Author: Mr Goodwin

This week, we’ve been sharpening our retrieval skills in reading and becoming experts on a text all about ancient Egyptian tombs.

Using our R2s (read, scan, record, check), we’ve practised finding information in the text and checking our answers. Then, it was the children’s turn to become the teachers!

They crafted their own retrieval questions and wrote them directly onto their tables, turning them into giant whiteboards. They then challenged their classmates to come over, find the information in the text and write their answers on the table.

Our teachers did a brilliant job putting everyone’s knowledge to the test. There was lots of careful reading, thoughtful questioning and fun along the way.

That was until they had to clean the tables!

Help at home: Quiz your child on the R2s for retrieval.

This half term, Year 5/6 are stepping back thousands of years as we delve into the fascinating worlds of Stone Age Britain and Ancient Egypt.

We have kicked off our new history topic by exploring what life was like in Stone Age Britain, discovering how early people lived, hunted, built shelters and survived without all the things we take for granted today. Over the coming weeks, we will journey through the Bronze Age and Iron Age, before travelling much further afield to uncover the mysteries of Ancient Egypt.

This week, the children also became historians themselves! They carried out their own independent research into the Bronze Age, using trusted websites to discover key facts and information. It was also a great opportunity to practise an important skill: researching safely online and thinking carefully about which websites and sources we can trust.

 

There is plenty more to uncover this half term, from hunter-gatherers and early settlements to pharaohs, pyramids and the River Nile!

Help at home: Ask your child about their new topic vocabulary. 

This week, we have launched our Year 5,6 Reading Records for the new school year!

Each Friday, your child will be given a Reading Record activity to complete. This should be completed at home and returned by the following Friday.

Alongside the weekly activity, we would also like to see evidence of your child reading at home with an adult. This can be recorded in the ‘Comments from Home’ section underneath the activity area. A short, signed comment from an adult is perfect. We recommend that children read aloud with an adult five times each week, as regular reading at home is incredibly valuable for developing fluency, prosody and understanding.

This week’s activity: Story Map

This week, children have been asked to create a Story Map based on the book they are currently reading.

They should choose a scene or chapter from their book and recreate it in the form of a comic strip or story map. They should draw the important parts of the scene and can add dialogue to help retell what happened.

We’re looking forward to seeing the children’s first Reading Record activities next Friday!

Over the past few weeks, our Year 5 and Year 6 pupils have been taking part in Relationships and Sex Education (RSE), with each year group covering age-appropriate topics as part of the curriculum.

Year 5 explored different types of relationships, what makes relationships healthy, and the importance of kindness, honesty, respect, boundaries and accepting differences. They also discussed the many forms that families can take and reflected on the love, care and support that families provide. The children approached these conversations with maturity and respect, contributing thoughtfully throughout.

Year 6 built on this learning by exploring topics including consent, conception and pregnancy. These lessons provided opportunities for pupils to ask questions, deepen their understanding and discuss sensitive topics in a safe, supportive and respectful environment. We were incredibly impressed by the maturity, sensitivity and respect shown by the children during every lesson.

We are very proud of how both year groups engaged with these important areas of learning and the thoughtful, respectful attitudes they demonstrated throughout the unit.

Just when we thought yesterday couldn’t get any better, today somehow managed it. The children threw themselves into an action-packed day of canoeing, zip wires and giant swings, showing fantastic courage, resilience and teamwork every step of the way. We even found time to celebrate two birthdays with a well-earned slice of cake!

It has been another unforgettable day full of adventure, laughter and memories. The children have been amazing from start to finish and are now thoroughly tired after all the excitement. We have a feeling tonight’s sleep will be very well deserved!

This half term, we’ve launched our brand new Geography topic all about biomes, and what a fantastic start it’s been!

This week, the children have been busy exploring the characteristics of different biomes from around the world. We’ve discovered that biomes are large areas of the Earth that share similar climates, plants and animals, and the class were amazed at just how different these environments can be. From the hot, humid rainforests bursting with life to the dry, extreme deserts where only specially adapted organisms survive, there was plenty to get stuck into.

Using maps, discussion and some brilliant teamwork, the children began to identify what makes each biome unique. They explored key features such as temperature, rainfall and location, and started to understand how these factors shape the living things that can survive there. There were some fantastic observations and thoughtful ideas shared.

We’re really looking forward to diving deeper into this topic over the coming weeks, watch this space!

Help at home: ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.

This week in writing, the children have been turning into masters of suspense. We have been learning how authors carefully build tension in a story to keep the reader hooked and wanting to know what happens next.

The children have been planning and writing their own terrifying narratives, set in places like dark bedrooms, quiet woods and even a terrifying old hotel. Our main focus has been on the different ways writers can build tension. The children have been experimenting with short, snappy sentences, describing what characters can see, hear and feel, and choosing vocabulary for effect so the reader can really imagine the moment.

We have also been practising how to use semi-colons to join two closely linked clauses together in a sentence; a small piece of punctuation that can make writing flow beautifully when used correctly.

There have been some wonderfully eerie ideas appearing across the classroom, and it has been brilliant seeing the children carefully plan their stories and then build the suspense step by step.

 

Help at home: ask your child to tell you about the spooky narrative they are writing. Can they explain how they are building tension or show you where they have used a semi-colon in their work?

This half term in maths, Year 5 have been working hard on multiplying by decimals and converting units of measurement. The children have been using their knowledge of place value and times tables to help them multiply decimals accurately, thinking carefully about how numbers shift when we multiply by tenths, hundredths and thousandths.

The children have also been exploring different units of measurement and practising converting between them, such as millimetres, centimetres, metres and kilometres. The children have shown great perseverance when tackling some tricky multi-step problems, and it has been brilliant to see them explaining their thinking and helping each other spot patterns in the maths.

Help at home: See if your child can spot measurements around the house or when out and about, from millimetres on a ruler to kilometres on road signs, and challenge them to convert between them!

This week in writing, the children have been stepping straight into the world of our class novel Viking Boy, writing powerful letters from the perspective of its brave protagonist, Gunnar.

Their challenge was to persuade the mighty Viking god Odin to return Gunnar’s father from Valhalla so he could help on his dangerous quest, and let’s just say that Odin would have found it very hard to say no. The children focused on persuasive techniques such as emotive language and rhetorical questions, carefully choosing words to tug at Odin’s heart (if gods have hearts!) and make their arguments as convincing as possible.

There was drama, passion, bravery, injustice, and even a hint of Viking fury, all wrapped up in beautifully crafted letters that were both moving and memorable. We had huge fun writing them, and a few of the letters were so emotional that they genuinely brought a tear to a couple of readers’ eyes. If Odin has a postbox, it is definitely overflowing by now.

Help at home: Ask your child to explain the persuasive techniques they used in their writing, such as emotive language and rhetorical questions, and see if they can give you examples from their Viking letter.