Meerkats - Year 5

Curriculum Bulletin Autumn 2 

In English. we will be looking at 'The Inventions of Hugo Cabret' as our focus text and writing newspaper reports. We will then be moving on to comparing the film with the book.

In Maths, we will be looking at multiplication and division this half term. 

In Science, we will be learning about forces.

In Geography, we will be learning all about mountains.

In DT we will be making our own birdhouses in our co-op groups.

The Christmas countdown is on! 

Please see the curriculum letter for more information.

Miss Acris

07/10/2019

Year 5 took part in the Harvest Festival this year by saying a poem. The class each had a line to say, expressing the importance of the Harvest Festival and how it impacts the community around us. Some children also read out a prayer that they wrote themselves, during our RE lessons. The Harvest Festival was a great opportunity for the whole school to come together, celebrating the wider community.

1/10/19

We were very lucky today to experience a poetry day. Neal Zetter, a children’s poet with many published books, came to visit. We learnt one of Neal’s poems called 'Never Eat a Whole Elephant Sandwich' and performed it in the school’s Poetry Slam at the end of the day after lots of rehearsing. Our performance was so brilliant that we came second out of the whole school! Scan the QR code below to watch a video of our performance!

13/9/19 - Modern Slavery

Today, we participated in a workshop all about Modern Slavery led by Helen and Joe from ‘Just Enough UK’. They helped us to think about what modern day slavery looks like through role play – all of which we joined in with.

We learnt that slavery is where one person has absolute power over another and controls their life, liberty and fortune.

We were shocked to hear that there are an estimated 40-45 million slaves in the world today. A staggering £150,000,000,000 is made through slavery every year.

Helen and Joe taught us an acronym to help us remember the 5 signs of modern day slavery:

S – Suspicious person guarding them

L – Local language is a struggle

A – Any gender, any age, any nationality

V – Valid travel documents

E – Emotional and abused

5/9/19

Welcome to Meerkats!

I'm so excited and am looking forwards to starting our learning journey in year 5. We have lots to learn, which can be seen below. 

Autumn 1 learning

We have lots of exciting learning coming up this half term. Here’s a little insight in to what we will be learning about…

Maths: We will start by learning about numbers to 1,000,000.

English: We will be writing non-chronological reports about mythical beetles (inspired by the most wonderful book: Beetle Boy by M. G. Leonard).

Science: We will be learning about Earth and Space.

History: We’ll be going back in History and learning about the Tudors. In particular, we will be thinking about who the most powerful Tudor monarch was and why there was so much religious tension during the Tudor reign. 

RE: The focus question that we’ll be studying is ‘What does it mean if God is holy and loving?’

Art: We will be focusing on our drawing techniques – sketching in particular to begin with!

Design and technology: Our focus will be ‘Structures’ and you will be working throughout the Autumn term to create a bird house with you co-op group.

Music: Woaaaah! Livin’ on a prayer! We’ll be rockin’ as our focus is Rock music!

French: As this is a new language we will be learning, we’ll begin the term by learning how to greet one another, 5 colours and numbers 0-10 in French.

PE: We will be swimming during Autumn 1 during our PE lessons. More information about this is below.

C4L: Our focus is ‘Families and Communities’. We will learn about Human Rights and democracy within this.

Useful information

Support in class

Mrs. Heighton (HLTA) is working with children across both Year 5 classes.

PE - Dance and Gymnastics

PE is on a Friday. Please ensure bags and kits are clearly named. During Autumn 1 we will be looking at  range of Dance and Gymnastic movements, which you will piece together to create your own choreography.

Reading at home

Now children are in UKS2, they will no longer have a reading record. We still expect the children to be reading every single day and the expectation is that during a half term, each child reads at least 5 books so please do encourage this at home. At school, children will write in our class ‘Book Tracker’ each time they read a whole book and state whether they enjoyed the book or not. It will be monitored by the Year 5 team regularly to ensure children are reading regularly at home. If your child reads 5 books in a half term they will get a special certificate in assembly. If they read more than 5 books in a half term, they will be awarded a ‘Superstar Raffle Ticket’ which will be entered into a drawer where they have the opportunity to win some special reading goodies!

Water bottles

Please remember water bottles every day as our classroom does get very warm. Please make sure the water bottle is clearly named and is only filled with water or squash only. Thank you.

Homework

Homework will be set weekly. Please ensure your child is completing their homework.

Start & end of the school day

Children will be lining up in the morning outside Meerkats door and will be going in to the classroom to complete their morning activity at 8.50am. They will be released from the same place at the end of the day.

Please feel free to speak to me for any further information.

Miss Acris

P.S. Please keep checking our class pages for updates and snapshots of our learning throughout the year!