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.
Living and learning
I can use the 8Rs to help me with my learning.
This has been our living and learning statement this week. The children enjoyed discussing the 8Rs – reflecting, remembering, resourceful, resilient, reflecting, risk-taking, responsible and being responsive.
For each 8R, the children were able to give examples of when they had demonstrated one of these in school since the start of term.
“I always have the right equipment and I’m ready to learn.”
” I could remember the actions we had created to help remember our topic vocabulary.”
If you’d like to know a little more about our living and learning curriculum, please click here.
Science: what is air resistance?
In science, Year 5/6 have been exploring friction. This week, children took to the playground to explore the effects of air resistance. While our quick experiement might have had some limitations, we all agreed that we could feel the drag.
Help at home: review the forces vocabulary with your child.
Topic – Exploring Our Green and Pleasant Land
This half term, Year 5/6 have begun an exciting new Geography topic. We’ve been diving into the natural beauty that surrounds us – both near and far – and learning how these precious places are protected and why they matter.
To kick things off, the children explored the many benefits of National Parks across the UK, from protecting wildlife and habitats to encouraging outdoor adventures and boosting our wellbeing. We’ve been amazed by the variety of landscapes and the work being done to preserve them.
Bringing the learning closer to home, the class have also been identifying green spaces within Leeds and our local area, thinking about how these spots provide a place to relax, play, and connect with nature – even in a busy city.
It’s been a brilliant start to the topic, and the children have shown real curiosity and enthusiasm. We can’t wait to continue our journey, learning more about how we can protect and appreciate the green spaces around us!
Help at Home: Ask your child about their new topic vocabulary.
Living and Learning: school rules
This week, year 5/6 have been thinking about our school rules:
- We’re respectful
- We’re ready
- We’re safe
Having only three rules helps us to remember them. Children have been getting used to the classroom and school routines and thinking about how they can be mindful of our school rules.
Help at home: Discuss how rules help our lives run smoothly and keep everyone safe. Are there any rules that only apply at home? Do you have a different set of rules depending on the scenario? On holiday, in the car, at the swimming pool, in the supermarket?
Welcome back!
We hope you all had a lovely, relaxing summer and managed to enjoy the nice weather. It has been so good this week to see the children back in school again. I know a few of them will have been feeling a little anxious on Tuesday but we hope they are feeling more relaxed and settled now. If your child has a new class teacher, please come and find us and introduce yourself or speak to us if you have any concerns.
This week, your child will bring home their new reading book and reading journal. Reading is a huge priority in school and being a competent reader allows the children to access their learning easily. Each week, your child will need to read daily at home. This is even better if they can read aloud to an adult. Please record any reading they do in the journals. They will also be set a task to complete about the book they’re reading. This needs to be completed to the same standard as the work they complete in school. Your child might need a little bit of support with this. Journals need to be in school every Friday for Book Club. We would also appreciate parents signing the journals to know that the children are reading at home.
As well as reading, your child needs to be accessing Times Tables Rockstars. Ten minutes a day would be really beneficial. Please ask your class teacher if you’ve lost your login details.
Spellings will be given out this week for the half term. Please help your child learn these words. Spellings have a great impact on a child’s writing ability so the more confident they are, the better.
Thank you so much for your support with learning at home – we appreciate it!