“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Doctor Seuss

Well I can hardly believe we’ve been in school a month already and achieved so much. The children continue to make me proud with all that they do and achieve. Keep up the great work Year 5!

Bedrock

I am so delighted to see that so many of the children are using Bedrock at home and moreso because so many of them are completing more than what is expected of them for homework. This programme is a fantastic resource and really does improve the children’s vocabulary. To say the children have only been using Bedrock for just over a week, I am completely blown away by how many points some children have already earned themselves…

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Sam 204 points (WOW!👏🏻🌟)

2 Maisy 141 points

3 Gabriella 95 points

4 Idana 70 points

5 Ebony 65 points

This truly is fantastic so well done Year 5 and keep up the great work! Don’t forget Year 5, you need to earn 140 points by the 24th October to be entered into the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster below). There will also be an in-class prize for the member of Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Reading

In class we have been talking about the importance of reading and I’m really pleased that so many children are reading daily. As Doctor Seuss says, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Please can I ask that parents continue to encourage your child to read at home and sign their reading diary. More recently, we have noticed that some children are already not reading as regularly as they should and some children are not bringing their reading diaries to school everyday. This is such a shame and it really is having an impact on their quiz scores in school and the progress they are making. The children should be reading for at least 20 minutes a day at home. To improve this, we will continue to check reading diaries daily and in addition to the Dojo points and the Golden tickets they usually receive for reading and taking quizzes, they will receive daily bonus points which will be decided by our spinning wheel. By earning Dojo points for reading, this will support the children in getting a minimum of 40 Dojo points each week in order to be included in our weekly prize draw on a Friday and will increase the number of Golden tickets they receive ( as usual our Golden ticket winners will be drawn at the end of term). Get reading Year 5! 📚

Our learning this week…

In English the children have begun planning their own episode of Ramona’s escape down the mountain using ideas from Jeremy Strong’s story.

Our focus in maths has been reading and writing numbers up to a million and adding 10s, 100s, 1000s, 10000s and 100000s.

In RE, the children have been reflecting on the importance of the Creation story and have identified the reasons why God made us.

This week in our space topic in Science, the children have been describing the orbit of the Earth around the Sun and have looked at how the tilt of the Earth give us the Seasons.

In Computing the children have furthered their knowledge of binary coding and have now been challenged to doing binary addition.

In our geography unit the children continued to identify places to send the chosen travellers to, based on their particular interests. The children have now settled on 7 places through north and south America and have a used an atlas to identify their location on a map.

In Spanish we have looked at a new vocabulary for family words and we identified these by looking at some of the characters from the film Coco.

In art the children have enlarged their Hundertwasser images they have created and have begun to develop their work using layering methods to communicate ideas and make images.

During our Bounce Forward session we continued to look at the basics potion on the resilience framework and the children identified three different ways that they can challenge themselves to be more resilient. Take a look at the resilient framework here.

In PE the focus of the lessons continued to be attacking and defending. This week the children played dodge ball and an inclusion game called Goal Ball. In Goal Ball the children were in two teams sat facing each other on the hall floor with their eyes closed and they used their sense of hearing to pass the ball (a bell ball) to each other with the aim of scoring a goal.

This week’s PE Premier League Primary Star awards went to…

Star of the week - Sam

Be connected award - Leo

Be fair award - Lillie

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Sam

Writing Award - Livia

Maths Award - Kyran

Year 5 Star Winner -

We hope you all have a lovely weekend Year 5, you deserve it!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost

“Climate change is a problem which can no longer be left to a future generation.” Pope Francis

Year 5 have had another lovely week and have continued to work hard. The focus of our class worships this week have been about putting others first. Jesus said, “If anyone wants to be great in God’s eyes, they must put others first.” Year 5 have prayed for all those who help us and they have thought carefully of ways that they can put others first at home, at school and other places they go.

This week we’ve also joined CAFOD’s Eyes of the world campaign to help fight the climate crisis. In November the eyes of the world will be on us as Britain hosts world leaders for the United Nations' climate change talks – COP26. They will make important decisions that will shape the future of our global family and so we have joined CAFOD’s campaign to call on the Prime Minister to support the world's poorest communities affected by the climate crisis. As Pope Francis says in Laudato Si’, “The cry of the Earth and the cry of the poor are one.” We must stand together with those who are being affected by the climate emergency around the world, so that world leaders cannot ignore our united voices. To show our support to the campaign, in art today the children have created their eyes of the world pictures.

Our learning this week…

In English we have been looking closely at how Jeremy Strong tells the story using a mixture of description and dialogue to move the story forward. We have had a go at writing our own dialogues which reveal details about the story.

Our focus in maths has been reading, writing, comparing, ordering and rounding numbers up to 100,000.

In RE, in light of teaching about how the world began and taking both the Scientific view and Theological views into account, the children have written their answer to the question.

This week in our space topic in Science, the children have been looking at how the rotation of the Earth allows us to have day and night. Ask your child to explain it to you, to see how much they’ve remembered.

This week in our computing lesson the children learnt about the five different Mars Rovers that have been sent to Mars to collect data. They also learnt that each Mars Rover that has been sent has a greater amount of Random Access Memory (RAM) which has enabled the Rover to carry out more instructions in a row. To finish our lesson the children played a game that simulates programming a Mars Rover.

In our geography unit the children have been set the challenge to plan a trip that takes a group of travellers from the north of North America to the southern most tip of South America. This week the children have been using atlases to locate the countries within North and South America and have begun identifying places to send the travellers based on their particular interests.

During our Bounce Forward session we focused on the Basics potion of the Resilience framework (click on link to see the framework) and considered which of the ‘ingredients’ we can take responsibility for. We then focused in on getting enough sleep and thought about what helps us get to sleep and what prevents us getting to sleep at night. Year 5 all agreed that when they don’t get enough sleep it makes them less resilient and they aren’t as happy. It is recommended that children of their age should be getting between 9 and 10 hours sleep at night.

In PE we are lucky enough to be working with a PE specialist called Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of our lessons has been attacking and defending and this week’s PE Premier League Primary Star awards went to…

Star of the week - Tyler

Be connected award - Ebony

Be ambitious award - Summer

Bedrock Competition!

A big well done to those children who have already logged on to Bedrock at home as part of this week’s homework. As you can see below, Bedrock have launched a new prize draw competition with some fantastic prizes to win. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 120 or more points using Bedrock from now till the 24th October. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. However, please do not complete more than one lesson per day to ensure vocabulary retention. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end this half term. Good luck Year 5!

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Gabriella

Writing Award - Tyler and Lily T

Maths Award - Summer

Year 5 Star Winner -

Well done Year 5! We hope you all have a lovely weekend with your families.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost

“When times get tough, we don't give up. We get up.” Barack Obama

Year 5 have had another great week of learning. The children have settled well and are really getting into the swing of things. Many of them have earned themselves lots of dojo points already because of their great attitude, focused learning, effort and great work. We’re now checking diaries daily and all bookmarks have now been updated . I’m so pleased to see so many have already read and are getting their diaries signed each night - dojo points are also rewarded for this. Well done Year 5, keep that up!

Our learning this week…

In English we have continued to investigate the features of author Jeremy Strong’s writing. His style of writing includes a lot of parenthesis - extra information or after thoughts. The children have been learning to use parenthesis marked by commas, brackets or dashes.

Our focus in maths has been rounding numbers up to 5-digits to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. We learnt a little rhyme to help us remember the rules for rounding.

In RE the children have discussed the Scientific view of how the World began and also listened to the Creation story from Genesis 1 (Theological view) and have made their own Creation wheel as a reminder of the story.

In Science we have been considering different types of evidence, both direct and indirect evidence, for the shape of our Earth. We also spent time on Wednesday , as it was a really sunny day, observing how a shadow of someone changes over the course of the day and why that is.

We had a really successful Computing lesson this week where the children learnt all about Binary coding that computers use to communicate with each other. The children found out that the Curiosity Mars Rover communicated back and forth with Nasa using this code. They have learnt how to read binary up to eight characters and understand that each one or zero is referred to as a bit. They then played a game on the computer where they needed to calculate binary numbers, knowing each digit is worth double the one that precedes it. It’s quite a challenging concept so I was really impressed with how quickly they understood this and they managed some really high scores.

In our Spanish lesson this week we learnt to ask and answer some basic information about ourselves and have begun to explore how we answer those same questions about someone else.

In Bounce Forward this week, we discussed tough times that people go through and the resilient things we can do to help us get through them. Some of the children chose to share their own personal stories and I really was impressed with their openness and honesty. We talked about how important it is to talk to someone we trust and share how we feel when we’re going through a tough time, as a problem shared is a problem halved. Resilience is the ability to bounce forward in tough times - “When times get tough, we don't give up. We get up.” Barack Obama.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Leo

Writing Award - Henri

Maths Award - Evie

Year 5 Star Winner -

Another great week Year 5, keep up the great work! We hope you all have a lovely weekend with your families.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost

Our first full week...

We’ve had a lovely full week in Year 5 this week. It has been so great to see how quickly the children have settled into Year 5 and have adapted to their new class routines. I am so proud of all of you!

On Wednesday, for the first time in almost two years, KS2 were able to go across to Church to take part in mass to celebrate "The Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary”. Again I am so proud of the behaviour of the children - they all showed great reverence, listened well and took part in the responses. It felt very special to be back all together in church to celebrate Our Lady’s birthday, our patron saint, but also because sadly it will be the last time that Father Jim would conduct a mass for us in Our Lady’s Church. During mass the children were able to present Father Jim with a gift to say thank you for everything that he has done for us whilst he has been our parish priest and we will miss him dearly.

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun looking at stories by the author Jeremy Strong. This week the children have read “This is not a fairy tale” and they have begun identifying the key features of his style of writing and have compared this to other extracts of his stories.

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.

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.

We have also 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 and thinking about what resilience is.

On Tuesday the children began their swimming sessions and we were delighted with the way they conducted themselves and represented our school. They made a fabulous start to their lessons and this enabled their swimming teachers to get them sorted into swimming groups quickly and begin working on their new swimming techniques. Well done Year 5!

Our Computing topic this half term is all about the Mars Rover and this week the children have learnt about the automated motor vehicle and have  explored how and why the Mars Rover transfers data. To get an idea of the distance that the Mars Rover had to travel, the children also researched the distance to Mars based on the length of other objects, such as Big Ben, the length of a blue whale, the length of a double decker bus, and the length of an Olympic sized swimming pool.

The focus of our Spanish lesson was a recap of previous learning. It’s lovely to see that Year 5 have not lost their enthusiasm for speaking a different language! ¡Qúe bien!🇪🇸

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Maia

Maths Award - Ebony

Writing Award - 

Homework 

A reminder that a summary of this week’s homework can be found on the Year 5 homework page. Please make sure homework is completed by Monday ready for spelling and times table tests on Tuesday morning

Well done Year 5, you’ve all worked hard this week. We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we’ll see you on Monday.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Welcome to Year 5!

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. We’ve been impressed with their behaviour over the last two days and we are really excited to be working with them this year.

Your child will have come home with their reading book (with a new ZPD) and diary. Bookmarks and diaries will be checked daily so please encourage your child to read regularly and they must have their book and diary in every day. Your child’s new water bottle  will also 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. 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. 

PE days

Year 5 will need to wear their full PE kit on a TUESDAY and FRIDAY. 

Tuesdays will be swimming and this will take place each week throughout the year. The children will be accompanied to the pool by Miss Evans, Mrs Frost and Mrs Hodgkiss and will leave promptly by bus just after 8.45am so please ensure your child is on time for school. 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. Thank you to those of you who have already returned the health forms. If you haven’t already, please return by Monday so that 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.

Fridays PE will take place in school.

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. 

Homework

The only homework this weekend is reading. Weekly homework will be explained and set up from next week and I will let you know in my next blog what the expectation is.

If you need to contact me, please send me an e-mail to: year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk

We hope you all have a lovely weekend and we look forward to welcoming all the children back together for a full week on Monday.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Frost

“How lucky I am to have something that makes saying goodbye so hard.” Winnie the Pooh

Well I really can’t believe that it’s time to say goodbye already. Can you? This year has gone by so quickly and although it has been another strange year, I’ve loved it (and I really hope you all have too) . I have enjoyed getting to know each of you individually and I am so proud of all of you! You have all been little stars and have worked so hard throughout the year, both in school and at home during lockdown, and have demonstrated such great resilience. Every single one of you has a wonderful and individual personality and as a group, you are an outstanding class. I know you will continue to make us proud in Year 6 and show Mrs Murphy (Miss Slater is now married!) what you are capable of!

Year 5 Achievements

Our end of year Golden Award…

Normally the end of year Golden Award’s are given out by Miss Haggerty at church during the Year 6 Leaver’s mass. However, this year Miss Haggerty announced these awards through a lovely video message to all classes and the award winners received their certificate in class. During the video, Father Jim also congratulated the children and then gave a special blessing to all of Our Lady’s children.

Congratulations to Year 5’s end of year Golden Award winner, Isabelle! Isabelle has really shone this year! She has worked so incredibly hard, showing great determination, resilience and a fabulous growth mindset in everything she has done. Well done Isabelle, you are a star!

Our Reading Champions…

Well done to our reading champions this half term who have all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home…

When the children read regularly, golden tickets are given out and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. Well done to Lila, who is our golden ticket winner.

Bedrock Competition

Well done to all of Year 5 who achieved 120 points or more on Bedrock over this last half term. I wish you all luck for the Bedrock prize draw! A big congratulations goes to our Bedrock Champion, Olivia, and well done to all the other children on our TOP 5 scoreboard. Well done!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Olivia 319 points ⭐️Bedrock Champion ⭐️

2 Evie 222 points

3 Isabelle 182 points

4 Laciee 181 points

5 Eliza 164 points

Year 5’s Art work…

Year 5 have been busy finishing off their art work which is inspired by Manchester born artist Chris Ofili who uses colourful layering techniques. The theme of their work is Blackpool and the children have used different mediums including water colour paint, Brusho, chalk and metallic wax crayons to finish their work. Some children have also used tissue paper, feathers and beads to further layer their work.

Great TEAMWORK!

In our Bounce Forward session this week the children took part in a problem solving activity, called Cup Towers, which required the children to work in teams. The activity’s aim was to be able to work with each other and be resilient as a team.

The children had to build a pyramid tower of 10 cups without using their hands and instead using blu-tac, elastic bands, 4 straws, 2 pieces of cotton wool and a piece of tinfoil. As a team, the children decided on their roles - team leader, builders, time- keeper and resource manager - and they then had 15 minutes to complete the activity together as a team. They all worked so well together showing great communication, collaboration and resilience. Great work Year 5!

Our trip to Ascent…

Year 5 had a great afternoon at Ascent trampoline park on Wednesday for their well deserved treat funded by the PTA. The children took part in different challenges in groups and had a fantastic time. We are so proud of all the children, they were so well behaved and the Ascent team were also so impressed with them and said they were all a credit to the school! Well done Year 5 (and Year 6)!

We say goodbye to Elliot…

We send our very best wishes to Elliot and his family who are sadly leaving us and are going to start a new adventure in the United Arab Emirates. We hope you have a wonderful time Elliot, you will be sorely missed!

Enjoy your Summer Year 5!

Well done Year 5, you truly have been an amazing class and we will miss you all. Thank you for the kind words this week, cards and gifts, you’re all so very kind. We hope you all have a lovely Summer and have lots of fun. Keep safe and we will see you all when you return as our new Year 6!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Our week...

Well I can hardly believe that we only have one more week left in school before we break for the Summer! The children have continued to be hard at work this week and we look forward to next week when we can celebrate all their hard work with our trip to Ascent.

Our learning this week…

English - This week the focus has been persuasive texts. The children have been identifying the target audience and features of persuasion.

Maths - In maths we have continued to look at translation with coordinates.

Science - In science the children have been identifying which processes are best used to separate different combinations of mixtures.

Geography - This week the children have been analysing the results of field work questions about the local area and presenting their findings on pie charts.

Spanish - This week the children have been writing in sentences about family relationships.

PE - On Thursday the children had a game of rounders.

Computing - This week the children have used Sonic Pi to create a piece of music on the theme of Space.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Theo

Maths Award - Sam

Writing Award -

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for your last chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). It wills also be your last chance to get on our TOP 5 leaderboard to win an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term. Come on Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Olivia 219

2 Evie 198

3 Laciee 147

4 Eliza 124

5 Kayden 114

Well done and keep it up!

Our trip to Ascent…

Year 5 will need to wear their school PE kit on Wednesday and if they have Ascent socks already, please bring them in. Water bottles will be taken with us, so please ensure it is in school.

A massive thank you to our wonderful PTA who have now said that they will fully fund the cost of this lovely end of year treat for the children. If you have already paid through ParentPay or through school, this will be fully refunded to you soon.

Notices

• School finishes at 1.05pm on Fridays and at 3.10pm every other day

• Please remember to bring sun hats and wear sun cream on sunny days as we do spend time outdoors during the school day. Please also ensure your child has a coat in school just in case it rains - not unheard of in Blackpool - so that we may still go outside for playtimes.

• Please ensure the children bring their water bottles filled with fresh water daily.

Well done Year 5 for all your hard work this week. Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

“Where Peter is, there is the Church. Where the Church is, there is Jesus Christ. Where Jesus Christ is, there is eternal salvation.”

On Tuesday we joined in with Father Jim’s virtual mass to celebrate the Feast of St Peter and St Paul. St. Peter and St Paul are both patron saints of Rome and considered cornerstones of the Church. St. Peter was one of the 12 apostles, as well as the first Pope and founder of the Roman Church. St. Paul was also an apostle, responsible for much of the New Testament. Although he never met Jesus, he is widely acclaimed as one of the most important apostles who spread the word of Jesus and the nascent Christianity. 13 out of the 27 books of the Bible are attributed to St. Paul.

Our learning this week…

English - The children have been writing their free verse poems about a classroom this week. I’m very impressed with the vivid images they have created.

Maths - In maths we have been looking at coordinates in the first quadrant and have started to look at translation of shapes.

RE - The children have explored the meaning of the Lord’s prayer.

Geography - The children used their maps of their route to school to create their own digi-maps on the computer.

Spanish - This week the children have been introduced to new vocabulary which name family members.

PE - The children worked in pairs to complete more orienteering courses and even had a go at creating their own for others to navigate.

Computing - This week the children have begun to tinker with a new software program called Sonic Pi which allows the children to compose their own music.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Grace

Maths Award - Jack

Writing Award - Molly

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Olivia 189

2 Evie 171

3 Laciee 121

4 Isabelle 98

5 Kayden 96

Well done and keep it up!

Notices

• A reminder to bring back permission slips for our class trip to Ascent trampoline park on the 14th July. Thank you if you’ve already brought yours back.

• School finishes at 1.05pm on Fridays and at 3.10pm every other day

• Please remember to bring sun hats and wear sun cream on sunny days as we do spend time outdoors during the school day. Please also ensure your child has a coat in school just in case it rains - not unheard of in Blackpool - so that we may still go outside for playtimes.

• Please ensure the children bring their water bottles filled with fresh water daily.

• Please can each child bring in a ‘bag for life’ (as they will hold more weight) with their name on it, in preparation for sending work home by the end of this term. Thanks to those who have already sent theirs in.

Well done Year 5 for all your hard work this week. Have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Our Sport's Day...

On Wednesday the children took part in our Year 5 Sport’s day. It wasn’t the way any one of us would have liked to spend it, but nevertheless the children were amazing and made the most of it and were fantastic. It was lovely to see how the children worked together as a team and were so supportive of each other. In the end the results were amazingly close…

1st Newton 92🌟

2nd Clifton 86

3rd & 4th Layton & Marton 82

Well done to all the children but a big well done to Newton who won Year 5’s Sport’s day. Now we wait to see the overall results from KS1 and KS2 to see who the overall winners of Sport’s Day were. Goodluck everyone!

Our learning this week…

English - The children have begun to plan their free verse poem by playing with poetic techniques. Next week the children will be writing their poems.

Maths - The focus of our maths work this week has been identifying decimal sequences and multiplying and dividing decimals by 10, 100 and 1000.

RE - The children have reflected on the importance of prayer.

Geography - The children learnt to use four- and six- figure grid references on an ordnance survey map of Blackpool.

Spanish - This week the children have learnt to say and write what their siblings/friends are called and how old they are.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Lila

Maths Award - Mia

Writing Award - Adam

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Olivia 159

2 Evie 117

3 Declan 74

4 Nathaniel 73

5 Kourtney 65

Well done and keep it up!

Our Lady’s Year 5 Musician of the Year Winner

A massive congratulations goes to Grace who won Our Lady’s Year 5 Musician of the Year competition. A big well done also goes to Eliza, Elliot and Lila who were the runner ups. Well done to all of you, we are so proud of you! ♫♬🎶👏🏻

Notices

• The children have come home today with a letter about a class visit to Ascent trampoline park. Thank you to our wonderful PTA who have very kindly contributed £200 towards the trip.

• School finishes at 1.05pm on Fridays and at 3.10pm every other day

• Please remember to bring sun hats and wear sun cream on sunny days as we do spend time outdoors during the school day. Please also ensure your child has a coat in school just in case it rains - not unheard of in Blackpool - so that we may still go outside for playtimes.

• Please ensure the children bring their water bottles filled with fresh water daily.

• Within the next couple of weeks, please can each child bring in a ‘bag for life’ (as they will hold more weight) with their name on it, in preparation for sending work home by the end of this term. Thanks to those who have already sent theirs in.

Another great week Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a lovely weekend! Your homework is now on the homework page. This week it is a piece of geography homework which will need to be completed and handed in by Monday ready for our geography lesson.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

“The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Dr. Seuss

A big thank you for supporting the ‘Dress the colour of the rainbow’ own clothes day event to raise money for gardening tools, it’s very much appreciated. The children all looked great in their different colours. 🌈

This week I have set the children a new reading challenge for the remaining weeks in school. We are going to try and increase the amount we are reading as this remains such an important part of the children’s learning and just as Doctor Seuss says, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Please can I ask that parents continue to encourage the children to read at home and sign their reading diary. More recently, I’ve noticed that quite a few children are not reading as regularly as they should and some children rarely bring their reading diaries to school. This is such a shame and it really is having an impact on their quiz scores in school and the progress they are making. The children should be reading for at least 20 minutes a day at home. To improve this, we will continue to check reading diaries daily and in addition to the Dojo points and the Golden tickets they usually receive for reading and taking quizzes, they will receive daily bonus points which will be decided by our spinning wheel. By earning Dojo points for reading, this will support the children in getting a minimum of 60 Dojo points each week in order to be included in our weekly prize draw on a Friday and will increase the number of Golden tickets they receive ( as usual our Golden ticket winners will be drawn at the end of term). Get reading Year 5! 📚

Yesterday we talked in class about borrowing ebooks and the children asked me to post a reminder of links to websites where free ebooks can be borrowed to keep up with their daily reading 📚:

• You can borrow ebooks and eAudio books from your local library. Go to https://blackpool.overdrive.com/library/youth for more information - there are some great titles that will be of interest to everyone.

• You can also sign up to this free website, Z library ( https://b-ok.cc ) which also has a wealth of e-books that can be downloaded for free. I would encourage parents to help your child choose books as this site does not just contain children’s books.

Our learning this week…

English - This week the children have been experimenting with language to create vivid images using different poetic techniques.

Maths - The focus of our maths work this week has been adding and subtracting whole numbers and decimals and identifying decimal sequences .

RE - This week the children have reflected on the question, “Is Jesus present among us?'“.

Science - In Science this week the children have thought about how we could try to recover a substance (salt) from a solution. They also made their predictions for what might happen and we will continue to observe any changes .

Geography - This week the children have used an 8 point compass to describe the position of counties within England.

Computing - This week the children were presented with a micro-bit already containing code. The children then needed to work together to work out the algorithms needed to code the programme.

Spanish - We’ve begun our new unit on family this week. The children have started to look at the Spanish Royal family and are learning to say and understand family words.

PSHE - This week the children have considered what makes good team work and and how this can make them more resilient . They successfully played ‘co-operation ball’ working as a team - well done Year 5!

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Laciee

Maths Award - Sienna

Writing Award - Jensen

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Our Lady’s Pop Idol Winner

Well done to Sienna who won Our Lady’s Pop Idol Competition from all the wonderful entries from children who competed from Years 5 & 6. Sienna has now received her certificate and medal from the Blackpool Music Service and along with Miss Benson, we are extremely proud of her! Well done Sienna! 🎤👏🏻

Congratulations also goes to Nathaniel for achieving his Bronze medal for the clarinet and to Elliot who achieved his Silver medal for the flute. Well done Nathaniel and Elliot!

Bedrock Competition

Bedrock have launched a new prize draw competition with some fantastic prizes which started on the 7th June and will run till the 18th July. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 120 or more points using Bedrock. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 scoreboard so far:

1 Olivia 50 points

2 Elliot 35 points

3 Sienna 33 points

4 Lila 24 points

5 Theo, Adam & Isabella 22 points

Well done and keep it up!

Notices

• On Wednesday 23rd June it is Year 5’s Sports Day. Due to restrictions for social distancing still being in place and in order to remain within our own Year group bubbles, each class will be undertaking their Sports day races separately this year. Once all classes have completed their Sports Day, all points will be added together to find this year’s KS1 and KS2 House champions. Year 5 will need to wear their PE kit on Wednesday instead of Thursday next week.

• School finishes at 1.05pm on Fridays and at 3.10pm every other day

• Please remember to bring sun hats and wear sun cream on sunny days as we do spend time outdoors during the school day. Please also ensure your child has a coat in school just in case it rains - not unheard of in Blackpool - so that we may still go outside for playtimes.

• Please ensure the children bring their water bottles filled with fresh water daily.

• Within the next couple of weeks, please can each child bring in a ‘bag for life’ (as they will hold more weight) with their name on it, in preparation for sending work home by the end of this term.

Another great week Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a lovely weekend! Your homework is now on the homework page.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Our week...

Well, where has the time gone? I can’t believe we’re already in our final half term of the year. However, they do say that time flies when you’re having fun and I really have enjoyed teaching your lovely children this year. The children have all come back, unsurprisingly, enthusiastic and ready to work and we have had a really good week. Well done Year 5!

Our learning this week…

English - This week the children have begun focusing on poetry. They have been reading poems about cities and are beginning to pick out poetic features such as personification and metaphors..

Maths - The focus of our maths work this week has been solving problems using decimals.

RE - The Resurrection has been the focus of our RE lessons this week.

Science - In Science this week the children have been investigating materials which will dissolve.

Geography - We’ve started looking at our local area and have used an atlas to locate Blackpool on various maps.

Computing - This week the children were presented with a micro-bit already containing code. The children then needed to work together to work out the algorithms needed to code the programme.

Spanish - We’ve begun our new unit on family this week. The children have started to look at the Spanish Royal family and are learning to say and understand family words.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Molly

Maths Award - Declan

Year 5 Star Winner - Lennon

Notices

• School finishes at 1.05pm on Fridays and at 3.10pm every other day

• Please remember to bring sun hats and wear sun cream on sunny days as we do spend time outdoors during the school day. Please also ensure your child has a coat in school just in case it rains - not unheard of in Blackpool - so that we may still go outside for playtimes.

• Please ensure the children bring their water bottles filled with fresh water daily.

• Own clothes day is on Friday 18th June and we ask for the children to bring £1 for this. The theme is ‘Dress the colour of the rainbow’.

• Within the next couple of weeks, please can each child bring in a ‘bag for life’ (as they will hold more weight) with their name on it, in preparation for sending work home by the end of this term.

What a great first week back Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit. Acts 2:4

I can’t believe that we’re already at this point in the year. When we return to school, we will only have six more weeks together and then the children will be moving on to begin their final year at Our Lady’s in Year 6. I’m so proud of how hard the children have worked so far this year and I know they will continue to work hard in their final half term of Year 5. 👏🏻🌟

This Sunday, May 23rd, the Church celebrates Pentecost, one of the most important feast days of the year that concludes the Easter season and celebrates the beginning of the Church. Pentecost occurs 50 days after the death and resurrection of Jesus, and ten days after his ascension into heaven. When the Holy Spirit descended on the Apostles, they preached the Good News of Jesus Christ. Miraculously, people of many different languages and nations could understand the Apostles in their own languages. This miracle reflected God’s desire for the Gospel to be preached to all, and for all the peoples of the earth to be united in faith.

Our learning this week…

English - This week the children have been looking at the features of recounts and have written a newspaper recount of a heroic teenager for a Year 3 audience.

Maths - The focus of our maths work this week has been adding and subtracting decimals.

RE - This week we the children have been recounting Jesus’s Resurrection and have written it in the style of a newspaper report.

History - This week the children have been finding out what the Maya writing system consists of, how words are constructed and what codices are.

Computing - This week the children finished off their coding of a pedometer.Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t that good so the children were'n’t able to go out and try them out, so they’ll try them after half term.

Spanish - The children practised their cafe role plays and showed off their great accents to order items from a menu.

PSHE - Today we focused on what hope means and reflected on how being grateful and hopeful can make us more resilient. We made positivity glasses to remind us to have a positive outlook on things when we face challenges and to bounce forward through tough times.

PE - The children continued navigating around a grid of cones using different maps and adding up as they went along. They’re all getting really good at this.
ART - We’ve taken part in a couple of competitions this weeks. The first was the Royal Mail’s Heroes Stamp Design Competition, honouring the heroes of the coronavirus pandemic (See the children’s entries below). The second one was Broomhead’s Estate Agents competition - they are celebrating their 40th birthday - where the children had to design their dream house.

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Year 5 Achievements

Our Reading Champions…

Well done to our reading champions this half term who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. I won’t be setting homework over half term but as reading is so important, I ask parents to continue to encourage your child to read regularly at home (at least 20 minutes per day) and get their diary signed.

When the children read regularly, golden tickets are given out and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. Well done to Brodie and Lennon who are our golden ticket winners and have won a prize.

Bedrock Competition

Well done to all of Year 5 who achieved 120 points or more on Bedrock over this last half term. I wish you all luck for the Bedrock prize draw! A big congratulations goes to our Bedrock Champion, Hallie, and all the other children on our TOP 5 scoreboard. Well done!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 273 points ⭐️Bedrock Champion ⭐️

2 Declan 247 points

3 Eliza 236 points

4 Elliot 231 points

5 Theo 229 points

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Hallie

Writing Award - Sam

Maths Award - Laciee

Year 5 Star Winner - Laciee

Notices

• School reopens on Monday 7th June at the normal start time of 8.40am

You’ve all worked so hard this week Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a lovely half term holiday!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

"After the Lord Jesus had spoken to them, he was taken up into heaven and he sat at the right hand of God." Mark 16:19

Yesterday was the Feast of the Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ, Jesus’s ascension into heaven, which is celebrated forty days after his Resurrection. As a whole school, we took part in this special celebration by joining in with Father Jim’s Mass via video link from our classrooms. I am so proud of how Year 5 joined in with the mass so respectfully. Well done Year 5!

Our learning this week…

English - This week the children have been writing, and editing, their diary entries from the point of view of Billy, the main character of the story ‘Bling!’.

Maths - The focus of our maths work this week has been finding equivalent fractions, decimals and percentages.

RE - This week we have been reflecting on what it means to experience forgiveness. We have looked at stories from the Bible which tell us about Jesus’s teachings on forgiveness and have looked at events where Jesus showed us how to forgive.

Science - The focus of our Science lesson this week was electrical conductors. The children identified materials that were electrical conductors and insulators and then they investigated different types of metals to see which was the best electrical conductor. The children then presented their findings to the class.

History - This week the children have identified a range of evidence sources, both primary and secondary, to help them understand more about the Maya civilisation.

Computing - Using their growing knowledge of the code blocks within the micro-bit editor, the children have programmed their micro-bit to make a pedometer.

Spanish - This week the children have been writing sentences in Spanish related to our Café theme. ¡Bravo Year 5!

PSHE - During this lesson we talked about the power of positivity and how it can make us more resilient. The children thought about all the things they are grateful for.

PE - The focus of our orienteering this week was to learn the skill of map orientation using basic diagrams. The children navigated themselves around a grid of cones using their map and adding up as they went along.

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 200 points

2 Declan 175 points

3 Eliza 154 points

4 Laciee 145 points

5 Elliot 144 points

Well done to our TOP 5 who have already made it into the Bedrock prize draw. This next week is your last chance to ensure you’ve earned your 120+ points to be entered into the prize draw above. Let’s see how many points you can earn this week! Who will be our Bedrock Super Star?

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Sienna

Writing Award - Cianna

Maths Award - Brodie

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Notices

• Year 5 finish school at 3.10pm Monday - Thursday and at 1.05pm on a Friday

• Reading books and diaries must be brought into school daily. Diaries get checked everyday so that we can reward the children for their reading. I would expect Year 5 to read at home daily for at least 20 minutes.

• Homework will need to be completed before Thursday, when I will check your results. Please see the homework page for this week’s homework. Parents will be informed if this is not complete.

• PE days continue to be on a Tuesday and Thursday. No earrings please.

You’ve all worked so hard this week Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

¿Qué quieres tomar?

Our learning this week…

English - This week the children have been developing their sentences and description to prepare for their diary writing.

Maths - We’ve been rounding decimal numbers to the nearest tenth and to the nearest whole number. We’ve also been using place value to compare and order decimal numbers and have started looking at percentages.

RE - From our work on the Sacrament of Reconciliation last week, the children have been writing their own guide to this very important Sacrament aimed at children in Year 3 and 4.

History - This week the children learnt that the Ancient Maya civilisation had developed a complex number system and they have been learning how to write and identify the numbers.

Computing - This week the children were presented with code for a micro-bit and they had to predict what the program did - I was very impressed with how well some children did this. The program was a polling program to record the number of different responses to a question. The children then built the code, downloaded it to the micro-bit and then had fun testing it out on each other.

Spanish - In our lesson this week the children role played at being waiter and customer in our Café Olé and showed off their language skills in Spanish. ¡Bravo Y5!

PSHE - This week the children discussed what helps make them happy and then they made their own Feel Good Check List that the children can use to help them become more resilient and bounce forward from tough times.

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 133 points

2 Eliza 125 points

3 Declan 121 points

4 Laciee 119 points

5 Theo 101 points

Well done and keep it up!

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Isabella

Writing Award - Hallie

Maths Award - Grace

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Congratulations also goes to Grace and Lila who achieved their Silver music medals for the clarinet. Well done girls!

Notices

• IMPORTANT LETTER TO KS2

  Please read this important letter from Miss Haggerty…

  Letter

  Parental Controls booklet

  Online safety newsletter

• Year 5 finish school at 3.10pm Monday - Thursday and at 1.05pm on a Friday

• Reading books and diaries must be brought into school daily. Diaries get checked everyday so that we can reward the children for their reading. I would expect Year 5 to read at home daily for at least 20 minutes.

• Homework will need to be completed before Thursday, when I will check your results. Please see the homework page for this week’s homework. Parents will be informed if this is not complete.

• PE days continue to be on a Tuesday and Thursday. No earrings please.

Coming up…

Virtual Pop Idol - Miss Benson sent home letters to those children interested in taking part in the Virtual Pop Idol competition. Please read the letter carefully and send entries by 14th May at 2pm to the email address on the letter. Good luck Year 5!

Hope you all have a lovely weekend Year 5!

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

"Confessing our sins may be difficult for us but it brings us peace. We are sinners and we need God's forgiveness." Pope Francis

Our learning this week…

English - This week we explored the dilemma and the possible consequences that Billy from Bling! is facing and the children have planned the decision he will make. This will then be the focus of their diary writing they will do next week.

Maths - This week we’ve focused on decimal numbers up to two decimal places and have been converting these to fractions.

RE - This week we’ve been discussing the importance of the Sacrament of Reconciliation – a gift that Jesus has given to us which helps to deepen our relationship with him.  We recalled going to our own first confession and what happened.

Science - This week the children have been investigating thermal conductors and insulators. The children set up an investigation to find out which materials made the best thermal insulator which could be used as a lining to a new lunch box.

History - The focus of this lesson was Maya religious beliefs. They explored how the Maya worshipped and some of the rituals they practiced and have looked at some of the main gods and what they represented to the people.

Computing - The children had fun coding their own animations on the micro-bit and have been able to download their code to the device.

PSHE - The children have identified emotions and have discussed how these can link to the way we behave (sometimes negatively and sometimes positively). We’ve explored positive coping strategies and the children have begun to create their own coping plan to support them through the emotions.

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard:

1 Eliza 98 points

2 Hallie 93 points

3 Declan 92 points

4 Laciee 83 points

5 Theo 78 points

Well done and keep it up!

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Olivia

Writing Award - Declan

Maths Award - Elliot

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Resilient moves

Thank you for sharing your resilient moves this week…

Isabella's egg head...

Please continue to send in photos of yourselves making resilient moves to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can see what you’ve been up to.

Reminders:

• Monday is a Bank Holiday so school will be closed. We will reopen Tuesday 4th May.

• Year 5 finish school at 3.10pm Monday - Thursday and at 1.05pm on a Friday

• Reading books and diaries must be brought into school daily. Diaries get checked everyday so that we can reward the children for their reading. I would expect Year 5 to read at home daily for at least 20 minutes.

• Homework will need to be completed before Thursday, when I will check your results. Hope you all have a great weekend. Please see the homework page for this week’s homework. Parents will be informed if this is not complete.

• PE days continue to be on a Tuesday and Thursday. No earrings please.

• Music tuition is on a Thursday, so please ensure your instrument is in school ready to have your lesson with Miss Benson.

• As the weather starts to get warmer, please ensure your child brings in their water bottle each day with fresh water. I would also advise that coats still come into school each day as the weather can be unpredictable and we will all still go outside even on those cold/rainy days.

Well done Year 5 and we hope you all have a lovely long weekend.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Our week...

We’ve had another busy week this week and I’m pleased and proud of how hard the children continue to work. They’ve shown resilience in the things they have found difficult and have overcome some difficult challenges which have left them feeling proud of themselves. Well done Year 5!

Our learning this week…

English - We’ve explored how the main character of Bling! has changed over the course of the story this week and have looked at how language in writing can be altered to show status. The children have also been working on creating vivid images that use description and comparison.

Maths - This week we’ve looked at how multiplying fractions and finding fractions of amounts give us the same answer and we have been solving problems involving fractions.

RE -This week the children have been discussing what sin is and how we can show that we are truly sorry for the wrong we do.

Science - Our new topic is all about properties and changes of materials. This week the children have identified the properties of different materials. They have explored the meaning of different properties and have sorted and classified materials based on their properties through testing whether they are: magnetic, transparent, flexible, permeable or hard.

History - This week the children started our unit on the Ancient Maya Civilisation. They placed events of the Maya on a timeline showing their understanding of chronological order through BC and AD and have used atlases to label the area on a map to show where in Central America the Maya used to live

Spanish - This week the children have continued to develop their speaking and listening of words and phrases that can be used when ordering food and drink in a cafe.

PE - This week the children took part in relays as part of a team, which developed their understanding of basic orienteering symbols using a map key. They worked really hard and all teams successfully completed the challenge.

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget the Bedrock competition for a chance to win an amazing prize (see poster above). There will also be an in-class prize for the Year 5 who has the most points by the end of term.

Here is our TOP 5 scoreboard so far:

1 Isabelle 66points

2 Hallie 62 points

3 Eliza 57 points

4 Laciee 51 points

5 Declan 49 points

Well done and keep it up!

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Nathaniel

Writing Award - Theo

Maths Award - Isabelle

Year 5 Star Winner - Cianna

Congratulations also goes to Eliza who has achieved her Bronze music medal for the clarinet. Well done Eliza!

Reminders:

• Year 5 finish school at 3.10pm Monday - Thursday and at 1.05pm on a Friday

• Reading books and diaries must be brought into school daily. Diaries get checked everyday so that we can reward the children for their reading. I would expect Year 5 to read at home daily for at least 20 minutes.

• Homework will need to be completed before Thursday, when I will check your results. Hope you all have a great weekend. Please see the homework page for this week’s homework. Parents will be informed if this is not complete.

• PE days continue to be on a Tuesday and Thursday. No earrings please.

• Music tuition is on a Thursday, so please ensure your instrument is in school ready to have your lesson with Miss Benson.

• As the weather starts to get warmer, please ensure your child brings in their water bottle each day. I would also advise that coats still come into school each day as the weather can be unpredictable and we will all still go outside even on those cold/rainy days.

Another great week Year 5, well done! Hope you all have a wonderful weekend.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

“But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him" (Parable of the Lost Son, Luke 15:20)

Welcome back after the Easter holidays. I hope you all had a wonderful Holy week and enjoyed your time together. We’ve had a lovely week back in school and the children have worked really hard…

Our learning this week…

English - This week we have begun a new unit, which is a modern retelling of a myth. We’ve looked at the similarities and differences between the stories and have been working on complex sentences with relative clause.

Maths - The focus this week has been on multiplying fractions and mixed numbers by whole numbers and finding fractions of amounts.

RE - In the parable of the Lost Son, the children have identified the important message and have explored who the Father and the Son represent and what the the story tells us about them.

Geography - This week the children have learnt about the cause of floods and its impact on people and the environment. The children have also used an atlas to locate and name the largest rivers in the world and have identified the source and the mouth of each river.

Computing - The children have had fun this week learning about a device called a Micro:bit. They explored the blocks within the code editor to create a simple animation.

Spanish - Our new unit is El cafe and we’ve started to learn new words and phrases that can be used when ordering food and drink in a cafe.

PE - This week the children used their orienteering skills to navigate around a course to find the names of Greek Gods.

Resilient moves

Thank you for sharing your resilient moves this week…

Brodie looked after a tortoise over Easter

Lisa the tortoise

Please continue to send in photos of yourselves making resilient moves to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can see what you’ve been up to.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Kayden

Writing Award - Lennon

Maths Award - Adam

Year 5 Star Winner - 

Bedrock competition

As you can see, Bedrock have launched this new prize draw competition with some fantastic prizes. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 120 or more points using Bedrock. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. However, please do not complete more than one lesson per day to ensure vocabulary retention. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize. Good luck Year 5!

Well done Year 5, you’ve made a good start to this half term! Please see the homework page for this week’s homework. Homework will need to be completed before Thursday, when I will check your results. Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

We’ve had a lovely week thinking about Holy week. Each day we have watched Miss Haggerty’s assemblies on the Easter story and reflected on each of the special events that lead us up to the death and resurrection of Christ. We’ve also been busy making two of the fourteen Stations of the Cross ready for display in church over the Easter weekend. Each class were given two stations to make and we were challenged to make the second station, “Jesus accepts the cross”, and the ninth station, “Jesus falls for a third time”. It would be lovely if the children are able to go and see them all at mass over the weekend.

Our learning this week…

English - The children have been writing their ending to the story of Pandora’s box from the point of view of Pandora this week. They’ve really focused on using powerful words to create images in the readers minds. I’ve been impressed with their work and now look forward to reading them all the way through.

Maths - The focus of our maths this week has been adding and subtracting mixed numbers.

RE - In addition to our reflections of Holy week, we have also begun to look at the parable of the Prodigal son and what the story shows us about God’s love and forgiveness.

Year 5 Achievements

Book Lent challenge complete!

I am so delighted with all of Year 5 this week for completing their Lent challenge book. This morning each group sat together over a celebratory cake so that we could talk about the book we had read. It was really lovely to chat about the book and share our thoughts and opinions. Well done Year 5, I’m so proud of you all!

Our Reading Champions…

Well done to our reading champions this half term who all completed bookmarks (some completed 2!) for reading regularly at home. Reading continues to be a really important focus for us and I ask parents to continue to encourage your child to read regularly at home (at least 20 minutes per day) and get their diary signed.

When the children read regularly, golden tickets are given out and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. 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 even more golden tickets next half term. Well done to Mia, Jacob and Nevaeh who are our golden ticket winners for this half term and have won a prize. Unfortunately, Nevaeh wasn’t in school today but her prize is waiting for her in school for when she returns.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Onalee

Writing Award - Olivia

Maths Award - Molly

Year 5 Star Winner - Onalee

Well done Year 5, you’ve all worked incredibly hard this term and I am so proud of every one of you! It hasn’t been the easiest of terms with a mixture of home learning and then returning to school, but you’ve all taken it in your stride and you have shown such great resilience. I hope that over the Easter holiday you are all able to enjoy some down time and have a wonderful, happy and Holy Easter with your families.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Goodbye to our ducklings

We have had the most delightful week with our ducklings this week. It has been a joy for all of us to watch our four wonderful ducklings, Puck, Titania, Demetrius and Lysander grow and play this week. Watch our video to see how much they’ve grown and how much they love water!

Year 5 have been very busy this week charting the ducklings growth for our Science work and they’ve learnt quite a bit more of their life cycle . Sadly, the ducklings have now gone to their new home on a farm where they will be able to wander freely with other ducklings. We really are going to miss them as they all have such loveable characters.

Our other learning this week…

English - This week the children have continued to work on the Greek myth Pandora’s box and are now in the process of planning their version of the story from the point of view of Pandora.

Maths - This week we’ve continued to work on adding fractions and also adding mixed numbers.

RE - This week the focus was on how Mary, our Mother, can help us untangle knots of sin.

Geography - We’ve identified how a river changes along its course and we’ve used an atlas to locate the longest rivers in the British Isles.

PE - On Tuesday the children ran the daily mile on our KS2 playground. On Thursday the children played a fast paced Easter themed game called Carrot Quest which uses attacking and defending skills.

Holy Week

Sunday marks the beginning of Holy Week with Palm Sunday. Normally we would mark this very special celebration, lead by KS1, in Church and then each day each KS2 class would then lead an assembly each morning to tell the special events of the week. Instead, next week we will explore a part of the Easter story each day next week. We have also been challenged to create two Stations of the Cross which will go into Church next week. I will post photos on the blog next week when they are finished.

Lent Reading Challenge

I’ve been delighted with how Year 5 have taken on our reading challenge over the last few weeks. It’s been wonderful to see how enthused they’ve been and I’m impressed with how many children have read more than one of our challenge books. Well done Year 5!

Next week is our Book club celebration and we’re really looking forward to having a discussion and sharing our thoughts . Please encourage your child to finish their chosen challenge book if they have not already done so, so that they are able to fully join in. Thank you.

Resilient moves

Thank you for sharing your resilient moves this week…

Brodie has been learning new skills on her skateboard...

Please continue to send in photos of you making resilient moves to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk so we can see what you’ve been up to.

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Kourtney

Writing Award - Nevaeh

Maths Award - Cianna

Year 5 Star Winner -

It’s been a great week Year 5, you’ve continued to work hard and I hope you all have a great well deserved weekend.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly

Back together

What a lovely week it has been! It has felt really good to have the class back together and I’ve been really impressed with how the children have come back positive and ready to learn. They’ve done really well this week and it’s like they’ve never been away. Well done Year 5, we’re so proud of you!

Our learning this week…

English - This week we have begun our unit on Greek Myths and have been exploring the story of Pandora’s box.

Maths - We’ve continued to work on fractions this week. We started by recapping the work that was completed over the last two weeks of home learning and have moved onto comparing and ordering fractions greater than 1.

Geography - We’ve looked in detail at the water cycle to follow up with the work from Kingfisher education workshops last week.

Art - This week we have looked at sculptures from the artist Alberto Giacometti. Then to link in with our work on the Ancient Greeks we have started making our own 3D sculptures, in the style of Alberto Giacometti, on the theme of the Ancient Greek Olympics. The children started by sketching each other in poses of Olympic sports and then they chose one and created the pose out of dowling and masking tape. Afterwards, the children applied modroc to complete the sculpture. Next week the children will paint them.

PE - This week the children have run the daily mile out on the playground and in our second session this week the children have played a Greek themed tag game - Spartans versus Athenians.

PSHE - We began our week reflecting on the lockdown and it gave the children the opportunity to talk about their lockdown memories and how they have felt about the last few months. We also began our ‘Think Good, Feel Good’ sessions of Bounce Forward which link to the Coping and Core Self Potion of the resilient framework. Using Disney’s Inside Out film, we explored all the emotions the children might feel and reinforced that it is ok to feel different at times and that is ok to feel sad, angry etc. It’s how we cope with it that helps us to be resilient.

Resilient moves

What resilient moves will you make this week? Please email me your resilient move photos to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk

Lent Reading Challenge

We have decided as a class to take on a class reading challenge for Lent. By the end of term, we - Year 5, Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly - will read one of three books (chosen by the children). In the last week before we break up, we will celebrate our reading achievement by sharing our thoughts on the book with a book club party. Please encourage your child to read their chosen book to enable them to enjoy our book club at the end of term. You never know, some children might even go the extra mile and end up reading all three (Now there’s a challenge!).

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Sam

Writing Award - Kayden

Maths Award - Evie

Year 5 Star Winner - Evie

Congratulations to Kourtney who was the overall Year 5 winner for the World Book Day 📚bookmark competition. Thank you and well done to everyone who took part.

Congratulations to Sam for achieving his Bronze Music Medal on the flute this week. He scored an amazing 100% on his exam. Well done Sam!

Well done Year 5, we hope you have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McVey, Miss Evans and Mrs Connolly