Welcome to Year 5!

In Year 5 we aim to encourage children to be self-driven, resilient, supportive of their peers and to make considered choices.

Our curriculum builds on the skills that the children have developed in lower school. We believe that children should become increasingly independent in both their learning and organisation.

Our English lessons allow the children to be creative and curious, as well as developing their spelling, punctuation, grammar and reading skills. Children have the opportunity to write in different styles and for a range of purposes. We expect them to become adept at editing and improving their work. We encourage their debating skills through dialogic talk to enable them to become confident communicators.

In our mathematic lessons we use concrete, pictorial and abstract models to ensure learning is secured and children are fluent in number facts and concepts, as well as giving children regular opportunities to experience open ended tasks which require reasoning and real world number sense. 

We ensure that our curriculum is well balanced and offers opportunities for all children to shine! Each term is based around a theme and a 'big question'. 

Our residential visit to Avon Tyrrell in September builds on children's experiences in Year 4. We continue to develop teamwork skills and nature studies while carrying out adventurous activities such as raft building, kayaking and mountain biking. It is always a highlight of the year. 

Challenging and supporting the children is at the heart of ethos and we strive to prepare them well so that they can continue to succeed in Year 6.
 

YEAR 5 have PE/Games and swimming on Thursday's

Meet the Year Group...

Home Learning Expectations

Please see below for our expectations regarding home learning.

If you need any further help with what your child should be doing at home or how you can help, then please feel free to pop in and see us.

Spellings:

We will be sending home a spelling sheet each Monday to be returned the following Monday. These will have a combination of statutory spellings, a specific spelling pattern, phonics words and project words. We do not expect the children to practise all the spellings, and would suggest they select 12 they are unfamiliar with. Your child's teacher may tell your child to focus on phonics if this is something they need work on as well as the project words instead of the statutory/ spelling pattern or rule words. Children will be asked to create a poster (similar to the activities we practise in school) to be displayed on our spelling walls each week. There will not be a formal test. We can provide examples to you if you need. 

Arithmetic:

We will also be sending home an arithmetic booklet each Monday to be returned the following Monday. These will contain between 12 – 15 questions for the children to complete using methods taught in school. They should not spend more than 30 minutes on these and they will self-mark first thing on a Monday morning. Please be aware that the booklets cover all areas of the curriculum, so in the Autumn term there will be some question types we have not yet covered in the curriculum. As a challenge your child can attempt these questions or it is fine to leave them until we cover in class (by Spring term). 

Reading:

We are not sending home reading journals this year, as we believe we can make better use of new and improved reading journals we have designed for school use. However, we still strongly encourage your child to read independently, with or to you for 15 minutes each day. Reading regularly makes a huge difference to their progress across the curriculum and research has proven it also has life-time heath and economic benefits.

Library Visits:

Library visits will be every Wednesday where your child can borrow two books. One book will be a banded book linked to the Accelerated Reader programme which we had great success with last year, and one will be a free choice. We will be testing the children each term, which informs the colour of their banded book and children will be encouraged to ‘quiz’ when they finish a book. They can build up points towards different prizes through the year, including our 'Tea Party'. We will also encourage the children to also read books from our ‘Monster Read’ challenge list, for which they gain certificates. To help us with our positive reading culture, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOUR CHILD BRINGS IN A BOOK EVERY DAY.

Project Homework:

Finally, your child will receive three homework projects to complete throughout the year over a holiday period. This is a great opportunity for them to develop research and presentation skills and usually link to a forthcoming history, geography or science topic or sometimes an important British or World event. 

Thank you for your support,

The Year 5 Team