Year 5

Dear Parents and Carers,

We hope that you had a wonderful holiday. We are looking forward to working with you and your child this term.

Our ‘Get to Know You’ session will be held on Thursday 26^th September at 9am. We look forward to seeing you there.

English

Our goal is to create confident, fluent, independent readers. We prioritise reading at Nelson School and have very carefully chosen the texts your child will study this term. We focus on word reading to develop fluency, and comprehension skills to develop children’s ability to infer, predict, explain an author’s intention, retrieve information, sequence events, summarise a text and develop a wide vocabulary.

Our first class novel will be War Horse by Michael Morpurgo, which the children will listen to in class every day.  In our daily whole-class guided reading sessions, children will have the opportunity to read a variety of high-quality texts across a range of genres to nurture their knowledge and understanding of the curriculum and the wider world. 

We will begin our writing curriculum by focusing on securing children’s understanding of sentence structure and punctuation and ensuring that their handwriting is fluent and legible.  

At the beginning of the year children will be given a reading book at their appropriate level. They can then take this book home and return it to school when they have finished it. We will also visit the school library on Fridays where children can select a book of interest to them. We recommend that children read for at least 15 minutes each night and you and your child can record what they have read in their reading records. Discussing your child’s reading with them is important and comprehension continues to be a focus in Year 5.

Timetable

We have a busy and exciting term ahead of us with a trip to Crane Park to learn more about our local river, Harvest and so much more!

Please note that our P.E. days are Monday and Thursday. Children should come to school wearing their P.E. kit and trainers on these days. For your reference, P.E. kit should consist of a school logo P.E. top or a plain white T-shirt, black or navy tracksuit bottoms, school P.E. hoodie, and trainers.

Stud earrings will be covered with tape during PE lessons for safety. Long hair must always be tied up, including during PE. In case children need to change out of their PE shoes due to wet weather, we would like them to bring a spare pair of shoes (these do not need to be school shoes) and socks in a labelled bag. These may be kept at school or brought in on PE days only.

We would also recommend that your child brings in a pair of Wellington Boots and a coat to keep in school, so that they can always take part in OPAL play.

 Home Learning

Reading confidently helps children to access all areas of the curriculum, and we encourage them to read for at least 15 minutes per day. We will send home reading records at the end of the first week. Please note what your child has read throughout the week, and we will check these on a Monday.

Every week, the children will be issued with 10 spelling words to learn at home. Each Friday, there will be a spelling quiz. 

For mathematics and English, we will now be using Century. Each week, the children will be assigned ‘nuggets’ as homework. The site will tailor any additional nuggets to the child’s independent learning journey. We encourage that they complete additional nuggets over and above the two set by their class teacher.

We will be going through how to use Century in our first computing lesson and will send logins home with them. If your child is unable to access the internet at home, please let us know and we will provide paper versions.

Morning Routine

The school gates open at 8.35am and we expect all children to be in their classrooms by 8.40am. Children can come straight into the classroom, and we request that adults leave the site promptly. Please remind your children to place their packed lunch on the trolley by the Year 5 door.

Class Representatives

If you would like to be a class rep, your class teacher will be pleased to hear from you. Each class normally has two or three class reps that will take the lead in organising school events.

We are also asking parents with availability to join us in the afternoons to read with children. If you are able, please let your class teacher know.

Snacks

Children may bring their own fruit/vegetable snack which can be eaten during morning break. Please remember that we are a healthy and nut free school.

Medication 

Please ensure that your child’s teacher has any relevant medication, and that this medication is up to date.

We hope that your child will have an exciting Autumn term. If you have any issues or concerns about your child do not hesitate to contact the school.

Thank you in advance for all of your support in the year ahead,

Kind regards,

Year 5