Year 5

Curriculum Report to Parents and Carers of Silver and Ebony Class
- Spring Term 2009

Dear Parents / Carers,

Happy New Year! Welcome back to an exciting and busy second term. Here is an overview of the curriculum planned for this term and any additional targets that you and your child can work on together.

Maths

In Maths, areas of focus will be place value, ordering, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, using compass directions, time, money and measurement. Please encourage and help your child at home by practising their times-tables and any addition or subtraction strategies that we have been learning in school. Children can also attain lots of excellent number skills through cooking, looking at timetables for trains and buses or when you are shopping! We will also be continuing our CAME lessons (Cognitive Acceleration in Mathematics Education), these will continue to help develop children’s mathematical reasoning.

English

In English, we will be looking at recount texts. Children will explore a range of formal and informal recounts and will become familiar with their features. We will then be writing our own recount texts and will practise giving oral presentations. Children will also be studying a variety of myths, legends and fables from around the world; we will explore plot, language and characterisation; this study will help develop children's skills of writing their own myth, legend or fable. We will also be analysing different poetic styles. Some children, like last term, will continue to follow our Ruth Miskin Literacy Programme, these children will continue to learn decoding skills (known by the children as 'Fred talk') in order to sound out words to succeed at reading. Please support your child by encouraging them to talk about what they are learning at school and ask them to say the words they are reading in 'Fred talk'. Please also remind your child that their patch folder should be taken home every day so that they can spend at least 30 minutes reading every evening. Children should also be keeping a daily record of their reading giving them the opportunity to reflect upon it and to develop their skills of writing book reviews. Both our Maths and English lessons are following their respective strategies.

The Tudors

As you will already know because of our trip to the Tower of London our main topic this term is 'The Tudors'. In this topic we learn about the lives of rich and poor people and study and evaluate evidence for life during this period. We will be visiting Sutton House, a real Tudor house in Hackney and they will take part in a 'Tudor day' hosted by 'History off the Page'. This topic teaches the children how to use primary and secondary information to collect facts and evidence about the Tudor monarchs and the people of the day. They will be encouraged to become more observant and look for Tudor symbols in portraits and on buildings. The topic will also develop their sense of chronology and they will look for Tudor influences in modern Britain.

Science

Our Science topics this term are 'Changing Sounds' and 'Gases around us'. The topic 'Changing Sounds' will develop children's awareness of volume and pitch as well as developing their scientific investigation skills. In the latter we will learn that gases are material and can be distinguished from solids and liquids by their properties. We will explore the uses of gases and experiment with air. Children will have the opportunity to plan and carry out investigations. This will teach them about fair testing and will encourage them to make predictions and draw their own conclusions.

Religious Education

Religious Education will involve studying how faith has influenced an individual's life. Children will engage in an indepth study of Martin Luther, they will learn his life story and will explore how his actions effected the Protestant Reformation. Children will be given the opportunity to analyse Luther's life and actions and present discussions about the causes and consequences of actions. Children will also be encouraged to make predictions about the effects of his actions and their relationship with his faith. We will also be learning about traditions and customs within the Christian faith and exploring what we can learn from them.

Art, Design and Technlogy

Our Art, Design and Technology topic is 'Containers'. We will be collecting and investigating a range of containers. Children will be encouraged to identify their materials, design, function and decoration. Children will be introduced to a variety of materials and encouraged to design and experiment with them to create their own containers.

ICT

In ICT children will learn how to sort and use different searches to query a database. They will be encouraged to draw conclusions for a hypothesis and produce appropriate evidence to back up conclusions.

Music

Every week Year 5 will continue to be taught music by Paul, our new music teacher. The children will continue with the 'Soundstart' project.

French

Our French specialist teacher, Dawn, will also continue the work started last term.

Physical Education

Also continuing from last term will be our weekly cricket sessions with a professional cricket coach. This will happen on a Friday. Children are required to wear a t-shirt, shorts or tracksuit bottoms and trainers, please help your child to remember their P.E. kit. We are also very fortunate to have the opportunity to go swimming this year. Swimming will take place on Tuesday for Silver class and Wednesday for Ebony class. Children will need to bring a swimming costume or trunks and a towel, please make sure your child carries these in a bag. For safety reasons, children are reminded that jewellery must not be worn during PE or swimming and that long hair must be tied back or tucked in a swimming hat. Goggles are not permitted unless we have written permission from your GP.

Further Information

We expect children to be actively involved in their learning at home and encourage the children to engage in as much independent work as possible. This can involve extra research on topics of study using their local library, or if possible, the Internet. English and Maths homework will be set on a weekly basis. These are to be completed in the week or over the weekend and brought into school on Monday. We also expect the children to be reading every night and practising their spellings. Please make sure your child has a quiet place in which to complete these activities.

Finally, please ensure that your child arrives at school on time as this really does make a positive start to their day. We look forward to having an exciting, enjoyable and educational term and welcome your support in any way to achieve this. Please do not hesitate to contact your child's teacher if you have any queries about your child or their progress.

We look forward to seeing you on Parent's evening later on in the term.

Regards,

Amy Bush
Silver Class Teacher

Emma Davey
Ebony Class Teacher