Sycamore Class – Year 5/6

Welcome to Sycamore Class!

Welcome to Sycamore class! We have such an exciting year ahead of us.

Here is what we are learning about this half term.

In our writing lessons, we will keep reminding children of our ‘think, say, write, check’ approach to ensure that they are consistently using full stops and capital letters accurately. We will read our sentences aloud to check if our writing is clear and use a thesaurus to ensure we are using ambitious vocabulary and we will include Y5/6 writing features (see the table below). This term we will write a fantasy description, a letter to persuade and an advert. Our speaking and listening skills will be used as we write Harvest prayers and hold our class sharing assembly (Monday 20th October at 2:45 in the school hall – parents are invited).

Please see the table below for a breakdown of this term’s targets:

Punctuation and grammar

Composition

Stamina

Spelling

Handwriting

To use some relative clauses with support.

To accurately punctuate speech.

To indicate some parenthesis with support.

To use some commas to clarify meaning with support.

To create cohesion within a paragraph with support.

To independently rehearse sentences.

To plan writing appropriately.

To edit work to make simple improvements with support.

To independently write two pages of sequenced writing.

To use a dictionary to check spellings.

To write consistently and legibly.

To show the difference between formal and informal speech with support.

To mark the boundary between independent clauses with support.

To use hyphens to avoid ambiguity with support.

To link ideas across paragraphs using a range of devices with support.

To consider how authors develop characters and settings with support.

To propose changes to enhance effects and clarify meaning with support.

To manage writing time independently..

To use a dictionary to check spellings.

To write consistently and legibly with some appropriate speed.

In our Reading lessons, children will complete a text study of the book Holes by Louis Sachar, answering a range of both retrieval and inference questions. Children will read aloud every lesson, practising expression and intonation.

In Maths we are learning about place value, addition and subtraction. Children will solve increasingly complex addition and subtraction problems using the column method and exchanging where needed. They will round any number up to 1,000,000 to the nearest 10, 100, 1000, 10,000 or 100,000. Children will solve problems including negative numbers and Roman numerals and use estimation to sense check before solving accurately. It is also really important to keep practising times tables at home to support children to retain these confidently.

We have a History focus this term as we learn about The Georgians in Bath and Bristol.In Science, we will be learning about The Earth and Beyond. This term we will have a mixture of both Art and DT lessons. In Art, we will learn to sketch still life and in DT we will do Harvest cooking.

Our RE big question is ‘What do Christians believe about God/creation/fall?’. In Music lessons we will be learning about 20th and 21st orchestral music. In Computing we will learn about online safety, computer systems and networks including searching online safely. Our PSHE theme is ‘Being Me in My World’. In French lessons we will recap previous learning of colours, days of the week, months of the year and classroom instructions. In PE lessons on Tuesday we will go swimming and on Thursday we will learn about football and tag rugby.

PE lessons will be on Tuesday and Thursday. Please send your child to school wearing their PE kit (and bring swimming kit on Tuesday).

Children need to have in school every day a spare pair of shoes or wellies for our Adventure Play and Paddock area.
It is important that children always have a coat in school as we will be outside as much as possible in all weathers.

Weekly Home Learning Tasks

Your child’s reading record and levelled scheme reading book needs to come into school every day.

Please ensure your child is:

Reading every day and noting this in their reading record. Please ensure you listen to your child read aloud a minimum of 3 times a week and sign the reading record.

Y5 – Completing tasks on Doodle Maths weekly OR if your child is not yet secure with their times tables then please continue using TTRS to embed these.

Y6 – Weekly homework task set on Monday and returned on Friday. This could be a worksheet or might be a set assignment on Doodle Maths (children will note it down in their homework book).

Play Times Table Rockstars

Play Doodle Maths

Login information for Doodle Maths and TTRS has been stuck into the inside cover of your child’s reading record.

Reading, Spellings and Times tables

Your child will have two reading books that they use at school. One will be a levelled scheme reading book that will go home and be brought into school every day. The other will be a reading for pleasure book. Your child will be assessed on their book level by the class teacher and teaching assistants at regular intervals throughout the term.

We have updated our approach to Spelling in KS2 and have created a scheme that uses phonics to teach the required skills and knowledge.

All children receive discrete spelling lessons five times a week. Each week focuses on a specific phoneme and its associated graphemes. Very occasionally it will focus on a spelling pattern or rule.

You may have noticed Spellings are not part of our home learning expectations. However, we understand that many families like to complete additional work at home by practising the week’s spelling focus. Therefore, every week we will share a spelling overview on our Class Dojo page.