Welcome to Year 5

Our class is called Admirals. We are taught by Mrs Smith and Mrs Gibbs. We are supported by Mrs Hill and Miss Hall.

PE Days

In the Spring Term, Admiral Class will be taught PE on a Thursday and a Friday. Children will need to wear their PE kit to school on these days. They will not need uniform to change into. Please ensure your child has the correct kit so they can participate successfully. In the Spring Term, on Thursdays, the children will be going swimming, so they will need to bring their full swimming kit on these days.

Library Slot

Your child will get an opportunity to visit the school library on Wednesdays. Here, they will have the chance to borrow a book that they are interested in: a book they will read for pleasure. If they wish to take a book home, this will need to be returned on a Thursday ready to change.

Home Learning

Reading

In years 5 and 6, children may choose to read independently at home. This should be for at least ten minutes and should be recorded in their reading record daily. Your child's reading record must be handed in every day. At Margaret Wix our children are all aiming to be 'Reading Champions' at the end of each term.

It is important that you talk to your child about what they have read; you will find some question stems that could be used to support such conversations on our reading star above. Here you will also find a list of recommended texts for Year 5 that are suitably challenging.

Maths Magicians

There are a number of key mathematical facts that children should know and remember. These are, of course, taught in school but it is essential that children practise them at home too. You can find out which facts your child is currently working on by checking their maths record book. This is also where you should record their daily practice. Children's maths record books should be brought to school every day. Children will be quizzed on their maths facts every Friday. As they progress through the different stages of facts, children have the opportunity to earn rewards and work towards becoming Maths Magicians!

Times Tables 

Times Tables (and the associated division facts) are a vital part of mathematical knowledge and understanding. It is crucial that your child practises these skills at home by logging onto the Times Table Rockstars website daily, for at least ten minutes. Additionally, there are opportunities to practise maths skills in day-to-day life, such as when measuring ingredients for cooking, or counting change at the shops. You will find this resource on the maths star, which may help you to structure mathematical conversations.

Spelling

In school, we will teach the children spelling patterns and rules. At home, we would like the focus to be on  learning and practising the Year 5/6 National Curriculum words (you can find these by clicking on the spelling star at the top of the page.)

English and Maths 

Each week, your child will receive a grid of homework for maths and English that will focus on revisiting previous learning and consolidating the learning from the week. Please be aware that this homework should only take them a maximum of 20 minutes and won't include any new learning. If your child struggles with the tasks, let them give it a go for 20 minutes, then stop and let me know by finding me on the door or writing a note in their homework book. Not only will this homework be a great way to consolidate any prior and current learning but will support your child in becoming more independent and will inevitably help to prepare them for homework in secondary school.

Handwriting

In order to support your child with their handwriting, please use letter join - https://www.letterjoin.co.uk/. For more information on how to log on at home, with your child, head to the handwriting star. 

This week's home learning is...

• Maths Magicians and reading daily
• Children could also practise Times Table Rockstars and handwriting - links to these pages can be found under the maths and writing stars at the top of this page.

If the maths or English task is taking your child much longer than 30 minutes for each, then please write a note in the book and we will look at it with them in school.

Home learning is given out on a Friday and should be handed in the following Wednesday.

Autumn 1 Update

Admirals have had an excellent, productive first half term back to school. They have settled back into their routines and have shown me just what enthusiastic, reflective learners they are! This half term has been packed full of learning and lots of amazing opportunities.

This half term, in English, we have been enjoying a couple of fantastic, high quality texts, including The Book of Mythical Beasts and Magical Creatures and Cloud Tea Monkeys. Our first unit on non-chronological reports saw us learning about how to inform our reader about a mythical creature of our own design. We used new and ambitious vocabulary to describe its appearance, diet, habitat and evidence of sightings. We then read the beatifically descriptive Cloud Tea Monkeys and worked on a number of grammar areas including fronted adverbials, figurative language, expanded noun-phrases and how to link through paragraphs. This led us to our final extended write where we took a section of the story and retold it in our own words.

In maths, we have tackled the hugely important unit on place value. The children have ordered numbers, placed them on number lines, predicted mystery numbers and rounded them too! The children have persevered when faced with new learning and challenges and have demonstrated our new learning skills brilliantly! We moved onto exploring negative numbers. We learnt about where we would find them in a real life context, how to add and subtract negative numbers and how to read different intervals in scales. More recently, we have been learning how to divide and multiply by 10, 100 and 1,000. The children used speaking frames to support their understanding of the number growing larger or smaller and exactly how the digits move through the place value columns.

History, this term, has been centred on the Maya Civilisation. We explored how the Maya lived and how this is different from how they may live today. We learnt all about the occupations they had and the different types of food and drink they ate. We travelled back in time to look at famous sketches of the different pyramids and temples and wrote diary entries, writing as if we had been exploring the famous ‘Lost Jungle Cities.’ Following this we learnt exactly what each of the impressive structures was used for. These included sacrifice sites, bathing pools and columns to observe the stars and phases of the moon. We finished our unit by playing the infamous Pok-A-Tok game and drank chilli hot chocolate! What fun!

In computing, we have been learning about electronic systems and sharing information. We studied how these complex systems work and where we would find them in the outside world. We created teddy bears with different complex systems inside of them and studied important systems like pelican and puffin crossings. We then looked at sharing information effectively and created a shared PowerPoint on some under recognised, influential black people practising viral skills in communication. 

In PE, the children have been practising their skills in hockey and now have great control over the ball. They have also been developing their sportsmanship in netball, which is lovely to see.

In science, we have studied living things and their habitats. We found out how living things are sorted by observable characteristics and that scientists all over the world observe them, and ask questions to find out about these species. We looked particularly and Jane Goodall and David Attenborough. We also learnt all about pollination and how pollinators are vital for our environment to flourish and produce fruit and vegetables for us to eat. We learned about the difference between sexual and asexual reproduction in plants, and researched the gestation periods of different animals. We also thoroughly enjoyed our trip to the Tring Natural History Museum

In art, Mrs Campbell-Pugh has taught the children how to cut lino to create positive and negative prints in the image of different movements. We then experimented with mixed colours on our rollers and what it would look like if we overlapped the prints. 

In DT, we developed our sewing skills further by creating a small stuffed toy. After designing our toy, we revised our use of running stitch to attach appliqué and blanket stitch to sew the sides our toys. The results were impressive!

In RE, we learnt all about commitment. We looked at the key question, ‘How far would a Sikh go for their religion.’ We looked at some of their core beliefs and then learnt about examples of how modern Sikhs might demonstrate these today. We also held our own Langar in our classroom to get a sense of the equality and selfless duty that may Sikhs show in a Gurdwara. We practised our oracy skills in our discussions and had to express our opinions clearly and confidently.

In PSHE, we began our first topic ‘Being Me in My World.’ We explored our hopes and dreams for the upcoming term and moved on to learn all about children’s rights. We explored everybody’s rights to be safe, have access to clean water, a safe place to live and the right to learn. We thought about our rights at school and how we can all show responsibility by upholding these rights. Additionally, we celebrated Hello Yellow Day, Be Bright and Be Seen and Black History Month. We also took part in the NSPCC Speak Out. Stay Safe. programme where were learnt about abuse and how we can reach out for help. 

Your children have worked so hard this half term and have lived by our Margaret Wix values. I hope you enjoy a restful break Admirals, and I look forward to seeing you soon!

Mrs Smith