Skylarks - Year 5

Welcome to Year 5 Skylarks

Class Teacher: Ms Le Roux  

Teaching Assistant: Ms Osborn 

Our School Day

Flash Back 4 Maths 

We begin every morning with our Maths corrections in purple pen and our next step in our learning. We then move on to our Flashback 4. This is a way of engaging pupils as soon as they arrive in school and an opportunity to revisit previous learning in order to retain the information in our long term memory and children will be able to recall information with automaticity. This is a great start to the day and encourages children to be focused as soon as they enter the learning environment and encourages independence.

Guided Reading

Following the Flash back 4 we have a daily 20 minute Guided Reading session. Our focus books are: Kensuke's Kingdom, There's a Boy in the Girls Bathroom and Alex Rider Storm breaker. All amazing reads. Our weekly lessons involve, reading of the narrative, questioning of the text, word and meaning, a task which focus's on specific words in the text and what they mean and using the word in the sentence, spellings of the week are also practised, along with handwriting activities. 

Spelling

We are currently working from the Babcock spelling scheme and our focus is on the Year 5/6 National Curriculum spelling. We engage in spelling activities to support our spellings and assist us in our learning. This is completed on a daily basis.  

Literacy

We use a range of narrative in Literacy to teach the required curriculum in Year 5. Narratives we use are Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. Cosmic Disco by Grace Nicolls a favourite poetry book with the children. The Boy in the Girls Bathroom by Louis Sacher. Sensational, another poetry book and then finally Storm breaker, which is a book in the Alex Rider Series. Children have an input into the books they are reading. As long as the National Curriculum is taught and all objectives covered, we are able to choose the age related texts we teach from. Literacy lessons cover all grammar and punctuation as well as a focus on  our spellings and presentation. Handwriting is taught daily in our lessons.

Numeracy 

Numeracy is taught daily in the morning session. We cover all of the curriculum over the academic year. Our daily lessons incorporate problem solving and reasoning, fluency and greater depth tasks for all abilities. We focus on use of our multiplication tables on a daily basis as the learning of them is key in maths in all topics. We use a range of resources for home learning to allow children to practice answering the same learning set out in a variety of different question styles, as well as TT Rockstars. Practical and visual resources are a key part of our daily  learning. 

Science

Science is taught weekly and covers all the National Curriculum objectives. Science lessons consist of a 'circus of activities' which involves practical investigations, theory write up of investigations and an non -fiction text guided reading session that links with the topic. In the Autumn Term we cover Earth and Space, with a visit to Winchester Science Center. Forces follows Earth and Space. In the Spring Term we cover Materials and their Properties. In recent years we have visited the local brick factory at Godlingstone and the children have been shown around the factory where the hand made bricks are made. The children visited the clay pits where the clay is dug before being mixed with sand and put on a berry machine to mix and then mouldered by hand. Children had the pleasure of making their own bricks and learning the history behind the various materials. In the Summer term we cover Living things and their habitats, describing the difference in life cycles and describing the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals. We finish the academic year with Animals, including Humans and describe the changes as humans develop to old age. A very exciting academic year. We are often invited over to the local secondary school to take part in practical science lessons. Children have the opportunities to work with practical materials , like bunsen burners and carry out small investigations. 

Topic

Topic is taught weekly and covers History and Geography. We start with a Geography topic and out first unit is Human's Impact on the World. Looking at the local area of Studland in the first part of the Autumn Term, our next topic is History based on The Tudors - researching Henry V111 and his six wives. We explore The Americas in the Spring and this covers the globe, different hemispheres and how world time is set which is an interesting geography topic. In this topic we also incorporate learning about longitude and latitude and how a map has a different degree of longitude and latitude coordinates which helps us to locate different places in the world. In the Summer we will be moving back to a History topic for the first part of the term - The Victorians which is always a favourite unit of work as it shows how many of items we use today were invented by the Victorians.  In the final part of the Summer term we are back on a Geography unit - Volcanoes which allows the children to build their own volcano and use different household materials to cause and eruption.

RE

RE is taught weekly but we participate in assemblies every day, singing, class assembly. a visit from our local church and then a praise assembly where we celebrate children's achievements from the week. Throughout the year we have RE journey days where we have a focus question and the children write to this response. Over the academic year we answer questions. In the Autumn Term 1: Gospel, What would Jesus do? Autumn Term 2: Incarnation: Was Jesus the Messiah? Spring Term 1: Prayer and Worship: What is the best way for a Hindu to show commitment to God, covering Hinduism. Spring Term 2: Salvation: What did Jesus do to save human beings. Summer Term: God: What does it mean if God is holy and loving. Sumeer Term 2:Beliefs and moral values: Are Sikh stories important today? 

PSHE

PSHE is taught using a scheme called 'Scarf.' This scheme  supports the children's, physical, social and emotional well-being throughout the academic year. Children are encouraged to participate in discussions that will support this.

PE

PE is taught twice weekly. As much as we can we teach PE outside or if raining then we use the hall. The children are encouraged to run the 'Daily Mile' each day which is great for fitness and their mental wellbeing. In the Autumn term 1 our focus is on Health related exercise and personal challenges and football. Autumn Term 2 is gymnastics and tag rugby. Spring term 1 we cover dance, basketball and hockey. Summer term is swimming, tennis, rounders and athletics. 

Each classroom has a playtime trunk filled with activities for the children to stay active at break and lunch times. 

Art/ DT

Always a favourite lesson to participate in. We teach children different techniques in drawing and painting and help them to develop these. We use chalks and pastels to create live drawings that are realistic and dramatic. We make fantastic light catchers in the Autumn, look at Fougasse and his style of propaganda as an art form. At Christmas children will create items to be sold in at the Christmas Fayre. Children will have the opportunity to work with clay and sculpt a continent as well as use paper mache to build their volcanoes.

Spanish 

This is new to our Curriculum this year and the children are really enjoying this new initiative. At present children have been learning how to meet and greet in Spanish and all about the classroom. Children are encouraged to speak orally to each other. The morning register is taken in Spanish to give the children the opportunity to practice greetings.

Music

We are most fortunate to be working with Dorset music in the first term of the year and all the children will learn to play the recorder from a specialist music teacher.  We use a scheme  of work from Kapow which will encourage children to listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. We will appreciate and understand a range of recorded music drawn from popular musicians. There will be an opportunity for the children to learn songs and accompany this with instruments.  

Home Learning

Children are set weekly home learning. This consists of a maths related activity and a SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar ) sheet.  Maths and SPAG homework will alternate however the children do need to practice their spellings for the week, daily. In addition we encourage children to use TT Rockstars for their multiplication practise on a weekly basis. Children are expected to complete 4 reads at home weekly and a parent signature against their reading. The children will be awarded with a Golden Ticket which then enters into our weekly reading draw with the opportunity to win an age appropriate book.

Learning outside the classroom helps us to consolidate what we are learning in our lessons.  In our Living Things and their habitats topic we looked at the life cycle of butterflies - watching our caterpillars spin their cocoons and finally the chrysalis emerge into beautiful butterflies which we released in our school grounds.  For our Animals including humans we explored Asexual fertilization and grew a flower bed of new plants from the cuttings of one geranium plant.