This week Year 5 got the chance to meet their Reception buddies for the first time. They welcomed the children to school by writing them a lovely welcome letter and sharing with them a little bit about themselves. Although the children are only able to meet their buddies from a distance at the moment, already I can see what trusted friends and great role models they are going to be for them. It was so lovely to see how excited both sets of children were to meet each other - I hope to share some photos of their meeting soon.
As the “Buddy” role is a little different right now, we have been thinking of ways that the children can still be a good buddy without bursting our class bubbles. One idea is for Year 5 to be filmed reading a favourite story, one that perhaps they enjoyed when they were in Reception, which can then be played for Reception at story time. Many of Year 5 have already expressed how they would like to do this and so I have suggested that they should film this at home and then the video can be sent to me at our Year 5 email address (year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk) and I will pass them on to Miss Dixon.
Our Learning this week…
In English the children have begun to write their stories in the style of Jeremy Strong.
In maths the children have been focusing on mental strategies in multiplication and division. The children have been using doubling and halving to multiply and divide by 4 and they’ve been looking at mental strategies for multiplying by 20, 25 and 9.
In RE the children have answered questions on how the World began. In their responses they have considered the theological truths as written in the story of Creation from Genesis 1, but also they have looked at the Scientific Truths and have shown their understanding that one does not contradict the other.
In geography we have been learning about latitude and longitude and how this gives us the absolute location of places in the World. Ask your child to tell you what this is to see if they can remember. Next we will be using latitude and longitude to locate places on a map.
In science this week we have learnt about Earth’s orbit around the sun and have discovered how long it takes for the Earth to do this. The also discovered how it is the Earth’s tilt which gives us our Seasons.
Year 5 continue to do Yoga on a Tuesday with our visiting instructor Mrs Ward. This is such a lovely highlight of the week and allows for some much needed down time and an opportunity for us all to be calm and relax. Mrs Ward encourages the children to share how the mindful breathing and listening makes them feel and it’s so lovely to hear that many of them are using these techniques at home.
Our award winners:
Golden Award - Adam
Writing Award - Mia
Maths Award - Hallie
Year 5 Star Winner - Elliot
Just a quick note about the homework… Well done Year 5 for all the effort you are putting into completing your homework and reading and getting your diaries signed at home. The children have enjoyed seeing their points mount up for all their extra efforts and I thank parents for your support in this.
For your information, Bedrock now allow children to complete lessons daily and I can already see that many of Year 5 are logging in and completing more than the expected one lesson for homework, which is absolutely wonderful! Today Miss Evans and I were really impressed with the really high scores that the children were achieving in their lesson today and I know the children were extremely proud too!
Also, a reminder that each week we will have spelling and times tables tests. It’s really important that the children spend some time each week learning these. Unfortunately only a small handful of children are getting full marks in these.
Lastly, just a reminder that if there are problems accessing the home learning then please let me know as soon as possible by emailing me at year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk Thanks to those parents who have been in touch about this already.
Another great week Year 5, you all work so hard and get on so well that it’s such a pleasure coming into school and teaching you all! We hope you all have a lovely weekend!
Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly
