Year 5
Welcome to Year 5 - Spring Term
Mrs Pinkerton with Miss Bohdjalian and Mrs O'Neill
Our values this term are wisdom and compassion under the umbrella of perseverance.
In English, we will be exploring the Anglo Saxon tale of Beowulf and the mystery novel Secret of the Night Train. In Maths, we will be learning about fractions, decimals and percentages. After we have finished learning about Forces, our current Science topic, we will be looking at the properties of materials and how these can change. We will start this term with a Geography focus by looking at Mountains before moving back to History with the Maya civilisation. Please see the curriculum page for more information on our learning this term.
Our P.E. days for the Spring term will be Wednesdays (tennis at Broomhall Park courts from 14 January) and Fridays (dance). P.E. kit can be worn on P.E days. If you are attending a lunchtime or after-school sports club on a non-PE day, please wear your normal school uniform and bring a change of clothes for your club.
Please remember to send your child to school with the stationery listed below. Pencil cases will be sent home at least each half term so items can be replaced as necessary.
Mrs Pinkerton
Information for Parents
Homework
Maths and English homework will be handed out on Wednesdays for return the following Monday. On occasion, the children may also receive a piece of homework related to one of our other topics in Geography, History, Science or RE.
Spellings will be studied and handed out on a Tuesday and tested the following Tuesday in our spelling lesson.
General Reminders
- Winter uniform is grey skirts, trousers or shorts with a white shirt, tie and green school jumper or cardigan. Please remember that school hoodies can only be worn with P.E. kit.
- Hair that is long enough to be tied back please do so fully using a green or hair-coloured band.
- No nail varnish please.
- Plain gold / silver stud earrings only.
- Your child may wear a watch or Fitbit but these must be removed for P.E.
- No other jewellery such as friendship bands etc is permitted.
- If your child wears a religious adornment, please let me know.
Absolutely NO NUTS in school please.
Useful Documents and Links
Reading
Please try to hear your child read every day, just for 10 minutes. It really does make a difference! We read our reading scheme books in class each day so the children can choose whether to read their coloured band books or another text at home. The key is talking about the book and for the adult to ask lots of questions about the text and any unfamiliar vocabulary. Example reading questions can be found below.
I would like to challenge the children to read as many books from the suggested reading list as possible. It really does make a difference! They will be celebrated in the classroom so please let me know once they've completed a book and email a photograph of them with the book. They can read the books themselves or have them read to them. We have a class library, which they can borrow most of the books from.
Writing
Spelling
English Websites
Maths Websites
Recently, we have explored a new Maths game which the children can play at home to practise their Maths skills. It is a BBC Bitesize game called Guardians: Defenders of Mathematica. A link is below. Please note that you will need a BBC account to save progress.
In Year 5, we sometimes have fun challenging ourselves to solve Countdown style maths puzzles. The children are shown a set of number cards and a target number and had to solve it using their knowledge of the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and their times tables.
It is a great way to improve fluency and practice calculations (even if you don't end up with the target answer). I join in with the children and sometimes they see the answer before me! Ask them to explain their method as mistakes are made.
The website we use is called NRich and is available here: https://nrich.maths.org/countdown/main.html We use level 2 and level 3 - the level can be selected under the settings icon in the top right corner.
Other Useful Websites
Ufton Court
