Grange Valley Primary & Nursery School

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  2. Year 5 SH 2019-20

Welcome to Year 5 - Miss Hitchen's Class 2019-20

Spring 1

Year 5 have thoroughly enjoyed learning about World War 2 this term. All children have been fully engrossed with their learning and their enthusiasm to complete additional work outside of school has been lovely to see.

English lessons this term have included a wide variety of high quality texts, which have certainly ignited Year 5’s imaginations and eagerness to write. One of our favourite titles, Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll, has driven our writing outcomes, with all children producing their own diary in role as the main character, written in the style of Flossie Albright’s -My Secret War Diary. The children were so proud of their finished pieces, which really demonstrated their true abilities to write in multi genre texts.

Year 5 have also been fortunate enough to be able to complete some of their learning outside of the classroom. One of the highlights from our term was our class trip to Stockport Air Raid Shelters, which truly brought ‘The Home Front’ to life. The children learnt first- hand about life as an evacuee, experienced life in an air raid shelter through a labyrinth of tunnels and learnt how the war was a significant turning point in British history.

Haydock Library also invited the children to attend a Holocaust Memorial session, which was based on the story of Anne Frank. The visit included a reading of an excerpt from the book ‘Anne Frank’s Diary’, a creative writing exercise, and concluded with an important message to all pupils on challenging hatred to create a safer and better future.

During our Maths sessions this half term, Year 5 have learnt how to compare fractions using fraction tiles, bar models and eventually by finding a common denominator. As our learning journey continued, we were able to generate our own rules such as, ‘the larger the denominator the smaller the fraction’, which enabled us to compare fractions more efficiently without the need for a written method. Due to the implementation of Fluent in Five and Pre Learning sessions during the Autumn Term, children were more confident with the basic fundamentals of this unit, which resulted in many children being able to think more deeply about the new content, making stronger connections with their prior learning, thus having the necessary skills to attempt more complex problems successfully.

 

Autumn 1

What an amazing start Year 5 have made to this academic year! It has been an extremely busy few weeks, filled with lots of exciting activities, which have helped us to make outstanding progress within all areas of our learning. 

Year 5 have been immersed in many creative writing opportunities this term. One of our favourite units has been Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, which began by the children receiving a mystery golden ticket, inviting them to a sweet tasting party! During this unit, the children focussed upon expanding their vocabulary, thinking carefully how different words can impact the reader in different ways.  Year 5 thoroughly enjoyed displaying all of their new learning in their end of unit piece of work when they were able to create their own magical factory to write about.

 

We have particularly enjoyed learning all about Space! We thoroughly enjoyed looking at a range of evidence to determine whether the Earth was round. During our lessons, we learnt how to confidently explain how the Earth orbits the Sun and how the Moon orbits the Earth. Due to it being 50 years since the Moon Landings, we learnt about the Apollo 11 moon mission and used this as a stimulus to write our own newspaper reports, which look amazing displayed in our classroom. We can't wait for you to read them at Parents Evening!! 

During our Geography lessons, we have been learning all about maps. We enjoyed looking at how maps have been developed over time and considered the pros and cons of Satellite Navigation. We extended our skills we had previously learnt in Year 4, and we are now able to use both 4 and 6 figure grid references to locate different places and features, and use all 8 compass points to give and follow directions. Year 5 particularly enjoyed writing directions for tourists to replicate Neil Armstrong's footsteps around a map of America - just like he did in his celebratory tour when he returned from the moon! 

Have a wonderful half term everyone! 

Miss Hitchen 

Year 5 Notice Board

Welcome Meeting Information

Autumn Curriculum Overview