Our Year 5 Class       

A very warm welcome to our Year 5 class page. In Year 5  we look forward to the challenges and responsibilities of being in the upper juniors. During the year the children continue to develop their independent learning, research and team work skills. 

Our Year 5 Class 2023-2024

Class Information

Who's who?

Mrs Monaghan - Year 5 teacher

Mrs Bent - HLTA

Things to remember:

• Please remember that homework is due in by WEDNESDAY each week.
• PE lessons for Summer 1 will be on a Tuesday (Indoor) and Wednesday (Outdoor). Please remember to write your child's name on all of their uniform and sports kids to avoid confusion.
• Reading is encouraged both in school but also at home. Reading for enjoyment is as important as reading to learn. It is important that the children read a range of books/comics/newspapers at home and develop their comprehension skills and vocabulary. This will help consolidate the reading work we will be doing in class. In Year 5, we feel it is important for the children to develop a love of reading as this gives their 'imagination wings'.
• We will be following the RWI spelling scheme this year and supplementing this with Spelling Shed. The children will be encouraged to use this at home as well as in school. The children will also be bringing home a list of the key words that they are currently working on. Please practise these at home(little and often).
• It is important that the children still continue to practise their times tables regularly at home. TTRockstars is a fantastic tool for this as well as 'Hit the Button'.

This half term.... Summer Term 1 (April - May 2024)

English - We will start the half term off by doing some sticky learning around descriptive writing and focusing on how we can improve the quality of our writing. We will then move onto poetry (writing to entertain). We will be looking carefully at the poem 'The Malfeasance' by Alan Bold. We will look at the shape of the poem, imaginatively create images of the malfeasance, analyse the poem in detail and write our own version.

We will finish the half-term by writing postcards, linked to our Geography unit on South East Brazil, Rio. (Writing to Inform)

We will use the Writing Rainbow to help support our writing again this half term and continue to develop our stamina and overall presentation. We will continue to challenge ourselves with our vocabulary choices, use a range of punctuation and vary our sentence structure. It is crucial that the children continue to proof-read their work carefully and check carefully for the basics and that their sentences make sense. 

We will continue with our new class reader 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell. 

'Fred, Con, Lila and little Max's plane is on the way to Manaus when it falls put of the sky. Now, lost in the Amazon rainforest, they must figure out the basics of survival: water, shelter, food. Do they wait for rescue, or find a way to rescue themselves? 

Will the children escape for the rainforest? Will they meet anyone along the way? Maybe an explorer? 

Throughout the term we will be continuing to develop our comprehension skills and thinking carefully about our reading VIPERS (vocabulary, infer, predict, explain, retrieve, sequence or summarise) It is important that the children continue to read a range of books/comics/newspapers at home and develop their comprehension skills and vocabulary. This will help consolidate the reading work we will be doing in class. In Year 5, we feel it is important for the children to develop a love of reading as this gives their 'imagination wings'. 

In our spelling lessons we will focus on the following spelling rules:

· silent letters

· words that are adverbs of time

· challenge words

We will be having a big push on our key words this half term ready for our assessment the week before May half-term. We will be doing lots of sticky learning around our grammar consolidating our understanding of:

· adverbials and pronouns

· determiners and apostrophes

· tenses

· apostrophes

We will also have a different grammar focus each week. For this half term these will be:

· revisiting tenses

· looking carefully at missing punctuation in sentences

· semi colons and introducing colons

· formal language

Maths  - 

This half-term our topics are percentages, measures and graphs and tables. The children will be focusing on:

· percentages as fractions and decimals

· equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages

· measures (perimeter and area)

· perimeter of rectangles, rectilinear shapes and polygons

· area of rectangles

· area of compound shapes

· estimating area

· drawing line graphs

· reading and interpreting line graphs

· reading and interpreting tables

· reading an interpreting tables and two-way tables

All of these activities will give the children the opportunity to develop their reasoning and problem solving skills. We will also continue with our daily reasoning questions with our partner and counting activities. These help the children to develop their mathematical thinking.

At home, it would fantastic if you could keep some of the children's previously learning 'bubbling':

• Reading times on analogue and digital clocks
• Roman Numerals
• Rounding to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10000 decimals to the nearest whole number and money to the nearest 10p and £1
• Number Bonds
• Written strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.
• Equivalent fractions
• Adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions.

Science

We will start the half term by completing our Materials unit. After that, our next topic in Science is 'Separating Mixtures.'

In this unit children will learn about the separation techniques of filtering, sieving and evaporation. They will use sieves to separate materials of different sizes. They will learn that some substances (such as candyfloss) dissolve in water whilst others (such as dried herbs) do not. They will learn that they can separate a dissolved solid from a solution through evaporation of the liquid. They will consolidate and apply their knowledge of the properties of solids, liquids and gases by separating different mixtures.

The children will again have opportunities to work scientifically, they will formulate their own question about dissolving before planning how they

will answer it, predicting possible outcomes and carrying out a fair test. They will record their results in a table and graph, and interpret the results using evidence to support or refute their predictions.This unit builds on Year 4 Changes of State.

Computing

This half term our topic will be 'Programming Music'. We will do this through the programme 'Scratch'. The children will have the opportunity to:

· tinker with the musical elements of Scratch.

· create a programme that plays themed music.

· plan a soundtrack programme.

· programme and soundtrack.

· programme music for a specific purpose.

HEARTSMART - 

Heartsmart/PATHS- 

Fake is a mistake! This is where the children will learn and discuss the importance of telling the truth and how it is okay and important to be yourself. They learn how to bravely communicate truth and be proud of who they are! They will be:

· learning that the images we see on social media and in magazines are not always real.

· learning what to do when we feel like we need to hide our feelings.

· learning to choose those we choose to be vulnerable with.

· learning how to receive feedback.

We will also continue with our PATHS lessons this half term. These lessons support the children in developing their social emotional skills.

Music

In music with Mr Wilkinson, we will be focusing on music composition, learning from one of the great composers, Hanz Zimmer. This famous composer has composed more than 150 film scores, many of which everyone will be familiar with. This will provide us with a great stimulus and help inspire the children to create their own music and perform in an ensemble.

· listen and reflect on a piece of orchestral music

· create their own piece of music using instruments and voice

· perform as an ensemble

· learn musical language appropriate to the task

· play and perform in ensemble contexts, using voices and playing musical instruments

· improvise and compose music for a range of purposes using the interrelated dimensions of music

· listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory

Geography

This half-term our topic is Rio- South East Brazil. This will build on nicely from our previous work on climate zones and rainforests. During this topic the children will be:

· doing some sticky learning around where South America is and what it is like.

· looking at time zones in different parts of South America.

They will be finding answers to the following key questions:

· How does Brazil compare with my country?

· What's special about Rio de Janeiro?

· How is my life linked to South Wast Brazil?

French 

 This half-term Mrs Bent will be focusing on verbs in the French week with the children. They will be learning to:

· recognise that verbs take different forms and to find infinitive verbs in a dictionary.

· begin to recognise some regular verbs in the present tense.

· choose and use appropriate verb endings.

· know that some verbs do not follow regular patterns.

· build and deliver a short presentation, choosing and using a range of action verbs.

Art

Mrs Bent will teach the Art this half-term. Our unit links well with R.E as it focuses on 'Ascension and Pentecost.' The topic is digital media, which also links with computing. During this topic the children will:

· learn that artists have created images depicting the Ascension for centuries and will study examples of famous artists' work.

· combine photography with learning how to draw an image of the Ascension by developing an image from a photograph and translating it into a drawing.

· be using editing software to crop the image, sharpen the image and creating contrast. They will then work on editing and saving their own photos.

· explore how to create a colourful background for their piece, either digitally or using art materials.

· learn how to explain their composition and give well-reasoned explanations as to the techniques applied/materials used.

R.E

Our unit for this half term is 'Why is the Torah so important to the Jewish People?' (Judaism). In this unit the children will asking these big questions:

• Where do we find Jewish people in the UK? 

• What is the Torah? What is a Sefer Torah?

• Why are there different types of synagogue in the UK?

• How does the Torah influence what Jewish people might eat? 

• How are Jewish people adapting festivals in the UK? 

PE

Our indoor P.E is on a Wednesday afternoon. This half-term our unit is 'circuits'. During this unit the children will complete:

· simple circuits

· individual challenges

· fitness battles

· speed agility challenges

· group challenges

 Our outdoor P.E is on a Wednesday morning. This half-term our unit is 'Athletics'. This will be good preparation work for Sports Day. The children will start by looking at the FUNdamentals. They will do some sticky learning around their running, jumping and throwing skills. After this they will focus on:

· sprint starts and endurance running

· jumping for height

· range of throwing techniques

Our sporting value this half-term is HONESTY. This links with our Heartsmart 'Fake is a Mistake'. The children will also be completing personal best challenges that are linked around our sporting value.

Spring Term 2 NEWS!

We have been busy again, even though it was a short half-term. We have had fun, learnt lots of new things, grown in confidence, shown resilience and worked as a team. I can't believe that we are already approaching Summer Term.

The children's writing has gone from strength to strength and they have produced some excellent biographies. I was very impressed with their diary writing based on Howard Carter discovering Tutankhamun's tomb. They had some fantastic ideas and remembered lots of key information. I was pleased with how they are carefully checking their work and trying to include a variety of grammar techniques and sentence structures. We will continue to challenge ourselves with this in the Summer Term and continue to work hard on the presentation as well as the content of our writing. World Book Day was fantastic again this year. I loved all of the children's character designs and it was wonderful to see so many of the children sharing and talking about books.

Maths was challenging this half-term with lots of work on fractions and multiplication and division. Throughout the children displayed a willingness to challenge themselves and showed resilience.

The children have been very enthusiastic about out History topic on the Ancient Egyptians. They have loved finding out about the Egyptian life and did an amazing job of their homework projects. It was amazing once again that they had the opportunity to share these with you all. They had worked so hard on them and their proud smiling faces said it all in the hall! They also did a great job designing, building and evaluating shadufs in D.T. Computing was fantastic too, the children did a magnificent job of creating their own stop motion animations based on the Easter story. Both in rhythmic gymnastics and in our tennis lessons the children have shown fantastic teamwork and communication skills. We all enjoyed visiting our local park and using the amazing facilities, allowing us to have some great games of tennis and basketball. We even had the opportunity to have fun with our friends in the play area. The children behaved beautifully and were a credit to themselves. We even had a visit from Leigh Leopards and the Challenge Cup - we were all very excited!

A highlight for me was visiting the Lowry theatre on the last day to watch 'The Boy at the Back of the Class'. We all enjoyed this live theatre experience and gained a great deal from this experience. It was a first time visit to the theatre for some of the children!

As you can see we have been very busy in Year 5. The children continue to amaze me daily and I am very proud of them all. Great job everyone! Can't wait for Summer 1!

Spring Term 1 NEWS!

It has been a busy half term again in Year 5. The children have once again worked their socks off and I am proud of every single one of them!

In English their writing has gone from strength to strength. I have loved reading their adventure stories based on our class reader 'The Explorer' and their thought provoking kindness poem. It has also been wonderful to experience sharing our class reader 'The Explorer' with the children - we are all intrigued to find out what is going to happen to all of the children and if they will meet an explorer along the way.

The children have once again shown resilience with their maths work. They have worked hard on mastering fractions and improved their reasoning and problem solving skills. In Science they have enjoyed learning about life cycles and watching their bean plant grow. They have been developing their skills when recording data either in a line or bar graph. Skills that we are going to continue to develop this and next term.

The children's singing skills have continued to improve during their music lessons with Mr Wilkinson. Mrs Bent has once again been impressed with the children's developing knowledge in French and their fantastic printing skills in Art. Their rainforest inspired prints were amazing. The children have continued to give insightful responses and show empathy during our Heartsmart and Picture News lessons. The introduction of our PATHS lesson has also helped them to develop their socio-emotional skills and roles when working within a team. They have also loved the introduction of 'Pupil of the Day'. 

In P.E the children loved developing their basketball skills and we finally managed to master our dribbling skills by the end! We are hoping for a visit to the park this half term to showcase these skills on the basketball courts. After a reluctant start the children grew in confidence during our dance lessons and showed great self-belief when performing their street jazz dances to the rest of the class.

The children have especially enjoyed our rainforest topic in Geography. They can now confidently locate the rainforests of the world, describe the layers of a rainforest and talk about the key features and the importance of the rainforest.

I am looking forward to Spring 2 and all of the exciting things we will be doing. We will also have Miss Potter (student teacher) joining us form Edge Hill University. The children are differently maturing and growing as both learners and individuals. It is lovely to see!

Autumn Term 2 NEWS!

Wow! Another busy half term in Year 5. The children have once again worked their socks off, showed their resilience, grown in confidence and had lots of fun. A great start to the half term was seeing all of the children's amazing Space projects and sharing them with you all in the hall. They were fantastic! I was extremely proud of the effort that they put into them and the confidence they showed when speaking about them to lots of adults.

The children have worked hard in English and are really improving both their vocabulary choices and sentence types. We are also getting better at checking the basics and making sure that our work is well presented. It is crucial that they continue to do this.They created some wonderful non-chronological reports on a variety of unusual creatures and wrote some great thought - provoking poetry based on Refugees, which linked nicely with our class reader 'The Boy at the Back of the Class'. I enjoyed reading their explanations on climate zones and it highlighted their knowledge and understanding from our Geography lessons. 

They worked hard their Maths lessons, especially when we moved onto Fractions. They have pleased me with their continued progress on their times tables and their willingness to practise at home. They are continuing to develop their reasoning skills and use prior mathematical knowledge to help them to problem solve. 

They all worked hard during our forces unit in Science and enjoyed working scientifically when investigating, friction, air and water resistance. It was great to see them build on the Mars Rover work they did in Autumn 1 again this half- term with our second computing unit on the Mars Rover. Their pixels work was fantastic along with their 3D CAD designs of their own rover.

It has been lovely again to see the maturity and sensitivity the children continue to show during our RE, Heartsmart and wellbeing lessons. They are always willing to listen to others, encourage and share their own thoughts. The children gain a great deal from these lessons and it is heart-warming to see it put into action!

The children continued to develop their French language skills and enjoyed the topic greatly as it linked back to their space work in Autumn 1.  In Music they showcased their growing ukulele skills with Mr Wilkinson. P.E was lots of fun this half-term and give us a great opportunity to show our resilience and team work skills during our dodgeball and invasion games lessons.

As you can see we haven't stopped in Year 5 this half-term and the children have shone brightly both in their learning and attitude. The term finished with a super Christmas party and our beautiful KS2 Christmas Carol service in church. It was lovely to have a packed church one more and for the children to perform and talk about the meaning of HOPE at Christmas. A lovely end to a lovely half-term.

Autumn Term 1 NEWS!

Wow! It has been a very busy first half term in Year 5. It has been lovely to get to know the children better. The highlights for me this half term are  our Science work on Earth and Space and to see the children working really hard on their presentation and handwriting. I am really looking forward to seeing their Science projects after half term and for them to share them with everyone when we all get together.

The children have started to grow in confidence and show their maturity and 'kind hearts' through our R.E discussions, Heartsmart lessons, Picture News, puberty lessons with HHKids. They are always willing to share their thoughts and feelings and are very respectful of each others opinions and views.  They have developed their historical thinking during our topic on the Mayans and thought carefully about how we know so much about a civilisation that were around over 1000 years ago. They have tackled the challenging job of reading binary code in Computing with resilience and patience and have enjoyed finding out more about the Mars Rovers. The children's spoken French has continued to improve along with their drawing skills in Art. They have enjoyed learning to play the ukelele in Music and have adapted well to this by drawing on the guitar skills that they learnt in Year 4 during their Wider Opportunities lessons.

The children worked hard during our Place Value units in Maths and have shown a good understanding, especially when faced with larger numbers. Their reasoning and problem solving skills continue to develop. I am also pleased with their continued practise on their times tables. In English we have focused on narrative writing this half term with the purpose of entertaining. The children produced some excellent short stories based on an abandoned fairground and are really challenging themselves with their vocabulary and sentence choices. In P.E they continued to develop their gymnastics skills and improve their rolls, jumps and vaulting. The thing that pleased me most during these lessons was the children's perseverance, encouragement of each other and their growing ability to self assess their skills.

As you can see it has been a busy start to Year 5 and as we head into another busy half term I know that the children will continue to make me proud as they grown in confidence, resilience, work together as a team and challenge themselves.