A very warm welcome to all families to Year 5 and Upper Key Stage 2!
What a wonderful first week we’ve had! It has been a busy, varied, fun and productive five days. We’ve spent time getting to know each other in our new classes, adjusting back into the rhythm of school life, discussing our school values and our golden agreements as well as easing our way into what promises to be a magnificent year of learning!
A theme throughout our week has been the school values. We began by reminding ourselves of the 5 school values and the different ways we can demonstrate them – as well as why they’re important. They are:
- Trust
- Empathy
- Courage
- Gratitude
- Respect
We talked about what makes a good friend and the different characteristics that are important to each of us, with a range of characteristics like loyalty, humour and trust coming through as important aspects in a friendship. This led on to looking at ourselves as individuals and identifying what we think is the most important part of ourselves and why (inspired by the book The Best Part of Me).
We also developed our resilience and courage through the medium of drawing. See some of our wonderful pictures below!
We launched our new topic, To Victory…? and learned which countries around the globe were involved in World War 2 and who was on which side. We began to understand the complexities of why certain countries were on each side and began to look at why the war began. Next week, we shall be looking at the causes of World War 2 more in-depth.
Our maths was mainly arithmetic focused to warm ourselves up from the 6-week break. We shall be focusing on place value this half term, peppered throughout with problem solving and recapping prior learning in our Daily Maths sessions. As always, the worksheets from the week will be on this blog by the end of the week and we shall endeavor to link you to websites that can support maths learning and understanding at home.
Next week:
- English: Our text for the half term is Letters from the lighthouse by Emma Carroll. We shall be using this as inspiration to learn about evacuees next week. We shall be looking at how authors give ‘mystery’ to their writing, through features such as rhetorical questions and choice of words.
- Guided Reading: Our text for guided reading is Once by Morris Gleitzman.
- Maths: Place Value up to one million (working with 6-digit numbers).
- Topic: Looking more at the causes of World War 2.
- Science: Our focus this half term is forces.
- TastEd: We will be starting our new TastEd lessons… Follow the link to find out more about what TastEd is!
Important notices
CHILDREN MUST WEAR PE KIT FOR PE LESSONS.
- PE Fuji: Mondays and Tuesdays
- PE Sagamartha: Mondays and Wednesdays
- PE Olympus: Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Please ensure your child has a water bottle in school. Children in Key Stage 2 may bring in healthy snacks for their morning break.
NO NUTS or products containing nuts are to be brought into school.
Free Reading will take place every day and is a fantastic opportunity for everyone to immerse themselves in the joys of a good book. It is just one way in which we promote reading for pleasure as well as aiding reading fluency, comprehension and stamina. There is a wide selection of books available to borrow from school. However, children are welcome to bring a book in from home but please ensure it is a chapter book.