Welcome to Year 5L!

We are continuing the year with great enthusiasm and I am impressed with the children’s attitude to learn. We are continuously facing challenges, but persevere to find resolutions. Miss Delaney and I hope to raise all children’s confidence in every aspect and are very much looking forward to the rest of the year ahead, with this hard working class.

5L were absolutely incredible on stage at The Bridgewater Hall. Their second performance was in front of THOUSANDS of children and adults (including the mayor) and their nerves didn't show! The children couldn't have performed better, fit right in with the professionals and were congratulated by them all backstage for being such stars!

It was awe-inspiring for Year 5 to witness the musicians perform so close to them and learn about the various instrument families. Many children later said that they would love to be part of Great Britain's best orchestra!

For the introduction of our project with Halle Orchestra, we visited the Museum of Science and Industry. We began with the 'fragrance bar' smelling different perfumes and working out clues. Following that, we watched demonstrations throughout the museum and had a science busking session with Siemens during our lunch break.

We finished the day with a fantastic music session from the creative Halle presenters, where we all got to play an instrument and work as a team to put a piece of music together. Miss Lomas was very impressed with our hidden talents!

The visit from the fantastic team for anti-bullying was extremely thought-provoking. They put on a powerful play, making us laugh and then wanting to cry. Cameron played a great part being Simon Cowel. (I think he was just glad that he wasn't Louis Walsh)

Year 5L were extremely lucky to have an afternoon out of school, to try rock climbing, which was the first time for most children. Everyone truly did show a growth mindset, where they found it difficult at first, but persevered throughout. By the end of the session, many were 'spider monkeying' up and down the walls. It was fantastic to see such positive attitudes and we all had a wonderful afternoon!

With Year Five’s topic being The Victorians, our class novel is ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty. A young boy, Jim becomes separated from his sisters and is left devastated when his mother falls ill and dies. Berlie Doherty takes us though Jim’s life in the workhouse, meeting strange and sinister characters along the way. Over the past few weeks, we have been describing the characters and looking at how terrible the Workhouse really was! The children are all gripped with the book and can’t wait to hear what happens next!

So far, the children have created some wonderful, detailed pieces of writing, which will be displayed around the school. We have also been typing up our research of Queen Victoria and editing as we go along. Come and have a look in the classroom at our brilliant work!

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 all the time. They might still need reminding of certain rules such as – never join 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.

• They might be encouraged to complete book reviews, giving reasons for their opinions and making comparisons with other texts.

• 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 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! A huge congratulations to those children who are already there! This week, we had 6 children who moved up to the next level!

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. 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 Thursday and is expected to be back in school the following Monday. Please encourage your child to complete homework on time. If your child is struggling with anything, they should ask a teacher 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.

• If possible, purchase a watch for your child so that they can read the time throughout the day.