Hello and welcome to our first blog of the school year!

Linden, Hawthorn and Beech class have all made an absolutely brilliant start to the year! All of the teachers are very proud of the children and the great learning which has taken place already. Please do enjoy reading about a few of our highlights below.

PSHE- Building Resilience

For the first two weeks of the Autumn term, we focused our afternoon lessons on the theme of resilience. The aim of these lessons is to develop the children’s growth mindset towards their learning. The children discussed strategies to help them cope with difficult situations and using their favourite ideas, they created a resilience wheel. We also learnt about how to build resilience when faced with challenges. The Learning Pit teaches us that we have to fail in order to eventually succeed. The children had fun creating their own learning pits. We also looked at diversity and its importance in our community. The children created some beautiful posters to celebrate diversity.

English- Poetry and Spook-tacular Stories!

In English, we have been writing our own poems based on The River by Pie Corbett. The children included various poetic features including alliteration and similes and their amazing work was even commented on by Pie Corbett on Twitter!

@WigmorePrimary tremendous word play – like a sarcastic clown…. https://t.co/WE9FukKD01

— Pie Corbett (@PieCorbett) September 22, 2022

We then went onto writing the opening and build up of own suspense stories. It’s been great fun learning about ways to engage the reader and how to build tension and suspense into our writing. We learnt that writers can weave in rhetorical questions, short sentences, clues to tantalise the reader, onomatopoeia, similes, metaphors and personification. The children have worked incredibly hard to include these in their independent writing, why not ask your child about which features they have included in their work this week.

Topic- Tomb Raiders!

The children have enjoyed learning about Ancient Egypt through a variety of cross-curricular activities. They first went on an exciting scavenger hunt around the school to find the definitions of key words such as archeologist, tomb and sphinx. We have also explored key physical features and locations in Ancient Egypt by studying several maps and artefacts. The children thoroughly enjoyed drawing their own cartouches to demonstrate their understanding of hieroglyphics too. Take a look at some of the fantastic work below!

Science- May the Force Be With You!

This half term we have been developing our understanding about forces. We have revisited, as well as learnt some new, key vocabulary and tried to remember the different types of forces around us. We discussed the terms “balanced” and “unbalanced” forces and used everyday objects to demonstrate this new concept. We learnt about Sir Isaac Newton and how he developed his theory of gravity. Following this, we explored the effect of gravity with objects in the classroom. We identified the difference between Mass and Weight and used Newton meters to find a correlation between the two. We then moved onto learning about Galileo and his discovery that gravity causes objects of the SAME size and SHAPE, regardless of their MASS to fall at the same rate.

This week we will be investigating the effects of air resistance by making parachutes of varied sizes, shapes and materials and testing how quickly (or slowly!) they fall to the ground.

Finally, we are very much looking forward to seeing you all at Parents’ Evening next Tuesday and Wednesday. As ever, thank you for all your support and if you have any questions, please do not hesitate to ask your child’s class teacher.

The Year 5 Team 🙂

English

In English, children have completed writing a twisted tale of ‘Little Red Riding Hood’. Their creativity and imagination were evident through their fantastic ideas. They have used expanded noun phrases, embedded relative clauses, subordination, parenthesis among many other grammatical features. Why not ask your child how they have twisted their story? How can they twist other traditional tales? Read a particularly good example below.

We have now begun our new unit of work on persuasive speech. The children have learnt the definitions of key vocabulary that will be used throughout this unit such as pollution, fauna, prospect and endangering.

Maths

The enthusiastic mathematicians in year 5 have enjoyed learning about different types of angles. Ask your child if they can explain the difference between acute, right angle, straight line, obtuse, reflex and full rotation. Children have also learnt to use protractors to measure and draw angles accurately.

We will be continuing to work on angles over the next few weeks. Children will learn to recognize and draw parallel and perpendicular lines and develop their reasoning about 3D shapes.

Science

We have just started our new unit of work on Living Things and Their Habitats. The curious scientists have learnt about the process of metamorphosis and have begun comparing different life cycles of insects such as honey bees, butterflies and damselflies. Have a look at a few life cycles below.

Over the next few weeks, the sequence of learning will focus on:

–        In English, we will be studying the skills needed to produce a persuasive speech.

–        In maths, we will be solving questions related to position and direction.

–        In science, we will continue to explore the life cycle of different animals and plants.

–        In Geography, we will learn to read maps and investigate countries in different continents.

Reading and writing

The children have just completed their unit on information texts. They researched endangered animals during their ICT time, finding out about where they live, what they eat and why they are endangered. They then wrote a report on their chosen animal. Why not ask your child what they found out about their animal? Here is a particularly good example.

We are now working on twisting the traditional tale of Red Riding Hood. The children have looked at the tales of Goldilocks and The three little pigs and how they have been twisted. Ask them about the two stories below.

Maths

For the past few weeks the enthusiastic mathematicians in year five have been investigating the relationship between decimals, fractions and percentages. They then moved onto calculating with decimals. Have a look at a couple of pages from the children’s power maths books to show some examples of the types of questions they have been solving.

Monarchy

The children have continued looking at significant monarchs of the United Kingdom. They have compared the lives of our two longest serving monarchs, Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth II.  They then wrote a diary entry as if they were present at the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II. Below are two examples of the many excellent pieces completed.

Passport to the World

As the ‘wow’ factor introduction to our geography based unit we will be studying in the coming weeks year 5 had some crew from EasyJet visit on Monday 16^th May. As you can see from the pictures below great fun was had by all, with the children learning about aircraft safety, first aid and how to become cabin crew.

Over the next few weeks the sequence of learning will focus on:

* Completing our twisted tale and moving on to writing persuasive texts to encourage people to protect the environment.

* In maths we will be moving onto look at geometry, studying angles and the properties of shapes.

* In French we are looking at food and how to order what they would like in French.

We are pleased to welcome all students back to school after the Easter break, relaxed, refreshed and raring to go!

Reading and Writing

Since our return from the Easter break, we have started our new topic of information texts. The children wrote their cold write about the house elves from Harry Potter and we have been learning how to take notes whilst finding out about whales. The children have been surprised by some of the facts they found out. Why not ask them what the size of a whales heart is and how old was the oldest known whale?

The children have continued with reading their class books. We are all enjoying the stories and can’t wait for the installments each day.

Maths

In maths, we have continued our work on decimals. The children have been learning to convert fractions to decimals and decimals to fractions. They have just started to compare and order decimals. Below is an example of one of the pages they completed in their power maths books.

Topic

We have just started our new topic of the Monarchy. The children completed a time line of the key events in British history and the Monarch’s who were on the throne at the time. They have then studied Henry VIII, finding out about his life, wives and achievements. They then worked in pairs to produce a book all about his reign. Here are a couple of pictures of the work produced.

Over the next few weeks, the sequence of learning will focus on:

–        In English, we will be focusing on information texts

–        In maths, we will be continuing our work on decimals by looking at the relationship with percentages, before moving onto to problem solving with decimals.

–        In topic, we will be continuing our new module on the British monarchy by looking at the coronation of the kings and queens.

–        In Music, we will start our unit on Dancing in the Street.

Spellings will be on a Wednesday and the children will be set 4 Mathletics lessons and 2 Reading Eggs lessons each week for homework to prepare them for year 6.

Reading and Writing

The children have enjoyed writing an action scene using all of the different techniques we have learnt from studying Beowulf by Michael Morpurgo. We have now begun to learn about characterisation and scene setting. This week we have written a character description from a picture and another child from another class will attempt to draw the character from the anonymous description.

Here are two descriptions

Can you draw a picture of the character?

How accurate do you think your drawing will be based on this description?

In Reading, the children are continuing to read the class book to help master the skills of inference, prediction, summary and the retrieval of information.

 Maths

In maths, we have continued to learn about fractions. We have been learning to add and subtract fractions with mixed numbers and different denominators. Next week, we are moving on to decimals.

 Science

We have completed our topic on Earth and Space. The children have finished the unit by learning about day and night and the seasons. Ask your child if they can explain the difference between rotate and revolve.

Over the next few weeks, the sequence of learning will focus on:

–        In English, we will be focusing on characterisation

–        In maths, we will be focusing on decimals

–        In topic, we will be starting our new module on the British monarchy

–        In Music, we will continue to practice The Fresh Prince of Bel Air and use glockenspiel to perform.

Don’t forget the music marathon on Thursday the 31^st when the children are encouraged to come to school dressed as their favourite musician. In the next few days, we will be asking them about their favourite songs to include in our singing marathon.

We look forward to seeing you next week on parents evening (Tuesday the 29^th and Wednesday the 30^th) to discuss your child’s progress.

The children have worked incredibly hard this term and we are proud of all their achievements. We hope you and your families have a wonderful relaxing holiday.

We can’t believe another 3 weeks have passed. Here is what has been happening so far.

Reading and Writing

The children have enjoyed producing a boxed-up plan for their own version of the action scene from the Beowulf story. The next stage is to use their plan to create an innovative write.

In Reading, the children are continuing to read the class book to help master the skills of inference, prediction, summary and the retrieval of information.

Maths

The Children have started learning about fractions. So far, they have learnt about equivalence and converting fractions into mixed numbers. They have also learnt to simplify and apply their knowledge to compare fractions.

Science

The children have continued to learn about space this term. They have enjoyed learning about the lunar cycle and the phases of the moon. They are currently writing a newspaper report about the first moon landing that took place in 1969.

Over the next few weeks the sequence of learning will focus on:

• In English, we will continue to write our own version of the action scene using all the skills taught in the lessons so far.
• In maths, we will learn how to add and subtract fractions.
• In Science, we will continue to study space and discover why we have day/night and the seasons.
• In music, we will continue to practice The Fresh Prince of Bell Air and use glockenspiel to perform.
• Oak Class will be performing their assembly on Tuesday the 8^th of March.

We cannot believe that the term is almost over. The children have been working on lots of different things over the last couple of weeks. Have a look in a bit more detail:-

Reading and writing

The children have just completed their own adventure story based on a book called ‘Journey’ by Aaron Becker. We focused on using interesting sentence structures and including description of characters thoughts and feelings. The teachers loved reading the children’s work; they produced some wonderful stories. Here is a fantastic example:

The children have also just completed a short unit linked to their History topic of the Ancient Egypt. They studied the discovery of Tutankhamun’s tomb by Howard Carter and then completed a newspaper report on the event. Have a look at one of the excellent pieces produced.

Maths

For the last few weeks, the mathematicians in year five have been working on area and perimeter of shapes. They have looked at the relationships between area and perimeter of regular shapes. They also enjoyed working out the area of their hands and then comparing to see who had the largest and the smallest.

History

The super Historians in year five have been learning about life in Ancient Egypt. They have studied the landscape of the country, explained why the settlements were all grouped around the River Nile before exploring the key events in the history of the pharoah’s. The children were keen to find out about the pyramids and the discovery of the most famous tomb of them all, that of Tutankhamun. Here is an example of some work done on Egyptian society.

Other curriculum areas which have inspired and motivated the children

As part of our RE work the children have been looking at the beliefs of Humanists and comparing those to the values of the Christian religion. They found out about some Humanist thinkers, including Charles Darwin and Margaret Knight. The children compared their own rules or code for living with those of the Humanists. Here is an example:-

As part of the Enterprise Event the children produced the following Christmas Ornaments

The year 5 team would like to wish everyone a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.