5IB

Class Teacher: Miss Bryant 

LSA: Miss Winter

Welcome to 5IB’s class page.

I am truly impressed by the way the children in 5IB have handled the start of Year 5, especially as the last academic year didn’t pan out the way we’d usually expect. It has been tricky even for the adults to get back into full swing of school life like it was pre lockdown, not to mention getting used to the adjustments that have been made to make our school a safe place for all our learners, but each child has come in with a smile on their face and many have said that they are looking forward to ‘normal’ lessons. The children in 5IB have already demonstrated a readiness towards their learning which is invigorating so I am certain the year ahead will be an enjoyable journey as we travel through various subjects and see how 2020/21 unfolds.

Below is some key information that you may find useful.

Reading Books

Once every term, children sit a Star Reader assessment which helps in identifying an appropriate book level for them. Every day, the children are given time to read a book of their choice (based on their suggested book level). Once the children have read their books, they can sit an AR quiz which, if they get above 80%, means they can go up a book level. We ask that they spend some time reading at home - whether that’s their AR book, or in the form of a comic, magazine or a non fiction book on cars (anything that sparks their interest in reading).

We ask that you ensure you record any reading that takes place at home with a simple comment inside your child’s Reading Record. If the children read certain books from our reading recommendation list, they earn a sticker and 5 Dojo points. 

Spellings

Spellings are handed out and tested each week. Please make sure your child is practising their spellings every week. Children can practise their spellings in any way they like. Below you can see a selection of suggested techniques to help in learning spellings.

Times Tables
Rapid recall of times table facts is an essential skill in maths. At the start of each maths lesson, we spend three minutes on a times table quiz. Linked below are  recommended websites for children to use to help in learning their times tables.

* The PiXL Times Table App    

Autumn 1

RECOVERY

We recognised that the start of this new academic year may have posed additional challenges to our learners so, rather than launching straight into our traditional curriculum, we prioritised something called the 'Recovery Curriculum'. The children had lots of time to work on arts, craft and wellbeing centred activities to help with their transition back in to a typical school routine. We start each day with Circle Time and have spent a lot of time sharing our experiences of lockdown and how this made us feel. The children have learned about the importance of hygiene and have had time to adjust to our new way of operating so that each of us are as safe as we can be.

English

In English, the children were introduced to our writing stimulus for the next few weeks, 'The Ghosts of Père Lachaise.' Through drama and discussion, we are beginning to get to grips with the notion of character description. We are also revising and building on our SPaG understanding, paying particular attention to word classes. 

Maths

Place value and number sense has been the focus in maths so far. In the past few weeks, we have covered writing numbers in words, ordering and comparing numbers. More recently we have been learning about partitioning, negative numbers and rounding to the nearest 10, 100 and 1,000. 

Science 

Human growth and development is the focus in science. We are learning about the lifecycle of a human from prenatal through to old age.

History

In history, the children have been learning about Britain in the 11th Century, key events such as the Battle of Stamford Bridge as well as key characters like William the Conqueror.

MFL

Our starting point in French will be in learning greetings, classroom commands and the alphabet. 

Art

Our art focus links to our RE topic of Hinduism. The children have been researching and designing Rangoli patterns and will be creating their own.

RE

In RE, we are learning about Hinduism, what they believe in, their gods and how they worship.