Happy New Year to everyone in Year 5!

Welcome back to school for the start of 2017. I hope you all had an enjoyable Christmas break. Many thanks to you all for your kind cards and gifts that you gave for Christmas, they were very much appreciated. This term promises to be extremely busy with plenty of exciting opportunities. Our topic for this term is ‘Space and Beyond – Planet X’. We will be following a thematic approach and linking other subjects to our topic based on the children’s interests and what they want to learn.

Space and Beyond – Planet X.

Our topic will be truly ‘out of this world’ as we learn about Space! This Science – based topic will be very exciting. As part of our topic, we will be going on a Mission to Mars and will be following closely the current explorations on the International Space Station. For our Mission to Mars project, we will be considering the colonisation of Mars and will be learning everything involved with becoming a Martian astronaut! As part of our Design and Technology curriculum we will be designing and constructing moon buggies. We will also be learning about the history of space travel. In computing, we will be continuing to develop our research and presentation skills and will be using ‘Scratch’ to create our own Space themed game. We will also be continuing to learn about cyber safety to help us keep safe back here on Earth!

Literacy

Our literacy this term will be based on rap poetry, myths and legends, recounts and persuasive writing. Some of our literacy topics will be linked to our Mission to Mars and Space theme. We will begin looking at performance poems and will have fun making up and performing our own Space raps! We have started to read our class novel ‘Beowulf’ and will be looking at other myth and legend stories in order to write our own. This story will also provide us with opportunities to explore other text types, including diary writing, report writing, recounts and explanations for ‘How to Train a Dragon’. After half term we turn our attention to persuasive writing and recounts from astronauts, and finding out what it is really like up in space! Throughout our literacy learning the children will continue to develop their skills of proof reading, editing and improving (up levelling) their work which is a vital component for becoming a good writer. Please support your child with encouraging them to do this when they are writing at home.

Maths

In Maths we will also be linking as much of our learning as possible to our Space theme through looking at travel/distance/time/capacity/shape/budgeting with money to grow crops, etc. We will be further developing our place value skills gaining greater confidence working with numbers up to 1 million, including decimals, fractions and percentages. We will continue to develop our methods for all operations through looking at word problems, along with learning co-ordinates, reflection, translation, and area and perimeter. There will also be a greater focus on developing our mental arithmetic and reasoning skills, including secure knowledge of times tables facts.

Rewarding Positive Behaviour and Learning.

During the Autumn Term Year 5 have continued to accumulate house points as a reward for the consistent good behaviour and learning they show in class. The children have helped to design and select a Reward Menu that they could earn House Points towards. Designated Reward Days will be allocated throughout this term for the children to spend their house points to celebrate their achievements. Congratulations to all Year 5 for consistent high standards in behaviour and learning!

Things to remember:

Home Learning

Home learning this term will focus on:

· Hearing children read regularly.

· Reading comprehensions in order to support the children to become confident with inference and retrieval skills, and answering these styles of questions.

Comprehension activities will be given as home learning regularly.

· Spelling lists which will culminate in a weekly dictation activity to apply the spellings learnt.

Spelling lists will be given every Friday to be learnt for the following Friday dictation activity.

· Regular practise for learning times tables facts.

Times tables targets will be set on a weekly basis.

· Lexia – Please support your child to regularly practise their Lexia at home.

· Mathletics – the children will be set weekly activities to complete at home.

Mathletics activities will be set every Monday to be completed for the following Monday.

These activities will be monitored on a weekly basis and the children will be working towards the reward of class ‘Star Reader’ and ‘Weekly Mathlete’.

Open ended projects may also be given as home learning, where the children will be set a question, research or a task to complete. They will have a varying time scale to complete these depending on the task set.

Times Tables / Mental Arithmetic

The children have brought home their times tables booklet, please help to support their learning in this crucial area of maths by practising with them. The children will be assessed in this area regularly in order to achieve their bronze, silver and gold rewards, along with a special certificate if they complete the ‘Teacher Challenge’. The children will also continue to bring home their regular arithmetic assessment paper completed in class for you to monitor their progress and support their learning in maths.

Star Readers

The progress of reading in Year 5 has been pleasing to see over the Autumn term. The children have enjoyed becoming candidates for the ‘Star Reader’ and have enjoyed coming into the prize box for their reward. This huge success is a culmination of close monitoring of reading completed at home and reading material chosen, along with your support to hear your child read. This week the children will bring home a reading bookmark which I hope will help provide everyone who hears the children read with ideas for developing comprehension and responses during and after reading. Talking about and questioning the children about their reading books is crucial for supporting children to become good readers. The children should read for a minimum of ten minutes each day. Please ensure reading books and reading records are brought into school every day. Please see the attached recommended book list for Year 5 and support your child to choose a variety of these recommended books to read.

PE

Our PE days this term will continue to be on a Wednesday and Friday. The children will need appropriate indoor and outdoor PE clothing for their PE lessons.

Thank you for your all your continued support. Please don’t hesitate to contact the school if there is anything you would like to discuss and we can arrange a mutually convenient time. I look forward to a happy, fun and successful Spring Term.

Kind Regards

Miss Claridge