Tornado Class

Here are some photos from the Autumn Term:

Useful information:

PE is on Mondays and Thursday

Homework is set on Thursdays and is due in on Tuesdays

Spellings are tested every Friday

 

The Curriculum

Welcome back to our final term!  Summer is always an exciting term in Year 5 & 6, with lots of end of year traditions and activities to look forward to.

 

Our main focus this term will be Ancient Greece.  We will be transported back in time to investigate our key question: “What have the Greeks done for us?”.  This is a topic looking at Greek life, achievements and the influence that Ancient Greece has had on the western world.  We will look at the fascinating stories of Gods, Goddesses and Mortals and the role they played in Ancient Greek life.  As always, we will become historians by asking questions and exploring difference historical sources.  We will look at the geography of Ancient Greece and the travels of Alexander the Great as well as looking at the lifestyle of the Greek people. 

 

In English we will be reading Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief.  This exceptional story will be used to inspire the children to write their own stories, newspapers, diaries and poetry.  Supporting this will be the use of a variety of other texts, which the children will again use to structure and write a variety of text styles.  There will be a strong focus on improving accuracy of spelling, grammar and punctuation and the quality of handwriting.  Reading and understanding the complexities of different texts, will have a high priority throughout all our English lessons.  In Guided Reading we will use a selection of Greek myths and Aesop’s fables to focus on a variety of reading skills.  We will particularly focus on developing the children’s ability to read between the lines and infer the reasons and motivations behind characters thoughts and actions.  When children are reading at home, we would strongly recommend that you have regular conversations with your child about what they are reading and whether they are enjoying the book or not.

 

In Maths we will be revisiting and revising some of the key concepts we have looked at this year.  For Year 5 this will help to build confidence heading into Year 6, and for the Year 6s we will be focusing on making sure you are ready for secondary school in September!  Year 6 will also have the chance to work with the other years groups across the school by designing and running maths trails for the younger children.

 

In Science Physics will be our key strand this term.  During the first part of the term, we will focus on electricity and the impact it has on our lives.  We will use standard symbols to represent electrical circuits and move onto understand the terms resistance and voltage.  In the second half of term, the children will build on their prior knowledge of how we see.  They will work scientifically to plan their own enquiries and explain scientific ideas.  We will explore how light travels and understand how we see. 

 

In Computing we will be using clips to learn about stop animation, recreating the story of Theseus and the Minotaur in video form.  They will learn how stop animation uses photographs to sequence stories, and how to import and edit these to tell an engaging story.  After half term, we will be using the app Keynote to create app prototypes linked to our Ancient Greece unit of work. 

 

In RE, we will follow the Gloucestershire RE syllabus and we will discover “For Christians, what type of king if Jesus?” and “How does faith help people when life gets hard?”.  In PSHCE we will be focusing on Citizenship & British Values and Growing up and Relationships Education.  For those with children in Year 6, further information about the additional non-statutory Sex education will be sent out soon, including details on how to get in touch with any questions or concerns.