Welcome to the Year 5 homepage where you can find out what is going on in Year 5 this year.

Welcome to the Autumn term!

Welcome back! We hope you have had a lovely Summer break.  We have a very busy term ahead of us in Year 5 including a few trips out which are shown below. I'll be in touch with the details as they come along.

For this term, our PE days are Monday and Wednesday so please ensure your child has both their indoor and outdoor PE kits in school for those days. They can keep their kits in their lockers during the week.

We will keep in touch with you via Seesaw, email and text. You can contact us on Seesaw messages.

Homework - Unless otherwise specified will be the reading challenge and Mathletics. The reading challenge is to be brought back into school once completed, there is no fixed timescale for completion although we expect the children to be reading at home daily for approximately 15 minutes.

For Mathletics, the target is to achieve a certificate each week (1,000 points). This runs Monday to Sunday and we will celebrate their success on Seesaw and in class during the week.

Dates for your diary;

• Thursday 12th September, Muddy Boots starts - Every Thursday for alternating groups up to half term.
• Monday 23rd September - Year 5 visit to Newman School, Carlisle.
• Friday 27th September - McMillan Coffee morning.
• Tuesday 1st October - Year 5 Worship Assembly.
• Tuesday 8th October - Visit to Dark Space Planetarium, Kirkcudbright (late finish!)
• Friday 18th October - Visit to Eden Rock.
• Monday 4th November - Year 5 / 6 mass with Year 5 to read.
• Thursday 14th November - Vue Cinema trip.
• Thursday 21st November - Theatre by the Lake (Early start - Bus leaves at 8.45am)
• Friday 13th December - Christmas performances, timings to follow.

As you can see, it's quite busy so watch out on Seesaw for updates.  There will be more dates to add as we confirm other trips and events.

Muddy Boots - There will be a separate meeting about Muddy Boots where we will share all the details. The main things are that we split the class into 2 groups and go every other Thursday afternoon up until the November half term.

The children will need suitable clothing and footwear, much of which can be provided by school, and a packed lunch.

We get back at about 5pm and the children should be collected from St Bede's church.

A letter will be sent out on Friday afternoon with all the details for the following week.

Year 5  curriculum

Autumn Term 2024

Literacy

Our Literacy learning includes reading for pleasure, comprehension and inference, writing, spelling and grammar work.

Reading

We want to instil a love for reading in Year 5.

In our guided reading this term, we will be introducing the children to a range of authors and types of stories (genres) including fiction, non-fiction and poetry.

The children will all have reading books in class which we will read daily in quiet reading time. We will also take time to share our opinions and reviews of our reading and give each other recommendations. The children can do this on our Padlet page which can be accessed via Seesaw.

In addition, we will have the reading challenge books. Please encourage your child to read and enjoy their books and to complete the challenge questions. These should be answered in pencil using full sentences, a full range of punctuation and their best handwriting. There is no rush to finish these books, the aim is enjoyment and being able to talk about what they have read. Why not ask your child about their reading?

Please encourage your child to read at home, daily if possible. We would encourage our children to be reading for approximately 15 minutes per day.

Also, your child has access to epic, a free online library and to Read Theory where they can test their comprehension and inference skills.

You can download both apps for free and the children have their login details for both apps. There are many authors to choose from and I would encourage you to spend some time exploring all of the books that are on offer.

In addition, we will continue to run our 'Book Talk' sessions where ever child will have the opportunity to share the book they are reading in class.

Writing

In writing, we will be following the National Oak sessions to improve our writing skills.

We will cover a range of topics but our main focus will be on writing a narrative based on the fabulous book, 'The Highwayman' a narrative poem written by Alfred Noyes and a biography of Harriet Tubman, the American civil rights activist.

The children will study Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar as set out in the Year 5 expectations with a strong focus on non-fiction writing but also sentence construction.

Numeracy

We will work on our mental maths skills and Times Tables knowledge and fluency so please practice these at home. A key aspect is for the children to be using mathematical vocabulary when explaining their ideas and thinking.

This term we look at Place Value, and learning new methods for addition and subtraction of multi-digit numbers and for multiplication and division.  

After that we will investigate fractions, including fractions of a quantity and an amount.

Please continue to use:

TTRockstars https://play.ttrockstars.com/

and Mathletics https://www.mathletics.com/uk/

Please encourage your child to go on Mathletics as much as possible. It is a great way to support your leaning and boost your confidence for our maths learning.

Maths homework will be to get a weekly certificate. Their achievements will be shared on Seesaw. I hope all the children will get their GOLD Mathletics certificates and make it onto our school golden mathlete wall of fame!

History

Our topic this term 'the Vikings' - where did they come from and why? We find out about life in England in that time and just how far the Vikings went when exploring the globe.

There's also opportunities for experiments and the children will be having a go at building their own Viking longboats to see how strong they can make them.

Science

In Science this term are looking at Space and forces.

Space is always interesting for the children, learning about our solar system, the planets and creating a diorama using the facts they have learned. They will also be encouraged to keep a 'moon diary' over the  course of one month to see how the moon shape changes over time. In class we will conduct experiments including 'create a crater'. This topic also gives us the opportunity to visit the planetarium in Kirkcudbright, as well as taking part in a number of workshops.

Forces will also incorporate experiment work when the children design and fly their own paper air planes. What is the aim going to be? Distance? Time in flight? Accuracy?

Also, we have teamed up with Siemens, which we are really excited about, and they will be coming for a visit to include rail safety but so much more besides. They will be coming into school to run workshops on engineering projects and also coding.

ICT

We will be learning how to use coding to create quizzes, challenges and games. The children will also complete this term's E Safety work.

We will also be using our i-pad skills to create information videos for our topics including animations and as I mentioned, we will be doing some coding projects with Siemens.

PE 

PE will be on a Monday and Wednesday.

On Monday will be with Fraser Conn who will be teaching us some cricket skills - catching, throwing as well ans batting and bowling and hopefully some of our year 5's will be representing the school in an indoor cricket competition which Fraser will be organising.

The children should come to school in their uniforms and bring their PE kits with them.  Please remember that PE kit is a plain white T shirt and black shorts and trainers.

For outdoor PE, the children may wear blue, black or grey plain joggers and their green school sweatshirt. Long hair must be secured with a bobble and all earrings must be removed.

Please note that multi coloured kit is not appropriate. 

RE

Our RE topics are 'Creation and Covenant' and 'Prophecy and Promise'.

We will be learning about Abraham and his wife Sarah and the covenant God made with Abraham. We will think deeply about what a covenant is and about faith and trust.

In the topic about Prophesy, we will be looking at the Prophet Elijah, the work of John the Baptist and Joseph, Jesus' foster father as we work through Advent in the lead up to Christmas.

There is a lot to do this term but if you have any questions about our Year 5 class, please don’t hesitate to contact me, Mrs McGlasson or Miss Stothers via Seesaw messages.