Year 5 - Mercury Class

This term we will be exploring orienteering. This will be on Tuesdays.

Daily reading – 20 minutes of a good quality text. This can be fiction or non – fiction. Please encourage reading for pleasure and enjoyment.

Spellings - to be completed 3 times a week using the look, write, cover, check method in their homework books. Once they have got the spelling correct, they do not need to complete the following boxes. 

Homework books to be in every Friday for new spellings to be given.

Red group:

-ise suffix:

Criticise

Advertise

Capitalise

Finalise

Equalise

Fertilise

Terrorise

Socialise

Visualise

Vandalise

Blue group: 

Words ending in

the /g/ sound spelt

‘gue’ and the /k/

sound spelt ‘que’

league

plague

rogue

vague

fatigue

unique

antique

mosque

cheque

technique

 Orange group: 

‘oo’ sound

Hood

Good

Took

Book

Look

Cook

Follow the link for the Autumn Spelling Bee words. 

If your child would like to enter, they need to have got a score of 35 correct to get through to the Bee! This will be held at the end of term so get practising! 

Lights, Camera, Action. Please see the overview for this term’s learning. We will be embracing all things film! I am looking forward to seeing all the amazing work we will complete this term. 

Lights Camera Action Overview.pdf

What a wonderful first week back! It has been great hearing about all that has been going on over the summer holidays. I have enjoyed getting to know all the children and getting to see their personalities flourish! We have had a busy week settling in to new habits and routines. Thank you for the cooperation and patience while we settle in.

Well done to Isacc and Leon, our two Stars of the Week this week!

This week we have been given the absolute pleasure of participating in a STEM workshop sponsored by the RAF. We learned all about how AI can help Air Traffic Control in identifying UAPs (the new name for a UFO!). We also had the treat of recreating the moments the typhoons are sent to identify the UAPs and were able to automatically slingshot a paper airplane!

We also had our photo day and all children looked so smart! As the weather does start to tick further in to cold, wet and windy conditions, please ensure your child has a coat and spare trousers/shoes for outdoor play.

Well done to Molly and Jasper, our two Stars of the Week this week!

It's been another exciting week in Year 5. We kicked off our week with a pair of science experiments. One experiment was a short term experiment in water propagation. Hopefully in a week or so, we will have sprigs of herbs with roots forming showing the process of asexual plant reproduction. Our other experiment will hopefully bring colourful results in the spring - we planted 6 troughs with various spring bulbs. I have been so impressed with how the children have been showing responsibility and checking on their plant, assessing if it needs more, or even a fresh change of, water. 

Our topic lesson this week led us to become film critics of the highest standard, reviewing the cinematography, plot and characters of a variety of films. Somehow a Charlie Chaplin film from over 100 years ago still has the power to make us laugh!! 

Next week should give us some equally fun experiences and lessons with our European Day of Languages on Friday. We are going to be exploring Greece and sampling some Greek foods!! 

Well done to Reuben and Bella, our two Stars of the Week this week! 

This week has been an exciting week ending with our European Day of Languages (photos to be uploaded). We learnt information about Greece including where it is and some ancient facts about Greece. Did you know there are over 200 Greek islands?

We tried olives (didn't go down well!), tzatziki, Greek flatbread (received much better and a hit!), feta cheese, Greek yoghurt and pomegranate seeds! The bread was the favourite while the olives were collectively decided as the worst! Apologies if you've now been sent out to buy Greek flatbread ... 

This week I also sent out an email gathering interest for our residential. Thank you to all who have let me know your interest. Further details will be sent out with information on payment and residential site location soon.

Next week is our assessment week so we will be beavering away with lots of hard work. We are looking forward to completing some art in the style of Tim Burton and learning more about him and his films. 

Well done to Brody and Mackie who were our stars of the week this week!

This week in our MOTs, we have been practicing and recapping fractions. 

Adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators were a particular tough point. If you're child is still struggling and would like to complete some extra practice on this, BBC Bitesize has a great section of helpful videos and activities to work through:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/z9n4k7h#zw... 

As well as a fun fractions game:

https://www.sheppardsoftware.com/math/fractions/ad...  

As we reach the end of Assessment Week, I want to say a huge well done to everyone! We have been completing assessments nearly everyday this week and they have been troopers! From these assessments, I will be able to better tailor morning tasks and additional sessions to work on areas of weakness and tricky topics from prior learning. As weeks go on, I will upload some useful links for some trickier areas too. 

The afternoons this week have been spent letting out creative sides shine through. We have drawn some Tim Burton inspired portraits and learnt all about the weird and wonderful Burton world! We've also made a start on Christmas card designs ... Christmas already!!! 

A few reminders and notices to be aware of:

- On Monday, information about the deposit for the residential will be sent out. The deposit will be paid through Parent Pay.

- Parents Evening appointments are now available to book through Arbor. If you have any issues with this, please speak to me and we will be able to sort it. 

Term 2 overview.pdf

What a fantastic start to the term we have had! 

This week we've been exploring balanced arguments and have held debates to understand the 'for' and 'against' elements of an argument. These were centred around whether screens were making children lazy or not. We had some very inspired thoughts and these were put into rather persuasive arguments!! 

In Maths, we've moved on to our next unit focussing on decimals, in particular, 3 place value digits after zero. There are loads of fantastic games on Top Marks if you were after some more practice. 

It's been a very exciting week for performing arts this week too with auditions being held for the Christmas production, a start to our class assembly AND our Guy Fawkes disco (although the cha cha slide is still in need of some serious work ...) 

A few reminders and notices for the term ahead:

Next week is our Children in Need 25 challenge. We will be completing a 25 minute sponsored silence with 5 minutes of silence a day. If you would like to sponsor your child in being silent, please see the options on the sponsorship form sent home on Friday. Alternatively, please see Mrs Brock's email sent this week for further details. 

This term Year 5 will be swimming on Tuesday afternoons. Please make sure your child comes to school with their swim kit on Tuesdays.  

Our class assembly is being held on Thursday 27th November at 2:45pm. We are looking forward to showing off all our hard work that we are putting in to this term already! 

Over the holidays, the deposit payment went out for Pencelli, if you had any issues with this, please let me or Mrs Embling know ASAP.

This term will be the Christmas production (16.12, 17.12), there will be a Christmas disco (11.12) and lots more Christmas themed activities! Keep an eye out on the school site and emails for dates. 

This week has been filled with lots of fun activities. We've build 3D life cycles of both local and exotic animals, practiced our class assembly and even started to think about the biggie ... the Christmas production! We were also all very excited for the first swimming session of the term. The rain certainly made the idea of getting wet much easier!!! Due to traffic issues, the second group were not able to get their time in the pool this week but we will make sure they do next week. Swimming has replaced our Thursday PE for this term so only a swimming kit is needed on a Tuesday.

On Tuesday, we all went down to the local war memorial and paid our respects to all soldiers and war personnel on Remembrance Day. I was very impressed with the levels of respect maturity shown from all children during this.

As we reach the wet, muddy weather, please make sure your child has bought a spare pair of shoes and clothes that can get muddy for break times and lunch times. Unfortunately, if they don't have these, they will need to stay in the sheltered area/playground area, not on the field or forest.

What a wonderful week we've had in Year 5 this week!

It has been rehearsal central with practices for both our Christmas production and our class assembly. We are excited for you to see what we have achieved! A reminder that this is on Thursday next week at 2.45pm. 

Group 2 experienced their hour in the pool swimming, enjoying some games and challenges set by Diedre, our swimming coach. Thank you for your patience and understanding while we sorted out the traffic issue from last week. We are all back to normal with two half an hour sessions being held next week.

Stars of the week this week were: Ben for excellent effort in his learning this week and Enhar for always upholding class expectations and behaviour. 

God save our gracious class! Long live our noble class! God save the claaaass!

This week we celebrated our Kings and Queens topic with a class assembly and what a very royal affair it was! We had a very bold and proud King Henry VIII as well as some exquisite singing for the Monarch song. Well done to all the children's effort in learning lines and embodying their characters. We sure do having some budding actors in our class. Thank you to all parents and carers for coming to see their performance, I'm sure you will join me in saying they did a brilliant job! 

This week we also had our very exciting Friday sleepover where there more fairy lights and sweets than the Middle of Lidl! I hope all who attended had a lovely time and managed to get at least a wink of sleep! 

We are now in the full throng of Christmas rehearsals, next week will be no scripts so practicing lines and actions is a must! 

As we are in the muddiest, coldest, wettest time of the year, please make sure children have spare clothes and shoes to change in to for OPAL Without these, they will be unable to play on the muddy areas. 

Stars of the week were George for excellent effort in the Christmas production and Jasper for taking on the challenge of narrator with determination and pride.

This week we have been playing Times Table bowling which has been a big hit! 

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/504... 

What a busy and exciting month December was! We had our school production, Christmas dinner day (which was such fun), a Christmas disco, Christmas carols at the church, the list goes on!

Thank you to all who gifted something to me and Mrs Dobson, we never expect anything but are very grateful for the lovely gifts you gave us!

I hope you all have a lovely Christmas and are ready for the new year! 

Happy New Year and welcome back! I hope you all had a lovely break!

This week I have been super impressed with all the effort children have put in! Whatever they've been having breakfast, keep it up!! 

We have started our new topics and they are:

English: Biography about David Attenborough

Maths: Addition and subtraction

Book talk: Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone

Science: Properties and changes of matierials

Topic: Rivers

German: Weather

For this week and next, our PE remains as swimming on a Tuesday.

Well done to Dylan and Louis for being our stars of the week this week! 

What a wonderful week we've had in Year 5!

We had our final swimming lesson and were stopped by a member of the public who wanted to compliment the excellent behaviour and level of respectfulness of children in our school, an amazing complement to hear! 

Our Young Voices choir went to Birmingham and took part in a huuuuge singing event They did us all very proud and I hope they have a lovely, well deserved weekend this weekend! While these were singing their hearts out, the remaining of us smashed through Maths and some beautiful trumpeting! 

Well done to our stars of the week this week: George and Leon. We were also the class with the highest attendence this week. What a week to be a Year 5! Same again next week!!

Term 3 overview.pdf

This week has been filled with hard work! I have been very impressed with children's dedication and motivation this week. We have been timesing by 10, 100 and 1000 as well as dividing by 10, 100 and 1000. Not just whole numbers either, decimals too. Well done to them all! 

We had a very exciting lesson of science this week. I tasked the class with making a fizzy lemonade with only three ingredients: bicarbonate of soda, lemon juice and water. They were not expecting the erruptions that came from the reaction! I then gave them the task of separating this back into its three original states with a powder and two liquids. After some trial and error, we realised it could not be done and so we had created an irreversible change. 

On Tuesday we also had an exciting event after school with the football match. We drew 2-2 which was fantastic! Well done to Brody for stopping a lot of the goals the other team had tried to get and well done to Jack for scoring in the second half. All players played extremely well and left Mr Hill very proud! Football practise is on a Friday and if you didn't get to play this week, Mr Hill aims to rotate players regularly so there will still be plenty of opportunities this year. It was lovely to see so many parents, family and friends watching too, it was a cold day so that was pure dedication!!!

Next week, we have our Steam trip on Wednesday. Please remember to bring your child in with a packed lunch and a water bottle for the trip as we will be eating lunch on site. 

Well done to Oliver and Reuben for being our stars of the week this week!

Another wonderful week in Year 5! 

We have been beavering away with prime numbers, sentence stacking and some tricky PE challenges!

On Wednesday, we went to STEAM to see a wonderful performance about how the GWR came to be in Swindon. We were also able to have a nosey around the museum and complete some WW2 themed activities. There will be photos on a drop down uploaded! 

Next week I will be meeting to discuss IEPs and I have emailed with dates and times available. These are first come, first served however I will aim to find a time that works if you are unable to attend at any of the available times. 

On Wednesday, it is a teacher training day and so children will not be in school. 

We also have our assessment week next week so a week of early nights and plenty of sleep will be needed to fuel the week ahead!

Well done to Mackie and Lilly for being our Stars of the Week. Year 5 also won the cup for the highest attendence in the school this week, well done! Fingers crossed for another win next week!  

Another busy week in Year 5 this week! We have been working our socks off completing our assessment week. Due to our staff training day, we were completing two assessments in one day on some days, I am very impressed by their stamina and attitude to their assessments.

We were also fortunate enough to have been visited by Rock Steady who carried out an assembly teaching us all about the different instruments. We then had a workshop which involved playing the instruments! Letters for details on how children can take part in lessons to create their own band and perform together went home on Monday. If you've misplaced it, I have spares!

Next week we have parents evening. Thank you to those who have already booked a slot, please make sure you do so at a time convenient and if there's any issues with this, please let me know. Thank you to those who attended IEP meetings this week too! :)

Well done to Bella and Isacc for being our stars this week. 

What a lovely week it has been to finish this term on! 

Thank you to all who attended parents evenings and it was lovely to see so many faces at our topic celebration.

This week we completed an assessed piece of writing all about a made up conservationalist inspired by David Attenborough. It was great to see the ideas and imagination flowing in these lessons. In Maths, we've been powering through with multiplication. We learned about square and cube numbers as well as recapping long multiplication before continuing this more next term. 

We also celebrated Maths in our Maths Whizz competition. Well done to all the children who participated and an extra well done to William who came first in our year group. Molly came second and Jack took third. 

Have a lovely, restful half term and I will see you all in the new term!

Overview.pdf

spring spelling words.pdf

This week we not only welcomed everyone back, but it seems we welcomed the sun back too! (for a day!!)

This week we have continued to complete our multiplication and division exploring multiplying decimals and dividing using a divisional bracket - this is my personal favourite so I hope that enthusiasm passes through!! 

In English, we learned about Chinese New Year and found out which different animals we were all born in. You won't be surprised but most of the class were found to have been born in the year of the monkey! We have also been looking at developing ideas for our class book. We have been given the opportunity to write and publish a book! We have decided to create a book of eerie descriptions with some scenes including an abandoned football pitch, an empty park and an alleyway at night time. 

We have also started our new science unit - Earth and Space! We investigated the way that the Earth, Moon and Sun orbit and rotate around each other.

In PE we are orienteering and exploring. We've already completed one treasure hunt with lots more to come! 

Fingers crossed for more sun next week! 

Stars of the week: Niamh for her excellent science work and Ben for his enthusiasm in our English lessons, particularly reading the speech aloud.

What a wonderful, sunny week! I type this as the grey, cloud filled sky casts a cold chill across the playground but we can remember the one day of glorious sunshine and mild warmth!!! 

This week we've been continuing short division and loving it! We're also exploring how to write with suspense and tension which is going to be cruicial for our published book writing. The children saw their AI depictions of their descriptions which have added inspiration and enthusiasm! 
We've been continuing with our orienteering skills which has proven to be a fun challenge, we introduced compasses to the mix too!

Next week we have our arts week! We will be focusing on an art style from a country. A clue for this country is that it is the home of sushi and sakura ... 
We also have a visit from Supermarine RFC on Tuesday to carry out a rugby workshop and give a taster of what their 8-12 mixed gender club is all about. See the leaflet below for more information:

Well done to our Stars of the Week: Oliver for his excellent attitude to learning and to Bella for her fabulous World Book Day double page spread!