Willow Class

Hello and welcome back! We hope your child enjoyed their Easter break. SATs are fast-approaching but the children have been working so hard and we know we will be very proud of them next week! After our work on revision and the actual SATs week, we shall be able to focus our attention on our fantastical topic for this half term. Because of the length and nature of this half term, our topic will span the whole Summer Term, as this will ensure we can spend enough time investigating and developing our skills, and the children can get the most out of it.

PE Days: Please make sure your child has full kit for the whole week. They need indoor and outdoor kit please – T-shirt, shorts, tracksuit and trainers are essential items.  Without the correct kit your child may not be able to participate. PE Days will be Tuesday afternoons for both classes, Wednesday mornings for Willow Year 6s and Friday mornings for Chestnut Year 6s.  

Internet Safety Reminders and Playing Violent Games

Please be aware of what your child is doing online. Remember it is illegal for year 5/6 children to have Facebook and other social media accounts. This is an ongoing issue across the country, and it is paramount your child knows what is appropriate content when online.

Also, please don’t let your children play video games rated 12 or above. The violent and offensive content is coming out at school.  It is a serious issue that affects both behaviour and learning.

Class teachers are always happy to meet and discuss anything that you feel may affect your child’s happiness or enjoyment of school. Please catch us at the end of the day or make an appointment through the office.

All communication regarding attendance, requests for appointments and general enquiries should go through admin@coppicevalley.n-yorks.sch.uk

Welcome back to Year 5/6!

We hope your child had a great break! This leaflet serves as a brief overview of the term ahead.

Start of the Day: Please ensure your child is at school for 8.45am. Class doors will be open and a member of staff will be present with a learning challenge for your child as soon as they enter the classroom. Doors will be closed at 9.00am.

End of Day: KS2 children finish at 3.30pm. Parents should wait outside the class door as usual but KS2 children are expected to be responsible for coming to you. Teachers will be available to make sure everyone is collected. Please do come up to the patio rather than waiting outside the fence or in your car as we need to be able to see that children are leaving with the correct adult.

• If you want your child to leave the premises unaccompanied, please put this in writing for us.
• If you are sending someone else to pick up your child, please call us in advance to let us know.

Water bottles: Please make sure your child has a named water bottle in school. They are £1.50 from the office.

YEAR 5 & 6 Topic focus for the Summer term:

Alchemy Island: This topic is based around fantasy. This will be perfect for fiction writing and extending the children’s vocabulary. The topic is also very science-based, making for some fun and meaningful experiments.

Science – reversible/irreversible changes/chemical reactions Do all solids dissolve? Can you clean dirty water? What materials conduct heat?

Geography – Map reading; human and physical features of islands and coasts

Music –  Composing, recording and editing; graphic scores

Art & Design – Electrical circuits; designing a board game

I.C.T. – De-bugging programs / gaming

P.E.  – Athletics

RE – Pentecost; Holi

2.2 (NYorks) Does a beautiful world mean there is a wonderful God?

Sikhism – The Five Ks

French – Vive le temps libre

English: Reading, writing, speaking and listening skills are taught and practised in all areas of the curriculum as well as having a discrete focus in English lessons. For this half term we are reading Brog the Stoop, which is a fantasy novel by Joe Boyle. It’s setting is perfect for our Alchemy Island, fantasy topic. Our reading and writing learning will focus on this book. All children will have an appropriate reading book in school, and this may be brought home each evening. We encourage children to read widely at home as well – don’t forget non-fiction and poetry books, magazines and newspapers are all good reading!

Maths: The focus this term is on preparing for SATs. We will be revising areas of the curriculum such as the four operations, place value and other basics to get them feeling prepared.

Key Dates:

SATs Week – Monday 13^th- Thursday16th May

The Big Write – Monday 20th May

Y5/6 Picnic- Friday 24^th May (details to follow)

Homework

Reading underpins all learning and so we feel it is of vital importance that your child reads every day where possible. We also ask that children spend time practising their times tables on TT Rockstars. Their times tables are essential in understanding concepts in fractions, decimals and percentages. The children will find they understand the methods and calculations far more quickly if they have a solid knowledge of their times tables.

Daily: 10 minutes reading (minimum) – this may include being read to or listening to an audio book; Time on TT Rockstars to improve their times table knowledge.

Your child will be given a Planner to record their reading each week. Your child can also choose to record our weekly spellings in the planner but this is not compulsory. Children will also use their planners in lessons as they contain valuable reference material such as multiplication grids and maths vocabulary.