Welcome to Year 5L!

Year 5 is an important year, as the children make the transition to upper key stage two. In Year 5 we look to place more responsibility on the children by encouraging them to be more mature in their approach to learning. It is important to see the children taking greater ownership of their learning, becoming more independent and reflective.

Forensic Scientists for the day!

5L had an important task to solve a serious crime! They were given 3 suspects and had to work out who was guilty by assessing the forensics against their statements that were given to the police.

First, the children took fingerprints, which they then analysed against fingerprints left at the scene of the crime. They also brushed for hand prints and investigated footprints. The children enjoyed matching ink samples from a note, using scientific equipment. Finally, through testing the PH level, they took samples to match soil that was found on the scene.  

Jodrell Bank

On Tuesday, 16th January, year 5 visited Jodrell Bank (a world- leading science research site). The children explored the Lovell telescope, learnt from the incredible scientists who work there and got to experience numerous practical activities. The children asked some interesting questions and received some jaw-dropping answers that blew our minds.

Below you will see an array of pictures, including some experiments and investigations that were carried out throughout the day.

Year Five's Carol Concert

Everyone at St Thomas was extremely proud of all our Year 5 children. Their Christmas Nativity Concert was fantastic, with superb acting, narration and singing throughout.

To enhance our learning of Living Things and their Habitats, we visited Chester Zoo. We experienced different animal habitats, such as the bat cave and islands, and we also got to learn about different animal feeding routines.

For our workshop, we explored the Islands exhibit and used classification keys to investigate the five different vertebrate groups.  We were challenged to find vertebrate and invertebrate species and presented our discoveries back to the group.

Promoting British Values at

St Thomas of Canterbury

The DfE have reinforced the need “to create and enforce a clear and rigorous expectation on all schools to promote the fundamental British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance.”

At St Thomas of Canterbury, we value the children and their opinions. One of the ways we have been promoting this, is to allow children to vote for who they would like to be house or vice-house captains. The year 5 children researched their house saint and the British Values. They presented speeches to the children in KS2, who then voted for the candidate they thought possessed leadership qualities and would represent their team well.

Congratulations to the following winners;

St Margaret Clitherow
Simona Adnan

St Thomas More
Daniela Bernardo

St Bede
Brooke Jordan

St Ambrose Barlow
Demilade Oyedokun

Year 5 had an excellent day out, going back in time to the Victorian era. We visited a real, preserved Victorian street and looked at all kind of bizarre artefacts. The Year 5’s certainly were imaginative Time Detectives!

Please look through our photos below to see our exciting day out.

Handwriting
Handwriting is a focus for us this term, as they are assessed on this throughout the year. By Year 5, your child may have developed their own handwriting style. They will be expected to write legibly and fluently, in accordance with the school’s handwriting policy. They may possibly be writing in pen, rather than pencil by this stage and in most cases, should be expected to join consistently. They might still need reminding of certain rules such as – never joining capital letters to the following letter.

Reading Comprehension
Children in Year 5 will be encouraged to read a wide range of may listen to and discuss a variety of stories, non-fiction texts, poetry, plays and textbooks in order to understand that texts are structured in different ways and written for different purposes. This year, we are lucky enough to be reading with Mr Deane each Friday, to develop our comprehension skills.

Children will be reminded to check their reading makes sense, discussing their understanding of the meaning of certain vocabulary as they read. They might also be encouraged to ask questions about the text to further develop their understanding of what is going on and draw inference about character actions, speech or motives, providing evidence. Inference involves using the clues in the story or picture to make a good guess. It involves figuring something out which isn’t fully explained and draws on a child’s existing knowledge of the world. They may story map in order to follow the story or re-read sentences or sections.

They might also be encouraged to make predictions based on what they’ve already read, summarise key points to show good comprehension and look out for interesting phrases that authors uses.

Mathematics
Now we are in Year 5, we know how it is important to know all of our number facts instantly! By now, we should all know our times tables facts and be at the top of our Football League Challenge, so please encourage your child to practice each night if they have not yet passed test 5! Congratulations to those children who are already there!

Number and Place Value
Over our first term, our focus will be number and place value, where we will be learning to read, write, compare and order numbers to at least one million, understanding the value of each digit.
We will also be working on rounding any number to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 and 100,000.
Children will be working with negative numbers, where they will practise counting forwards and backwards across zero.
We will also reading Roman numerals to 1000, recognising years which are written in these numerals.
In addition, using all of their number knowledge, children will be faced with word problems involving the above.

Parent Information
It is important that your child reads every night, if possible to an adult, but don’t worry if that is not possible. Ten- fifteen minutes every night is fine, as long as they are reading and they have understood what they have read. Please make sure they are recording the number of pages that they have read and are writing something about that section. This should include:

• A summary of what they have read (the main events, not the details).
• Their favourite character.
• What particular part they like and why.
• If they haven’t finished the book- what do they think will happen next?

It is also helpful to allow your child access to a dictionary so that they can check the meaning of words which they cannot work out themselves (there are free ones online)

Homework will be set every Friday and is expected to be back in school the following Monday. Please encourage your child to complete homework on time. We would only give homework that the children have learnt in class, not new learning, but if your child is struggling with anything, they should come and ask for help - that is what we are here for!

It is also very important to make sure they have plenty of sleep and early nights or they will be unable to learn to their full potential!

Last but not least, if possible, purchase a watch for your child so that they can read the time throughout the day. They should be able read time to the nearest 1 minute both with an analogue clock and digital.

If you have any questions, please ask!

Miss Lomas

Miss Delaney