Great start to the new year!

Welcome back and a very happy new year! I trust you all had a lovely Christmas and we wish you all a great new year. The children have made a positive start to this new year and have started this new term with a great attitude and positive mind set.

We began this new year with a whole school assembly to celebrate Epiphany - the day the Kings visited God incarnate as Jesus Christ. Our focus for prayer and worship for this half term is to be curious and active just like the Magi were.

Our learning this week:

English - We have started our unit on Greek myth stories which links in nicely to our history unit on Ancient Greece. The children have begun to explore some of the features of a Greek myth and we have begun to look at the story of Pandora’s Box.

Maths - I have been very impressed with the work the children have done on fractions this week. They have been working very hard on simplifying fractions and have also been able to find equivalent fractions and decimals to a half, tenths and fifths.

RE - We’ve started exploring the story of Exodus and how Moses was chosen to lead the Israelites out of Egypt. The children used the Bible to look at Moses’ response to God when he was chosen for this special job.

Science - This week we started our new Forces topic and the children have identified and explained the different forces acting on objects.

Computing - The children have had fun this week learning about a device called a Micro:bit. They used programming skills to build a code and downloaded it to watch their program come alive.

Geography - To finish off our work from last term on the local area, the children have been looking at the data they collected from their field trip surveys and have presented their data in pie charts.

PSHE - This week’s Bounce Forward lesson concentrated on getting the children thinking about what they are good at and their strengths. It comes from many strands in the resilience framework, as their strength may come from any of the five potions.  The children considered different strengths and then shared with their learning partner one personal strength and they told their partner which strength they think they have. The last activity saw the children share out 5 sticky notes with a strength written on them and give them to different children in the class - each child received 5 strengths that other children think they have.

Remember to record the resilient moves you make over the week and if you have any photographs to share then please bring them in.

Our Award winners:

Golden award - Well done Leo who has come back to school this half term with a fantastic attitude and has given 100% to his work this week and joining in with class discussions and questions.

Writing award - Well done Claire who’s writing has really impressed me. Claire has included some lovely description and has really focused on including the features we have discussed.

Maths award - will be announced on Monday.

Advent, author visit and DT

This week the children have thought carefully about how they are going to prepare themselves to meet Jesus this Christmas. They have made their advent promises and they have linked their promise to Jesus’ teachings. Please ask your child what they have promised to do this advent.

We’ve had a couple of exciting weeks and one of the highlights was a writing workshop with our local author and now Our Lady’s school reading patron, Dan Worsley! Dan came into school to work with the children to plan a big write using an extract from one of his own stories. The children enjoyed the story telling and were so inspired that when Dan left us to go and work with Year 6, Year 5 wanted to carry on with their own version of Dan’s humorous story. I’m so proud of how hard the children worked! They listened well to the advice that Dan gave them and they worked hard to include all the features.

In maths the children have been focusing on division and multiplication methods. They’ve used mental strategies to multiply and divide multiples of 10 and 100 and they’ve used written methods to multiply and divide 3-digit and 4-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers.

In RE the children have listened to the story of Abraham and Sarah, learnt about the Covenant God made with Abraham and have reflected on Abraham’s trust in God.

In Science the children have been learning about the movement of the moon relative to the Earth and have learnt about the phases of the moon. The children have been given moon watch homework - they need to draw the shape of the moon (if visible) each night and identify the phase of the moon using the moon dial they made in class. Please hand the moon watch homework in after Christmas.

In geography the children undertook their second fieldwork trip. They made their own maps around the Squires Gate shopping area and then asked the general public to complete a questionnaire. The children really enjoyed their fieldwork and all the teachers were very proud of how well behaved and polite the children were.

We started our DT work this week. The children were set a challenge to make a simple chassis using just card, dowling, 4 wheels and masking tape. Take a look at their efforts…

Netiquette - being a good digital citizen

This week ended with a whole afternoon dedicated to our online safety. Year 5 have explored how they can become good digital citizens by following the rules of digital etiquette (netiquette). They have looked at how it is important to adhere to the same standards of behaviour that we would use in real life - treat others the way you would want to be treated. We discussed: how to stay safe and private on line by not sharing personal information about yourself or anyone else (permission must always be asked for); ways to communicate clearly online to avoid misunderstandings; trolls and flamewars (cyberbullying) and what to do if we come across these issues - tell an adult, report and block.

Our learning this week:

English - The children this week have explored how Jeremy Strong uses dialogue between characters to give clues to the reader about the characters and what is happening. The children then copied his style and have been writing their own dialogues between characters in preparation for the planning and writing of their own story next week. The children have also been revising the rules for speech in order to ensure correct use of inverted commas.

Maths - the children have become quite good at finding equivalent fractions and comparing fractions this week and they have also been learning to simplify fractions into their lowest terms.

Science - the children have been looking at the movement of the Earth and other planets relative to the Sun. They have looked at how long the Earth takes to orbit the Sun, understand why we have a leap year and looked at how the tilt of the Earth affects the seasons.

RE - the children have listened to the story of Noah from the Bible and have learnt about the Covenant that God made with Noah (and us ) and the significance of the rainbow.

Geography - they’ve continued to use the data collected from our fieldwork trip to answer our geographical questions. We hope to collect the rest of our data on our next fieldwork trip next Thursday.

Our Award winners:

Maths award - Charlie won this award for great work comparing fractions. Well done, Charlie!

Golden award - Claire received this award for always demonstrating enthusiasm, a wonderful positive attitude to all her work and giving 100%! Well done, Claire!

Writing award - Well done Abigail for producing a great accurately punctuated dialogue between two characters that revealed how the character was feeling and what was happening.

Movie makers and fieldwork

Our learning…

In English we have been looking at the work of Jeremy Strong to investigate his style of story writing. We have been reading his story of “It’s not a fairy tale” and have discovered how writes in episodes with humour, silly names, uses parenthesis for extra information and turns stereotypes upside down. The children have begun to look at how parenthesis is used so that they can copy his style in their own writing.

In maths this week the children have been looking at multiples of numbers and have used division rules of numbers to work out whether a number is a multiple or not. They have also investigated factors of numbers and discovered that numbers with two factors are prime numbers and numbers with an odd number of factors are square numbers. Towards the end of the week the children have begun to compare fractions of numbers using fraction strips and a fraction wall to help them.

In Science we have begun our Space topic and have been looking at the shape of the Earth, Sun and Moon and have considered both direct and indirect evidence which proves this. We then moved on to looking at how the rotation of the Earth allows us to have day and night.

In RE the children have considered what St. Teresa of Avila meant when she said, “Jesus has no body now on earth but yours” and have given examples of how they can continue Jesus’ mission. They have then investigated the work of St Martin de Porres and have thought about what he did to overcome the effects of Original Sin and what we can learn from him.

In Geography this week, we completed our first round of fieldwork. The children went in small groups to different areas around our school and made their own maps of land use, completed field sketches of houses and other human and natural features and also completed a traffic survey. In our follow up lesson we have begun to collate this data in order to answer the geographical questions that they set themselves.

In Computing the children have begun their stop motion videos using a green screen to deliver important online safety messages. We’re looking forward to seeing the finished films…

This week Year 5 have begun a resilience programme called Bounce Forward as part of our PSHE lessons. Bounce Forward, written by Lancashire Mind and Headstart, is a universal resilience programme, which has been designed to increase wellbeing and resilience in children across Blackpool. Bounce Forward will give the children the opportunity to improve and build up their resilience strategies and skills, in a practical and fun way. This week the focus was sharing information about themselves.

Awards

Last week…

Golden award - Well done to Theo who always demonstrates a great attitude to his work and gives 100%

Writing award - Joseph received this for an improvement in his handwriting, well done!

Maths award - Ryan was awarded this for great work in maths and particularly for his explanations of the mathematical concepts. Well done!

This week…

Golden award - Well done to Abigail for making great improvements in concentration and focus in her work and for great work in her reading.

Writing award - Ryan achieved this award for a great explanation of how day and night occur due to the rotation of the Earth. Well done Ryan!

Maths award - to be announced on Monday

Maths day and more...

Well it’s been quite a busy week!

On Wednesday we had a visitor from the Blackpool museum who came to talk to us about the history of the Blackpool Tower circus. The children were then given the challenge to think about a circus act that they could see in the future of the circus and they had to work in teams and prepare a pitch for their act. The ideas were very futuristic and all the teams delivered their pitch to the rest of the class.

On Thursday we had our maths day and I’m so proud of how hard all the children worked. Firstly, thank you for all your effort with the costumes, the children all looked great. During our maths day the children did activities related to our space theme:

• The children compared their weight on different planets by multiplying their mass by gravitational field strength and then presented their data in a bar chart;

• They used fact cards about the planets to find out the average temperatures of each planet in our solar system and then recorded their findings on a graph;

• They calculated the scaled distance of each planet in our Solar system from the sun using the scale 1cm = 7.6 million kilometres and then drew out the inner planets on paper and then measured out the outer planets in the corridor;

• The children calculated the size of each planet’s diameter in our Solar system and using a compass they drew out its scaled size using the scale 1cm = 1000kilometres;

• The children also had to complete other space themed maths challenges.

On Friday we went to Mass to celebrate All Saints day. Year 5 accompanied their buddies in Reception and did an amazing job.

Thank you to everyone who has donated for the Christmas shoe box appeal, it’s very kind and generous of you all and will ensure other children in the world will have the happy Christmas that they deserve. Thank you!

Achievements

Well I can’t believe we’re already at the end of our half term together! The children have all worked well this half term and it has been lovely getting to know them all. They should all be proud of their achievements. I was particularly proud of the children’s free verse poems that they completed in English this week. The poems have been a joy to read and the children have been able to create beautiful imagery that describes a classroom at the end of a school day, using personification, similes, metaphors and interesting synonyms. They have also used other poetic features such as alliteration, rhyme and rhythm. The children have also achieved well in their maths and over the course of this half term they have demonstrated how much quicker and more able they are at completing our ‘fluent in five’ morning maths questions and our times tables. It is their challenge for next half term to improve on their own scores.

Our awards this week:

Maths award - Well done Claire for persevering with her work on decimals. She found them quite tricky to start with but displayed a growth mind set and was able to work through the problems until she felt more confident.

Our reading champions this half term were…

Grace and Megan both completed their first bookmark for reading at home. Well done, girls! Mrs McCooey and I hope to see many more of Year 5 completing their reading bookmarks next half term!

Our golden ticket winners this half term…

Well done to Angelo and Megan who were our golden ticket winners for reading this half term. Golden tickets are given to children in Year 5 every time they read three times in a week at home and get their diary signed. I’m so pleased to see so many children trying to collect their golden tickets. Let’s see if we can challenge ourselves to collect more golden tickets next half term.

Well done Year 5 for all your hard work this half term. I hope you and your families have a lovely week together and Mrs McCooey and I will see you all after half term.

This week in Year 5...

Our learning this week…

English - The children have started to write down their ideas for their free verse poems about the classroom. They have played with the language and have been trying to include all the features of a free verse poem that we have explored.

Maths - The children have continued to work with decimal numbers this week. They’ve had fun listening to each others clues for “What decimal am I?” and successfully working out the number. They’ve also been multiplying and dividing numbers with up to two decimal places by 10 and 100 and explored adding and subtracting decimal numbers.

Science - The information the children collected for homework has enabled us to start comparing information and make some conclusions about the data. This week the children compared the gestation periods of Year 5, presenting their work in bar charts. Year 5 found out that half the class were born at full term (approximately 40 weeks), six were born earlier and 9 later than the 40 weeks.

RE - The children have read the story of ‘The Fall’, about Adam and Eve, and have discussed Original sin and how this has affected all of us in our lives.

Geography - The children have used their new knowledge of 6-figure grid references to locate features on an Ordnance survey map of the local area.

On Tuesday, the children were treated to a fantastic performance of the Merchant of Venice by the RSC. From start to finish the children were transfixed and thoroughly enjoyed it!

Our award winners this week:

Writing award - Well done to Lily for her initial ideas for her poem which include many of the poetic features we’ve been looking at.

Golden award - Zachary got the award this week for being such a well mannered young man who always shows how polite and kind he is to others. Well done Zachary!

Maths award - Reece received the award this week for his perseverance with our independent morning maths work. Well done Reece!

"A stage where every man must play a part" (Merchant of Venice)

In English this week the children have been exploring their creative side as Shakespearian actors in preparation for the arrival of the RSC who will be performing the First Encounters: Merchant of Venice. The children used active approaches to explore the play through a Whoosh and they then performed the play in ten scenes. They also became ‘sculptors’ to create the characters of the play and from their poses the children had to guess which character they were. 

In maths the children have been choosing the best method - the most efficient and accurate - for solving addition and subtraction problems. Then we moved onto looking at place value in numbers with two decimal places and have had a go at writing our own “Which decimal am I?” cards for others to solve using the clues written by the children.

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.

We have also begun The Extraordinary Month of Mission this week which Pope Francis has designated for October. He has challenged us all to think about our mission on earth and so this week the children have set themselves a mission and they will be recording how they achieve this, throughout this month. Please ask your child what their mission is.

In Science the children have been comparing the growth in animals to that of humans. They’ve explored different animals life cycles and have compared gestation periods, time taken to become an adult and life expectancy. They’ve also explored the similarities and differences between life cycles of different animals.

In geography we’ve begun looking at ordnance survey maps and have learnt to use 4- and 6- figure grid references to locate features on a map. The children found this difficult at first but by the end of the lesson they were certainly getting the hang of it.

At the beginning of this week Shakespeare club performed an ensemble piece from Macbeth for HRH Countess of Wessex on a visit to the Grand Theatre who celebrate their 125th birthday this year. We’re very proud of all of the children who took part but especially the 16 children from Year 5 who took part. Well done everyone! 

Our award winners this week:

Writing award - Leo’s writing in RE was very well written and presented. Well done Leo!

Golden award - Well done to Maya who was given this award for being a true disciple of Christ who consistently shines her light in everything she does. 

Maths award - Vinny received this award for his wonderful enthusiasm he brings to maths and his very quick mental maths skills. Well done Vinny!

European Day of Languages...

We’ve had another lovely week in Year 5 and the children have really settled well into the new routines and are also becoming well established in their new roles and responsibilities - playground pals to KS1, anti-bullying ambassadors, peer mediators and eco-warriors…

In English they have explored a free verse poem and have identified the different poetic features used. The children have now also begun to develop their own ideas for their own poems.

In maths the children have been converting 12-hour clock to 24-hour clock times and have been looking at telling the time with Mrs Parker on a Tuesday. They have also been using the counting on method (frog method) to subtract three and four digit numbers.

On Thursday we celebrated European Day of Languages. Thank you for your efforts in dressing up in the colours of the Spanish flag for the day, the children all looked great. During the day we found out about Spain and identified some of its customs and traditions and learning new Spanish vocabulary. We also used our geography skills to locate Spain on a world map and within Europe and then using an eight point compass we looked at different places in Spain in relation to Madrid.

In the afternoon the children found out about the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso and then recreated some of his pieces of work. This gave us the opportunity to reinforce our Spanish work on naming colours and parts of the face and the children were able to give their opinions on his work using their growing vocabulary. 

Some photos of the day...

Continental style tuck thanks to Mrs Fawcett in the kitchen.

Tortilla Española (Spanish omelette)

The award winners we celebrate this week:

Golden Award - Angelo won the award this week for being a great reading champion in Year 5. He has already read many books and taken many quizzes due to his regular reading both at home and the opportunities he has in class. Well done Angelo, keep it up!

Writing award - Well done Charlie for using descriptive language to bring to life the idea of a cracked window in preparation for writing poetry.

Mindful body and online safety

Year 5 are continuing to work hard and we’ve had an enjoyable week…

In English the children have continued to look at poetry and have compared more traditional poems that contain regular rhythm and regular rhyme to free verse poems which contain line breaks and irregular rhythm and rhyme. They have also begun to write and have experimented using personification and they have also used description to build images around a single idea. I must say I’m really impressed and can’t wait to see what they come up with when they start writing their own poems.

In maths the children have continued to think about mental strategies for adding and subtracting methods and they have challenged themselves to use the most efficient methods to be quick and accurate. Keep practising these at home!

In RE we have been discussing how the world began and have looked at the story of Creation from the book of Genesis in the Bible and they have made their own Creation wheels.

In computing this week we have been talking about online safety and we watched a number of videos that outline some of the dangers young people can encounter online and have looked at ways they can help keep themselves safe. From this work the children are going to be working in groups to create an animation for Year 3 pupils to help them learn about an online safety issue and to give them advice about how to stay safe online.

If you would like to watch the videos that we have seen then please follow the links. It would be useful to discuss these issues with your child at home and to ensure that settings on devices your child may have are set appropriately so that they aren’t unknowingly sharing any personal information.

Jigsaw from CEOP: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zyux6NGxRYk

‘Lucy and the Boy’ created by the NSPCC: https://safeyoutube.net/w/XId

Staying safe online by Newsround https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/44074704

This week we also had our second yoga session with Mrs Ward who is coming into school this half term every Tuesday to teach Yoga to KS2. She has been teaching us about mindful bodies and mindful listening and this week we have been learning about mindful breathing. The children have fully engaged themselves in this and it has been a really enjoyable and relaxing way to start our afternoon.

Due to the photographer being in school on Friday, we did not have our Golden award assembly so we weren’t able to give out any awards this week.

What a great start...

WOW, we’re already at the end of our second week! Year 5 have really impressed me with the way they have settled well into class and are already working really hard. Many of them have earned themselves lots of minificates and house points already because of their great attitude, focused learning, effort and great work. Swimming has also got off to a great start and Year 5 have made all the teachers very proud of how they have represented themselves at Palatine Leisure Centre with their new swimming teachers.

Home learning - I’m also really pleased to see those children who are already reading regularly at home and collecting their bookmark stickers, completing quizzes and earning our minificates and golden tickets for reading (Please ask your child about these rewards). At the end of this half term we will pick out our golden ticket winners and reward our reading champions. Please make sure your child is reading regularly at home to ensure they make good progress in this area. Remember Year 5, good readers = good writers!

Our work this week:

In English we have begun looking at free verse poems and have been discussing and identifying the poetic techniques such as personification, alliteration, similes and metaphors, that the poets have used.

In maths we have been working on place value of 5-digit numbers and have been comparing and ordering them. The children have also been working on mental and more formal calculations of addition and subtraction.

In RE we have begun our work on Creation and have reflected on the beautiful world we live in. The children have considered the answers to important questions around this topic and are beginning to compare their answers. In RE we’ve also reflected on our school-wide focus - to be ‘learned’ and ‘wise’. In class we’ve discussed this week how wise we can be in the choices we make, even when those around us don’t.

Our topic this half term in science is Animals Including Humans and we have begun by looking at the human timeline, noting the main developments that occur through a human’s lifetime. We have also looked at the length of gestation in humans and have compared this to other animals.

In geography we are going to be investigating our local area. The children have already located Blackpool on a variety of maps using atlases and we have also been using the 8 points of the compass to locate places on a map.

Please look at the Curriculum overview map on the Year 5 page to see all the topics the children will be studying this half term.

This week the children have brought home their homework which is to be completed and handed in by Wednesday ready to be marked as a class. Please see the post about homework expectation and a reminder of this week’s homework on the Homework tab of the Year 5 area of this website.

The award winners we celebrate this week:

Maths award - Well done Mya for her 100% accurate score on our timed times tables test. She completed 144 questions in just 3 minutes and 5 seconds. Fantastic!

Golden Award - Reuben has really impressed me with his excellent attitude, enthusiasm and hard work. He has proved himself an excellent role model already and shown impeccable behaviour. You’ve made wise choices, well done Reuben!

Swimming starts next Tuesday

This morning a swimming teacher from Palatine came to meet the children and talk through what they need to know. Swimming will be on Tuesdays (please see letter you received home today) and the children will be accompanied to the pool by Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans. The children will need to come in their school PE kit for the day and will need with them their swimming kit in a separate bag to their school bag. Girls will need a one-piece swimsuit and boys will need swimming trunks (please see photo of acceptable type as baggy swim shorts are not allowed), a towel, swim hat for all girls and boys who have a longer hair style or fringe, and goggles if you return the signed goggles letter. The children will not need shampoo or shower gel as they will only have time to rinse and get dressed quickly ready to return to school. Please can the health forms given out today be returned before Friday so the information can be uploaded for the swimming teachers ready for Tuesday’s lesson. If your child has asthma, inhalers will be taken to the pool by the teachers so please make sure your child has an up to date inhaler in school as soon as possible.

On PE and swimming days earrings will need to be left at home to avoid losing them as children are not allowed to swim or do PE with them in. 

Thank you.