Year 5 Spring Newsletter

Dear Year 5 parents and children.

Welcome to the Spring Term in Year 5. Our history topic this Half term will be ‘The Tudors’.

Curriculum

Literacy – ‘Coming to England’ by Floella Benjamin

A story about the triumph of hope, love, and determination, Coming to England is the inspiring true story of Baroness Floella Benjamin: from Trinidad, to London as part of the Windrush generation, to the House of Lords. We will be reading the book and writing a biography of Floella Benjamin.

GPS (Grammar, punctuation, spelling):

This term we will be looking at the correct use of pronouns for clarity and cohesion and to avoid repetition. Relative pronouns and relative clauses.

We will continue to use brackets/commas/dashes for parenthesis in our writing. The link below will show you our long-term objectives in Year 5.

Spellings: New spellings will continue to be set every Monday morning and children will be tested the following Monday.

Spellings can also be found on EdShed. Please logon to Edshed and practice spellings each week.

Reading: The importance of reading for children cannot be underestimated. Reading for pleasure can benefit a child’s education, social and cognitive development, their wellbeing, and their mental health. Please listen to your child read and enjoy books with them, as we want to encourage a love of reading. We expect them to be reading each day (minimum 30 minutes) and to record it in their reading diary. Guided and group reading sessions will also take place in class every day.

Maths

This term, we will be focusing on fractions/decimals/percentages and their equivalents and division/multiplication problems.

Maths homework sheets will be handed out each week.

Please also use TT Rockstars to perfect knowledge of times tables facts.

Science

We will be studying a chemistry topic – Properties of materials, followed by biology – Animals and human life cycles.

Reminder: TRIP TO RAF COSFORD 1st February

STEM co-creation project day and presentations

History – The Tudors

We will be studying the Tudors and how they came to rule England. We will look at the five Tudor kings and queens that reigned during this time. We will look at the ever-changing Religion during the Tudor period. We will be looking at Tudor schools and thinking about the similarities and differences between school now and then. In addition to this, we will examine Tudor housing, entertainment, and famous Tudor explorers.

Geography – Exploring Eastern Europe

In this unit, children will explore Eastern Europe. Firstly, they will learn about the countries of Europe. They will then look in more detail at some of the contrasting areas of eastern Europe, finding out about the landscape, climate and locations in each area. The children will bring together their learning about one area of eastern Europe and create information booklets to share what they have found out. In the final lesson of the unit, children will find out more about Chernobyl and its impact on eastern Europe and the rest of the world.

Religion

We will be studying:

‘The Parables and Sayings of Jesus’, followed by ‘Lent’ and ‘Holy Week’.

P.E: Gymnastics and swimming

Swimming takes place every Wednesday until the end of term (commencing 24th January). Please come to school ‘swim ready’ with your swimming costumes underneath your tracksuits.

Our PE day will be Mondays. Children should come to school wearing tracksuits on that day (navy blue please if possible).

Homework

Children will be expected to read every day, learn their weekly spellings and complete Maths tasks set.

Please can you continue to provide support by ensuring that children have a quiet time put aside for their homework, and an opportunity to share their learning with you. If children are finding any piece of homework too difficult or they are taking more than 45 minutes to complete it, please do not persist. Simply email/call me and let me know.

Mrs Evans xx