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Year 5 and 6 have been learning how to find readings in the Bible. We learnt that the Bible is made up of many different books (66 in total) and is divided into two main parts: the Old Testament (stories from before Jesus was born) and the New Testament (the life of Jesus and the early church).
We used the contents page at the front (Old Testament) or the end (New Testament) of the Bible to find the page for that specific book. Then, to find a certain section of that book we use the chapters (big numbers) and verses (small numbers).
I was very impressed with how quickly children learnt this new skill.
Help at home – why not have a practice at home? Can your child remember how to find various Bible readings.
Topic – Computing
Year 5 began our new topic last week – computing. We started by looking at our new vocabulary and talking about how confident we felt about each word. We then began to learn about search engines and how they work. The children were introduced to the idea that search engines use web crawlers to locate webpages with relevant information on. They then store these in an index, which is a huge database. When you search something online, it searches the index for relevant webpages and an algorithm ranks them in order of relevance. Who knew all this went on in the background when you quickly search on the internet for something?! We were surprised to hear this long process happens in less than 1.2 seconds (from pressing ‘enter’ to seeing the results)!
Here is the vocabulary we are using this term.
Help at home:
Can you help your child learn the vocabulary? Maybe play a game of Pictionary.
Reading: Oracy (Railway Carriage)
In reading this week, the children are learning about, and performing, the poem ‘Railway Carriage’ by Robert Louis Stevenson written in 1885.
We recapped our oracy targets from this year and identified which ones would be relevant when performing a poem aloud to peers.
Help at home: Can your child learn this poem off by heart?
Internet Safety Day
Today is Internet Safety Day. Year 5 have been learning all about how to stay safe online and be critical users of the internet, especially with the rapid advances in computing technology (AI, for example).
The children began by looking at three concepts – misinformation, disinformation and hoaxes.
Misinformation is the sharing of false information by accident (not knowing what you’re sharing is false).
Disinformation is the sharing of false information on purpose.
Hoaxes are false information/claims that are created for effect/impact.
We had a look at some fake website articles (hoaxes) and discussed some top tips to look out for when reading online. When sharing these stories to friends without being critical of what we’re sharing, we may be sharing misinformation.
We’ve learnt all about what personal information is and why it’s important to keep it private, especially when online. The article below gives more info on personal information.
If you’d like to read more from this article with your child, please click the link below.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/articles/zwbq7ty
Help at home:
Help your child at home to be critical thinkers online. Check websites for…
- padlocks
- http// www.
- known pages
- spam/clickbait adverts (phishing)
Maths (area)
In maths, Year 5 are learning all about area.
Perimeter is the distance all the way around the outside of a shape.
Area is the amount of space inside a shape.
We usually measure area in square units, like square centimetres or square metres. The children have started off strongly – they’ve been working out the area of shapes by counting all squares inside each shape. More recently, we have started to notice that the area of rectangles and squares can be calculated by:
length x width
width x length
Multiplication is commutative, so no matter which factor we put first, the product (or area in this case) will be the same result.
Year 5 were tasked with designing a floor plan for a school hall. We pretended that our current PE equipment had been removed and we decided to buy some new stuff! Our job was to fit the equipment in the hall effectively. To do this, we had to think about:
- the area of each piece of equipment
- where to place it in the hall
- where the entrance to the hall would be
- not cramping/squashing equipment together
The children loved this task and did really well! Here are some examples of work from Emily, Emily and Elara.
Attendance, Reading Records and Packed Lunches
A quick snapshot of some big wins and quick prompts for Year 5…
I want to express how pleased I am with Year 5’s attendance over the last few weeks. A massive well done to everyone for arriving to school at the correct time – we even managed to win the school attendance award last week!
A reminder for reading records…
Year 5 weekly reading record checks have been high in quantity on average this year. This is just a quick reminder to keep bringing them in once per week, signed by an adult. The children are doing really well with their home tasks and it really helps us out at school (e.g. finding new vocabulary for our writing). Well done to those who always bring in their reading records – I love seeing them!
Packed Lunches
I have noticed a few packed lunches (and playtime snacks) that don’t follow our packed lunch policies. I appreciate that children have specific likes to foods and drinks, so I’ve attached the packed lunch guidance below to help mix and match lots of food groups. Please make sure that children have water in their water bottles.
Thanks everyone for your continued support.
Multi Sports at Wetherby High
Year 5 spent an afternoon at Wetherby High School, taking part in a multi-sports afternoon. The purpose of this afternoon was:
- to get pupils physically active
- to play and compete in a range of sports activities
- to have fun
- to compete with, and against, other schools
Year 5 conducted themselves extremely well – I’m extremely proud to have this group of children as my class. Everyone was a role model for St James by being kind, spreading enjoying and putting 100% effort in.
I was especially pleased with the teamwork from our pupils in the relay races at the end. Pupils democratically decided the children for each race and everyone got a turn to race. We’re always trying really hard to support and respect each other – this was a great example of how to do it correctly.
Managing Feelings – Dodgeball Edition
This half-term, Year 5 are learning how to play dodgeball. This sport can be a lot of fun – the children have to mix many fundamental skills together to be successful (running, jumping, throwing, catching etc). Whilst taking part, you may experience many different feelings for lots of reasons.
On Wednesday, Year 5 had a good dodgeball lesson. However, towards the end, some feelings (shown below) took over. After the lesson, we held a feelings first session where we shared any feelings we experienced within the lesson – these are shown below:
As a class, we reminded ourselves that there’s no such thing as a negative feeling – it’s completely normal to feel the ways we did. We discussed some reasons for those feelings:
It was overwhelming when we were playing because there was lots of noise and lots of dodgeballs to look out for. – Beau
I got annoyed because people didn’t like me throwing the ball hard and I ended up walking off – anonymous
I felt happy through the lesson but I think my competitive side got the better of me – anonymous
I was getting cross and frustrated because our team kept on getting out really quickly and we wanted to keep playing – Isla
When people were winning, sometimes they were over celebrating and it made me a bit annoyed – Emily
We then used the feelings battery (shown above) to help us understand how to handle certain emotions. If we show too much of a particular emotion, it can lead to reactions that often don’t match our personalities. When playing a high-intensity game like dodgeball, it’s vital that we manage our feelings well and stay ‘in the green zone’.
So, what did we do?
Today was our next dodgeball lesson. To begin, we reminded ourselves of the feelings we might experience. We then decided to create some rules and challenges to help us stay in the green zone. Here’s a few that we came up with:
- Playing games of silent dodgeball. This way, the children could completely focus on the skills of throwing and dodging.
- Having a fixed referee to help the games (Mr Freeman did this).
- Offering pointers and tips throughout the session to each other
- For children with a powerful throw, a challenge was to throw from the very back line only. This challenged those particular pupils and relieved those potential ‘cross’ and ‘frustrated’ feelings for others.
After the lesson, we looked at each other and just smiled. What a fantastic lesson we had. Everyone was happy and healthy and we all managed our emotions well. I am so proud of all the children and we all cannot wait for our next dodgeball lesson!
Help at home:
Discuss some of the feelings with your child that they felt in dodgeball. How did our rules on Friday help manage those feelings? Do you have any more top tips ahead of our lessons next week?
Living and Learning – Individual Liberty and Respect and Tolerance
This half-term, we’re learning more about our British Values in our living and learning lessons. Last week, we focussed on democracy (specifically whether children should have the right to vote at 16). Here’s our statement for this week:
I know why Individual Liberty and Respect and Tolerance are important.
We began by recapping the meanings of each value (shown below).
Year 5 went on to learn how these values work together. We all have the rights to freedom and to be ourselves, but this still has to fall within our laws. We need to show respect and tolerance of others and treat how we would want to be treated ourselves (mutual respect). We had a look at how respect and tolerance links to our protected characteristics.
Finally, we ended the session with a poem by James Barry. This poem promotes equality and that everyone deserves the same opportunities.
Help at home:
Read this poem together with your child and listen for fluency. What’s the overall? Do you notice a word that is repeated many times? Why?
2026 Begins!
After a well-earned rest, Year 5 have returned with a fantastic attitude to learning. Children have been focussed, engaged and have asked lots of questions about our new learning in different subjects. Below is a snapshot of our current learning journey. This way, you can chat to your child about their learning in school (and maybe continue this learning at home, too).
Writing
For the first three weeks, the children will be learning all about the features of a persuasive letter, ready to write their own. Our letters will be inspired by our class novel – Viking Boy (by Tony Bradman). Gunnar has sadly lost his father, who was unfairly taken from him by the evil Skuli. Gunnar needs to plea to the gods for his father to return, but will his (our) letters be successful?
Reading
We’ve been using the first chapter of our class novel as our focus text this week. The children have used retrieval and inference skills so far. These have helped us learn more about the characters and the parts they may play later on in the story.
Help at home: Please continue reading regularly at home. The children have regular opportunities to read aloud in class, so reading at home will only boost confidence further!
Maths
The children are currently learning short multiplication. So far, we’ve looked at different strategies to help calculate tricky multiplications: partitioning and column multiplication. Here is an example of partitioning:
17 x 3
10 x 3 = 30
7 x 3 = 21
30 + 21 = 51
Help at home: Please keep practising times tables regularly at home. This learning can be really slowed children if children can’t recall their times tables facts quickly. Times Table Rockstars is a great platform for some quick, effective practice.
Topic
This half-term, we’re comparing two periods of history that happened at the same time, but in different parts of the world.
The Vikings (their impact on the UK) and the Ancient Islamic Civilisation
So far, we’ve looked at who the Vikings were. Here’s some points from class research:
Viking was an old Norse word, meaning pirate raid – Emily M
The Vikings were farmers, explorers and fierce warriors – Elara
They originated from Scandinavia, which is made up of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. – Kiara
Science
This half term, we’re studying chemistry (properties of materials). Today, the children tested a variety of materials to see if they were electrical conductors or electrical insulators. The results were surprising to say the least!
