What a great week we’ve had! Year 5 have made a great start to this year and it has been lovely to spend time getting to know them a little better. The children are settling in nicely and learning the new routines - we are excited to be working with them this year!

Your child will have come home with a reading book and reading diary this week. At the start of the year we usually use an assessment tool called Star Reader to assess the ZPD of your child’s book (this gauges the level of challenge that your child should be reading), however it has been off line this week. Hopefully we will be able to use this next week to ensure that your child is reading the right books. ZPDs will be marked down in their diaries once complete. Bookmarks and diaries will be checked regularly so please encourage your child to read daily if they can and they must have their book and diary in every day. Children should aim to read at least 20 minutes a day and discuss their reading if possible with an adult - this will ensure progress is maintained and the expected standard is met.

Your child’s new water bottle will come home with them each evening to ensure that it can be washed and filled ready for the next day. Unfortunately we don’t have spares in school, or cups they can use, so it is important that they bring it in each day. When our typical weather returns, please also ensure your child brings a coat each day just in case the weather changes over the course of the day - we will still want to get outside for some fresh air even if it is a bit cold or just a bit of rain. For now though lets just enjoy this warm weather while we can.

On Tuesday the children will begin their swimming sessions. Please remind your child to bring their costume and towel and if they have longer hair, boys or girls, they should also bring a swimming cap.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Kurt

Writing Award - Ronnie

Maths Award - Oscar

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun a new unit of work which will come from the book, Where We Once Stood, which details first-hand accounts of the six moon landings. This week we have explored new vocabulary and phrases from the opening extracts of the book and have looked at strategies to help us with the meanings of these words. We’ve also discussed whether or not humans should return to the moon and the children have backed up their views by giving reasons and justifying their thoughts.

In Maths the focus has been on place value.and the children have been reading and writing 5-digit numbers and recognising the value of each digit and rounding numbers to the nearest 10 and 100.

In RE we have been discussing how the world began and have compared their own views against those of their learning partner.

In Science we will be learning about aspects of Earth and Space. This week the children have shared their existing knowledge of this topic and they took part in a Space quiz to see how much they know already.