This week marked the 75th anniversary of the arrival of HMS Empire Windrush and the enormous contribution made by the Windrush generation to British life and culture. It has been particularly resonant to Year 5 as we have been learning about Windrush as part of our English unit and we were honoured to welcome the renowned artist and photographer Vanley Burke who shared his own first-hand experience of travelling to ‘the Motherland’ from Jamaica. His work is currently featured in an exhibition at the V&A which runs until 31st December 2023: https://www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/between-two-worlds-vanley-burke-and-francis-williams.
In English, we have continued our unit of work inspired by ‘Musical Truth’ and the song, ‘London is the place for me’ by Lord Kitchener. The children have written poetical responses to the Windrush journey and the life the passengers left behind and the new life they hoped to create in Britain. Next week, we will move on to respond to the realities of life in Britain and the recent Windrush scandal.
In Maths, we have revised how to calculate perimeter and area and learnt how to apply this knowledge in relation to rectilinear compound shapes. Next week we will move on to converting units of measure.
Our Guided Reading text is a biography of Princess Sophia Duleep Singh, an Indian suffragette, written by Sufiyah Ahmed. We are excited to announce that the author will join us in school before the end of summer term. Please read chapters 10-13 as home learning this weekend. You can find them here!
In STEM, our unit of work is on microbes. This week we have focused on harmful microbes and their role in the transmission of infectious disease.
Spellings: This week we covered the following words which all end with either –cial- or –tial-. The children now know that, as a general rule, -cial- follows a vowel and –tial- follows a consonant.
Please spend time consolidating these spellings:
official/special/artificial/beneficial/partial/confidential/essential/residential/potential
PE
Wednesday – Outdoor athletics
Thursday – Fielding skills and rounders
Please ensure children have weather appropriate PE uniform in school. This includes a hair band to tie back long hair and tape to cover any ear-rings that cannot be removed.
Home Learning – this week
– Read chapters 10-13 of the guided reading text by Monday.
Home learning – every week
– Read for 30 minutes each day
– Practise times tables for 10 minutes each day
– Spellings
For the remainder of year 5 our focus will be on the Y5/6 spelling requirements.
Please continue to practise and revise any gaps in your year 3-4 spelling knowledge.
It is important to keep practising spellings to ensure they are transferred from working memory to long term memory.
Please encourage your child to break the words down into syllables and sounds, just as we do in lessons in line with the Sounds-Write model:
We start by saying a word to the children, for example accommodate. We ask them how many syllables they can hear (4). We then provide them with all the sounds required to build the word but mixed up (a mm cc o o a-e t d). We then identify the sounds in each syllable and build the word syllable by syllable: a / cc o / mm o/ d a-e t). We then identify any potential challenges with the
spelling – for example the double mm and double cc in accommodate. The children then use their sounds to build the word – initially in syllables (a / cc o / mm o/ d a-e t) and then as a single word without any syllable spaces (accommodate).
Mobile Telephones
Only children who have permission to walk home alone may bring a mobile telephone to school. It must be given to the class teacher at the start of each day and will be returned at home time.
Collection
Children will not be able to leave school alone unless parents have completed the online form via parentmail.
Children will not be released into the care of unfamiliar adults without prior notification and / or the provision of the child’s unique PIN number.
Have a lovely weekend
The Year 5 Team