self-assess and record their ‘small wins’ towards achieving their improvement goals.
An excellent way to turn your Year 6 learners into inspiring leaders and role models is to buddy up with a younger grade. Your class could dedicate a set time each week or fortnight to support youngsters with reading activities, crafts and even sports.
Implement a Rewards System
Everyone loves rewards, no matter what age. Setting up a rewards system in your Year 6 classroom is a great way to encourage good behaviour, increase productivity and build a sense of achievement for their hard work.
A fun way is through a rewards ‘menu’ with a range of ways your students can spend their points and tokens they’ve earned. The menu items could include a free tuck shop lunch, extra break time, a lucky dip prize or other rewards that appeal to them.
Incorporate Mindfulness to Prepare for Secondary School
The idea of transitioning into high school and being a ‘small fish in a big pond’ all over again can be terrifying. Teaching students how to work through stress and anxiety, both socially and work-wise, are invaluable lessons to equip your Year 6 students.
Incorporating mindful activities and strategies can help mental health, improve focus and attention, and engrain healthy habits in kids. Why not start the school day with a class meditation, or break up the day with a yoga session to help direct focus? It doesn’t have to be a time-consuming activity, but it will be worth its weight in gold.
Update Yourself on Social Media
You may not have much of a presence on social media — or maybe you have built up quite a following! Either way, it’s important to be aware of the current social media trends when you’re teaching this year.
Many Year 6 students are already active on social media, or at least will be in the near future, so it’s a good idea to touch up on your social media knowledge too.
Familiarising yourself with existing and emerging platforms will ensure you have the right information to teach your class about cyber safety and ways to implement protection measures, such as setting your social media accounts to ‘private.’
Having a sound knowledge of social media trends, such as memes, can also help you in building a strong teacher-student relationship. Use what you see on TikTok and other platforms to inject fun and familiarity into lessons and creatively engage your students in the learning process.
Set Your Own Social Media to Private
If you haven’t already done so, the year you start to teach Year 6 is a good one to complete a social media audit of your own profiles.
These crafty kids are sure to look up their teacher’s name very quickly, and you will want to make sure there is nothing available that could cause any embarrassment or even simple misunderstanding.
Plan Time for Extracurricular Activities
As your year 6 students will be busy bees with all their extracurricular activities, it’s a good idea to factor in the time needed at the beginning of each term so you are well ahead of those times when students will be leaving early.
Add the dates and times into your term planner so you can plan your standard teaching lessons around them. If you have the time, don’t forget to add in a plan to attend a few student matches or plays. It can help you build your teacher-student relationship.
Lean Into Routines
They may be the oldest kids in the school, but Year 6 students still thrive on routine. As well as incorporating mindfulness into your daily routines, you can start each morning with a quick activity to get students focused and ready to learn.
Have your activity on the board prepared to go in the morning, whether it be a creative task, a growth mindset activity or interesting questions to get their brains ticking and build confidence sharing their answers aloud.
Make a Class Time Capsule or Memory Box
Graduating from primary school is a huge milestone, and it marks a significant departure for many students. As Teach Starter Senior Resource Producer Stephanie Mulrooney points out, ‘It might be the last year that they’re together as a group.’
With this in mind, making the experience memorable is essential (and keeping the tissues handy!).
Building a class time capsule or memory box is a fun and nostalgic activity for your class to reflect on Grade 6 and cement the experience as a moment. Fill your time capsule with items and keepsakes unique to your Year 6 students, such as a class photo, letters to their future selves, artwork, souvenirs from class trips, and funny memories — there are so many beautiful ideas. A time capsule is also an excellent opportunity for students to stay connected with one another in the future and build lifelong friendships.
Take ‘Brain Breaks’ Throughout the Day
They may be older, but your grade 6 crew still has a set of short attention spans!
Giving these hardworking kids moments to reset their brains is essential. Take a short stroll on the school oval, lead them through a simple breathing exercise video or engage in an active game!
Always remember that you need brain breaks, too! Keep some handballs in your desk so when you need some quiet, you can bust out a game of silent ball – scatter your students around the room and instruct that they have to be absolutely silent while throwing the ball (underarm, of course) to each other, if you talk or drop the ball they are out of the game.
Don’t Be Afraid to Be Light-Hearted and Conversational
While you’re in the classroom to teach, it pays to keep it real with your Year 6 students. When doing icebreaker activities, share some fun facts about yourself around pop culture and facts that might be relatable to 11 to 12-year-olds.
You could include your favourite TV show, Harry Potter house and the top three desert island movies. Familiarising yourself with their interests will help you build professional yet personal connections with your students and make the classroom an even more fun learning environment.
Plus, you can have great conversations with this year level. They are beginning to question things they hear, especially in the media and form their own opinions.
Teach Organisational Skills
Year 6 students are ready for all the personal organisational training and tactics you can give them. You’ll be arming them with invaluable skills for secondary school and beyond. A fantastic method is to teach students to plan backward from exam and assignment due dates, which can be conducted using a visual classroom planner.
Teach students how to set reminders in their school diaries and how to use them to improve efficiency and organisation.
Involve Students in Setting Classroom Rules
This is a piece of advice the teachers on our team agree is relevant for every year, so we felt we’d be remiss if we didn’t include it!
At the beginning of the year, discuss with your students what makes a positive classroom culture and challenge them to list classroom rules from their point of view. The rules might include outlining how your students want to be treated by their classmates and what actions they can take to make others feel included. Throughout the year, refer back to the list if a student shows disrespect and how their peers do not accept it.
This collaborative process encourages students to learn accountability for their actions in the classroom and beyond.
Get Student Input on Your Classroom Theme
Do you theme your classroom decor each year? This can be easy to do in the early years as younger students tend to be enthusiastic about just about anything, but your jaded year 6 students may not be quite so keen on many of the more popular themes spotted in the younger years classrooms.
Consider waiting until the term has started and polling students before picking a classroom theme. This lets your students know they’re valuable members of the classroom community, and it can help you win over some of the more difficult-to-warm kids.
Explore heaps of classroom theme ideas to add to your poll!
Don’t Take Things Personally
We have mentioned a few times that Year 6 is the year many students will be in the throes of puberty and riding that hormonal rollercoaster. That can mean some of your students may be more short-tempered than they were in years past and more inclined to be, well, mean!
Remember that this sort of behaviour is developmentally typically and not about you or your teaching. While you certainly do not deserve to be treated rudely, and misbehaviour may require consequences, lead with compassion — for them and for yourself!
Take Plenty of Photos!
Now, we don’t mean to sound like a mum on holiday, but you’ll be kicking yourself if you forget to capture key class moments! It’s simple, but taking photos of events can be easily forgotten in the moment, so try to capture as much as possible.
You can focus on things like the first day of Grade 6 versus the last day, sport events, swimming carnivals, excursions, dances and ceremonies. You might want to use the photos to make each student a photo album at the end of the school year as a farewell gift.
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