Welcome to your final Term in Year 5!

We hope you have all had a lovely and restful Easter break and are raring to go for our final term. We have a lot to pack into this final term and can’t wait to get started!

When we return after the Easter break, we will complete our topic  “Many Worlds One Planet”. Within this Geography topic Year 5 are focusing on Antarctica. We are enjoying finding out about this extreme environment and the fearless and curious explorers and scientists who have made the dangerous journey far south to explore this fascinating and mysterious continent.

English Writing and Reading lessons will also be linked to our topics. We will finish reading the Abi Elphinstone novel “Sky Song” which has gone down very so far with Year 5. We will also be reading about the Antarctic explorer and adventure Ernest Shackleton and his epic Endurance expedition.  as well as Antarctic Non-fiction texts.

Spelling will be taught in short daily sessions working on the key Year 5 spelling objectives as well as first revising key areas from previous years. Some children will work as part of a small group outside of spelling lessons if needed on spelling ‘catch-up’.

Maths will follow the Year Five curriculum as well as extra arithmetic sessions where methods are taught and revised separately with regular assessment. A big focus for Year 5 this term is fractions, decimals and percentages. We have taught all of the Year 5 arithmetic strategies now so in the final term we will regularly revise these methods but also apply them in reasoning and problem-solving situations.

We want to make sure that every child in Year 5 is prepared and ready for Year six.  This means some children may have extra input in handwriting or maths some afternoons to make sure they are ready.

Science, Dt and Art will be taught as separate weekly lessons on Friday.

Our  PE day is Tuesday so send your child to school in full PE kit on Tuesdays and with their swimming kit while we are swimming.

Homework

There is an expectation that children will read at home daily and record this in their reading diary. We check the reading diaries every Monday. Thank you for your continuing support for this.

Spelling homework will be continued to be sent home every Friday as a list of spellings to be tested in school the following week. Please ask if you wish to know how your child has got on with these tests. There will also be a half-termly test of common exception words which we are constantly learning in class.

All children have their login details for TT Rockstars. They should continue to improve their rapid recall of multiplication facts using this. This is so important and really impacts on how well children can use Year 5 arithmetic methods fluently and accurately. We check children’s activity on Times Table Rockstars every Friday. There is an expectation that each child spends 30 minutes a week – this is six 5 minute games. There is a certificate every week in Celebration assembly for the child who has worked the hardest that week in Times Table Rock Stars. We have swapped to Soundcheck sessions after feedback from parent’s evening.

Please ensure children come to school each day with a water bottle so they keep hydrated. They are welcome to refill this throughout the day.

We will, as always, work our hardest to ensure that the children have a happy, productive and successful final term in  Year 5 which we are sure they will.  

Please come to speak to Mrs Bailey or Mrs Culleton if you have any queries or concerns or you can email any queries to schooloffice@sacredheart.peterborough.sch.uk.  These can then be forwarded to us and we can reply/ make a phone call if needed.

Thank you for your support,

Mrs Bailey, Mrs Culleton and Ms Fernandes.