Year 5 & 6 Class News

Daffodils by William Wordsworth

To celebrate National Poetry Day, all of Year 5,6 channelled their inner William Wordsworth as they performed Daffodils. This time, the audience was made up of teachers and classmates, but that didn’t make it any less nerve-wracking!

Each class took turns to recite different parts of the poem, creating one big collaborative performance that even Mr Wordsworth himself would have been proud of. With confident voices, expressive gestures, and just the right amount of dramatic flair, the children brought the famous poem to life (without a single daffodil in sight).

In the words of Wordsworth himself: “And then my heart with pleasure fills, and dances with the daffodils.”

It was a wonderful way to celebrate poetry, and everyone thoroughly enjoyed taking part.

Help at home: Read or listen to a poem together and talk about what it really means. Or, if you’re feeling brave, have your own mini poetry performance – bonus points for dramatic pauses!

Writing: non-chronological reports

Year 5/6 have been using our geography knowledge to write a report about a fictitious city. They have included knowledge about the importance of urban green spaces and city expansion.

Help at home: discuss the benefits of urban green spaces. Why might they be important for both our physical and mental wellbeing?

Living and Learning: I respect others.

This week in our Living and Learning session, Year 5/6 explored an important and powerful topic – discrimination. We began by unpicking what the word really means and discovered that discrimination is when someone is treated unfairly because of who they are or because of a particular characteristic they have. Through thoughtful discussion, we looked at real-life examples and reflected on the impact discrimination can have on people’s lives.

We also learned about the Equality Act 2010, which helps protect everyone from discrimination and ensures that certain characteristics are recognised and respected. To help us remember these, we used the brilliant mnemonic DR S GRAMPS:

• Disability

• Race

• Sex

• Gender reassignment

• Religion or beliefs

• Age

• Marriage or civil partnership

• Pregnancy and maternity

• Sexual orientation

The children listened, reflected and spoke maturely about a sensitive topic _ and we were really proud of the respect they showed throughout the lesson.

Help at Home: Can your child list the protected characteristics without peeking? Who do they think is responsible for making sure these are upheld and respected?

Topic – urban green spaces

This week, we’ve been thinking about how Leeds has developed and expanded over time. We considered the importance of green spaces in cities and how these are decreasing due to city expansion. The children were able to identify the benefits of green spaces, such as carbon stores, reducing pollution and lowering global temperatures. They also looked at the impact green spaces have on humans such as improved physical health and improved mental health. The children created posters to show all the benefits.

Science: identifying the effect of air resistance

Year 5/6 have been conducting an experiment to identify the effect of air resistance. We made three parachutes with different surface areas. We then tested the parachutes 6 times each and took a mean average of the drop time.

PE – football

We have been developing our football skills so far this half term. We’ve been using our existing knowledge of how to pass a football using the inside, outside toes and laces of out feet/ trainers. The children have worked on improving the accuracy of their passes, over longer distances, with a partner. This week, we introduced the idea of defending. The children worked in small groups and passed the ball between them with a defender trying to intercept the ball. This also meant they had to think about their spacing, accuracy and communication skills.

Writing: survivor diary

Chidren in Year 5/6 have been reading Survivors by David Long. We have been inspired to write as if we are survivors writing in our diary.

Help at home: discuss which of the 8Rs it takes to be a survivor:

• being ready
• being responsive
• being reflective
• being resourceful
• remembering
• risk-taking
• being resilient
• being responsible

Tackling Tenths in Maths!

This week in Year 5, we’ve been exploring tenths in both decimal and fraction form – and what a fantastic job the children have done! They’ve been learning how to add and subtract tenths, including how tenths can be combined to make numbers greater than one whole, or subtracted to go below one whole.

We’ve also been investigating the relationship between decimals and fractions – discovering how these two number forms can be equivalent. The children have impressed us with their growing confidence, clear explanations, and their use of models and number lines to support their thinking.

It’s been a brilliant week full of lightbulb moments and mathematical curiosity!

Help at Home: Ask your child to explain how 0.7 is the same as 7/10 – or challenge them to add 2.6 and 1.4!

Reading fluency

Each reading lesson, we incorporate some reading fluency. This allows the children to see the same short text all week and allows them to feel familiar and comfortable with it. Over a half term we provide a wide range of texts from poems to non-fiction. Fluency takes on the same structure each week. The teacher reads the text aloud on the first day whilst the children track the words. The following day we echo read. This is where the children echo back a line at a time. As the children become more familiar with the text, they read with a partner and then finally aloud to themselves. These sessions see  children’s fluency increase and their knowledge of vocabulary also develop.

The text we’ve been reading this week links to topic and is all about interpolation.

Help at home: Get your child to read the text aloud to you. See how fluent they are!

Reading With Prosody: The Secret to Survival

This week in Reading, Year 5/6 have been exploring a diary entry inspired by the first story in our class novel Survivors. The story tells the true account of a young girl who was travelling by plane over the rainforest when disaster struck and she suddenly found herself alone, injured and fighting to survive in the wild.

We began the week by inferring how the girl might have been feeling at different points in her ordeal, using clues from the text to build a deeper understanding of her emotions.

As the week went on, we turned our focus to performing the diary entry in small groups. Using prosody, we worked hard to make our performances engaging for the rest of the class – changing our voices, adding expression and making sure the story sounded as dramatic as it felt on the page.

Help at Home:  Ask you child about how to read and perform with prosody.