Year 5
Spring Term
We hope that you had a lovely Christmas break. Welcome to the spring term where we look forward to the continuing partnerships between home and school.
Reading
Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Latchmere School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency and encourage the whole class to join in through strategies such as choral reading (the whole class read together) and echo reading (the teacher models the reading and the class echo back). We also have the Latchmere Reading skills. These are based on comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference, summarising, making links, prediction and vocabulary.
In Year 5, we will be studying Street Child and The Adventures of Odysseus – as class texts, and Frankenstein, Oliver Twist, The Iron woman, The Daydreamer (a selection of the stories within the book) as our guided reading books (on a carousel – 2 of these per class this term).
Maths
Our curriculum is based on the White Rose Maths programme. Its research-based learning strategy ensures that the skills and concepts children are taught are fully embedded before progressing. As well as being taught traditional abstract (numbers) methods of calculation, children will also use strategies such as bar modelling and have opportunities to use physical tools where it is supportive to learning.
This term we will be focusing on multiplication and division, fractions, decimals & percentages, perimeter & area and statistics.
Children should also use Times Tables Rockstars to increase their speed of recall of multiplication.
Curriculum Highlights
This term, we continue to learn about life in the Victorian era and then we will focus on Ancient Greece. In Science, we will focus on forces and how to care for our world.
You can find out more information about the spring term learning by looking at the overviews and programmes of study on the website.
Updates and Reminders
The children should arrive at school between 08:50 and 09:00, and if they have a morning snack it should be a healthy one.
Please ensure that all medication is within date. Please speak directly to the main office regarding medication that is kept in school.
Class teachers liaise with their class reps on a regular basis. Please keep an eye out for emails or Whatsapp messages they may send regarding dates, PE kit etc.
Each class teacher will individually send out the dates of the PE days if required but they will remain the same as Autumn Term. Please ensure that as the weather gets colder your child comes to school with a coat, hat, gloves etc. They will be allowed to wear these items of clothing for outdoor PE lessons if it is cold.
Class Assemblies
We are delighted that we will be able to perform class assemblies again this year. Performances will take place in the afternoon with exact timing to follow. The dates for year 5 assemblies are as follows:
5TR – 10th March
5R – 17th March
5M – 24th March
5T – 28th April
Home Learning
Reading books and reading journals should be brought to school every day. The reading records have space for keeping a record of books read, and every third or so page has a creative space where your child can make a response to the book they are currently reading. The teacher will have informed the children which day their record should be handed in. We encourage you to listen to your child read at this stage and also for you to read to them. We would really value a parental comment in the book each week as this shows the children that we have a partnership with you and take reading very seriously.
The home learning grid is filled with creative ideas and we expect all children to complete one English, one maths and one creative task every half term. Please speak to your child’s teacher if your child finds a particular subject in the grid more challenging and requires extra support (in addition to that given in class) to complete it.
We encourage all children to use Century, an online learning portal, at home as much as possible. Century uses the White Rose Maths scheme of learning for maths and also offers children an opportunity to progress their English and foundation subject knowledge.
Key Dates
On Thursday the 2nd (5M/5R) and Friday 3rd February (5TR/5T) we will be visiting Gunnersbury Museum. The letter with all the details will be sent out shortly. In order to enrich the experience, we would like all children to come dressed as poor Victorian children on the day of their trip.
The residential trip to Hindleap Warren is set to take place from Wednesday 25th to Friday 27th January 2023. Please ensure that your child has everything they will require. The kit list was sent out last term, but please speak to the office if you require another electronic copy.
Thank you in advance for all of your support in the year ahead,
Kind regards,
The Year 5 Team