Welcome to Year 5
Mrs Lees-Smith, Mrs Priestley, Mrs Moulinos and Miss Sampson warmly welcome you to our ‘Year 5 page’! We trust that this will give you a flavour of some of the fantastic things that go on throughout Year 5.
Our ‘Autumn Term’ topics are exciting and varied in Y5. For example, in geography, we ask the question: ‘Would you like to live in a desert?’ and we develop the children’s worldwide knowledge through this focus e.g. Did you know that there is a desert in every continent? For history, we’ll be studying the Ancient Greeks and acknowledging the influence that they have had on our lives today. In science, we look at the properties of materials and how forces affect us in everyday life. We also love story time in Y5 and our book drivers are diverse and exciting. We begin with the book: Young, Gifted and Black and then particularly focus in on the story of Matthew Henson – Race to the Frozen North. In maths, we keep basic skills sharp with daily warm ups and a weekly arithmetic focus, alongside learning our Y5 objectives.
The ‘Spring Term’ encompasses our ‘New life’ topic as we welcome some very special visitors to Year 5 – the delightful ducklings! Always a highlight of the year, the children thoroughly enjoy watching them hatch and grow. This links perfectly with our Life Cycles topic in science. We study the local area in history through looking at census information and discovering how our local area has grown, changed and developed over the years. Lymm Heritage centre get involved with this topic and offer some fascinating insights into the local area. After completing our art units in the autumn and spring 1 terms, we switch our creative skills to music for the remainder of the year. The children learn how to play keyboards alongside learning how to use musical notation, resulting in a performance in school.
Finally, in ‘Summer Term’ we travel back in time to Tudor England where, amongst other skills, the children learn how to extract information about Henry VIII from sources and explain and justify their interpretation of this Tudor King using evidence from sources. In science, we have a really exciting visit from The Wonder Dome who bring along an inflatable dome where the children can study the night sky and learn all about the constellations. Our book drivers in English include: The Brilliant Deep and Bold and Brave - Women in Shakespeare and in RE we will complete our topic about Sikhism and the children will learn all about confirmation ready for Y6.
Throughout the year, we cover a range of skills in PE, including a cricket coach in the autumn term, outside adventures in forest schools, golfing techniques, rounders, basketball, tennis and athletics.
Homework
Homework is set every Tuesday to be returned the following Tuesday - alternating between English and Maths. We expect the homework tasks to take approximately 30 minutes. The children should be able to complete the majority of the task independently but may, on occasion, need some guidance and one to one support.
Reading
We expect that children will read regularly at home and at least 5 times each week for around 15-20 minutes. Please ensure that the children's reading is recorded in their reading diaries. As children move into Upper Key Stage 2, they do become more independent readers. However, we would still strongly encourage parents to engage with their children’s reading through questioning and discussion. If you need support with the types of questions to ask, please refer to the ‘Reading Prompt Questions’ which can be found under ‘Reading’ on the ‘Curriculum’ tab of the school website.
As well as a varied selection of books in the class bookcases, we visit the library once every fortnight. There is a huge variety from picture books to some trickier texts – and we do encourage parents to share the books with their children.
Spelling
Spelling is taught daily either discretely or through English lessons and a new list of words will be emailed each half term. We will concentrate on Year 5/6 word lists as well as going over Year 3/4 words. Parents are encouraged to help their children to learn their words each week. Spellings can be learnt in a number of ways; either ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check’, colour coding patterns in the words, breaking it down into syllables or simply make up silly rhymes to remember the letters. (Because – Big Elephants Can Always Understand Small Elephants). Spelling Frame is also a fun way to practise spellings and has been proven to be very effective.
Maths
Children in Year 5 will build on previous knowledge of the 4 operations and continue to apply their understanding of all mathematical concepts to a range of scenarios. It is crucial that all children know their times tables up to x12 and can recall these facts with speed, including inverse operations. There are weekly times tables tests and again parents are actively encouraged to support children with their tables at home.
Support at Home
We are very lucky to have several programs in place which children can access via the internet such as Spelling Frame, Reading Plus and Times Tables Rockstars. Your child will be given individual logins for these programs should they be appropriate.
Useful websites:
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
https://student.readingplus.com/seereader/api/sec/login
We hope that this has given you a brief insight into the new and exciting year ahead! It will be an interesting and really rewarding year and the children will begin to become that bit more grown up and independent. They will also start to realise that they are in the upper key stage and with that comes certain responsibilities. We are all here to guide and help them through. If you would like any further information or are worried about anything, our doors are always open.
Kind regards and thank you for your support
Mrs. Lees-Smith, Miss Sarjeant, Mrs. Wallis and Mrs. Atherton
