Friday 13 January 2017

Spring Term Communication Letter

Dear Parents/ Carers of Year 5 Pupils,

Welcome back and happy new year! We hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and are ready for another busy term. Thank you very much for your kind messages, cards and gifts.

Spring Term Curriculum

Here is an outline of some of the areas of learning that we will be covering in class this term. 

Maths
Division (whole numbers)
Different types of numbers
Decimal numbers (reading, writing, ordering, rounding) Calculations involving decimal numbers (+ - x ÷)
Percentages and fractions
Word problems
English
Fables
Play scripts
Performance Poetry
Non-chronological reports
Persuasive texts
Reading- our class text is ‘Journey to the River Sea’
Science
Properties of Materials and Changes of Materials
R.E.
What is God like? How does believing in God influence people’s lives?  
Computing
Programming and debugging
P.E.
Dance and Gymnastics (Tuesdays)
Invasion game skills (Thursdays)
Topic
(History, Geog, Art, D.T.)
Saving the World – work will include learning about climate zones, the water cycle, land use, trade links and improving our geographical skills
D.T. will include designing a chocolate pudding


How you can help at home

Homework – Please note change of day
Year 5 children will continue to receive one English and one Maths homework weekly. However, as a change from last term, we will ask for English homework to be handed in on Tuesdays and Maths homework to be handed in on Wednesdays. We will set some MyMaths homework tasks as part of the Maths bubble homework. If you do not have access to the internet at home children are welcome to use laptops at school to complete these tasks during Friday lunchtimes.
If your child has any trouble with homework, all they need do is come and ask us (where possible before the due date).  It is also appreciated if you could help encourage children to take responsibility for their own homework. 
In addition, the children will continue to learn a spelling rule each week. They will receive a list of spellings that follow this rule every Monday and will need to learn these for a weekly spelling test on a Friday.
Please find attached to this letter the half termly spellings the children need to learn at home (and what they scored when tested on these spellings last week). These will not be taught in lessons and will be tested at the end of the half term. Thank you for your support with this – it makes a big difference.


Reading
Please continue to read regularly with your child. It is so important as children become more fluent with their reading that they understand what they have read. Please ask them questions about the characters and plot to check their understanding and encourage them to express their own opinions about a story/book. Please also encourage them to read aloud with appropriate intonation and expression, paying careful attention to punctuation marks used by the author.


Planners
The children are using their planners very well to record their daily reading and their homework tasks. Children will record in their planners their spelling test score and their times tables club score every Friday. Please could you check your child’s planner at the end of each week and sign the bottom of the page. Your child should take responsibility for asking you to check and sign it. We will collect the homework planners each Friday.


P.E
The children will continue to have their Thursday P.E. session with Jon and will also have an indoor P.E. session on Tuesday afternoons. Sometimes our timetable has to change so P.E kit should be in school each day please. As the weather is unpredictable it would be useful for the children to have both outdoor trainers and plimsolls (or clean trainers) as part of their kit so that we can use both the hall and outdoors. Joggers and jumpers may also be needed.


Planners, reading books.
Please have all of these in school each day. Thank you.


Please don’t hesitate to come and see us if you have any questions.

Yours sincerely,


Mrs Michelle Parkin and Mrs Marika Hortop