Author: Oli Wain

Over the last couple of writing lessons, we’ve been learning about relative clauses.

A relative clause adds information to the subject (noun) in a main clause.

They start with a relative pronoun such as which, who, whose or that.

Georgie, who is a girl in our class, has several dogs.

who is a girl in our class is the relative clause
Georgie has several dogs is the main clause.

The relative clause adds information about Georgie (the subject of the sentence and one of the nouns).

Help at home: See if your child can write a sentence with a relative clause in it!

This half term, we are learning about Biology: the study of living things.

We are biologists!

To help us, we are learning this key vocabulary.

Help at home: Ask your child to tell you the definitions of our key vocabulary. Alternatively, give them the definition and get them to tell you the word. Even better if: play charades and act out the vocabulary to help your child remember it!

Our School Rules

At our school, we follow three simple rules to help everyone learn, feel happy and stay safe:

We’re respectful – We treat everyone and everything with kindness, listen to others and look after our school community. This includes friends, peers, adults, equipment and more!

We’re ready – We come prepared to learn, give our best and take responsibility for our choices. This could be having our purple pen ready at the start of a session to complete our step ups!

We’re safe – We make sensible choices, follow instructions and help keep ourselves and others safe. This could be during playtime, PE, online and more!

Together, these three rules help make our school a positive place where everyone can thrive.

In Year 5 and 6, the children have made a really positive start to the school year by following these rules.

Help at home: See if your child can remember the three school rules.

In Year 5 and 6 this term, our class novel is…

Secrets of a Sun King by Emma Carroll

This novel links to our current History topic which includes learning about Ancient Egypt.

Help at home: Ask your child to summarise the key points of the story so far. Support them to be succinct by playing the ERM challenge! This is where they can’t say ERM or take long pauses when summarising! This will help develop their oracy skills.

 

Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been working hard to design and make their pouches. Resilience has been key! Using a paper template, they’ve cut the correct size material to match the function of their pouch. With neat over-stitch or running stitches, they’ve sewn the material together and used either velcro or buttons as a fastening. There have been some very creative designs.

Here are are couple of excellent examples below. Well done!

At home, why not try some sewing?

On Thursday, all of Y3 and Y4 went on a school trip to the Science and Media Museum in Bradford.

We all had an amazing time and learnt more about ‘sciencey stuff’ like sound, light and much more. 

Here are some photos of us enjoying ourselves!

This week, Y4 will be completing their Multiplication Tables Check.

What does that mean? It’s a times tables check (similar to that on soundcheck on TTRS) where each child will have 25 questions and 6 seconds to answer each one.

Why are we doing it? Times tables are a key part of maths and secure knowledge and rapid recall will help your child develop their skills in other areas of maths in Y5 and beyond.

How can I help? Help your child practise on TTRS. Jamming mode works well as you can choose the tables they are less confident with and repeat! Practice makes permanent.

We already have lots of children getting 25/25! Keep up the awesome work.

 

Every morning, children in 3,4 have a group reading session for 15 minutes.

They read their group reading book then have chance to discuss what they have read afterwards.

Each group has their book changed every two weeks and these are available to read at home on the Collins E Book website/app!

 

In today’s PE lesson, we learnt how to pass accurately.

To help us, we agreed on these R2s.

• See the target
• Point and throw

We practised our passing skills in pairs and threes, using bounce passes and chest passes. However, we agreed that any pass that reaches its target is successful!

Last week, some of our Y4s took part at a skipping festival in Leeds against 5 other schools!

The children represented our school magnificently and had a great afternoon. Lots of medals were won and lots of children showed resilience by overcoming fears of skipping in front of hundreds of people, too!

Well done.