Welcome back to school and welcome to Year  5/6!  I hope that you all had a wonderful summer break.

Our learning this term

For the Autumn term we will be reading Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo, during our Reading for Meaning lessons. This links perfectly to our English unit where we will be exploring narrative writing based upon other stories written by the same author. At the start of the year, we will be working on our use of descriptive language and a sophisticated range of punctuation.

In Maths this term, children will be focusing upon place value and gaining a very secure understanding of all numbers up to 1 million (and beyond for Year 6). Our maths lessons will also challenge the children to a wide variety of reasoning and problem-solving questions in preparation for their KS2 assessments.

This half-term we will be learning the following: History (Ancient Greece), Science (Electricity), Art (Detailed drawing techniques), PE (netball), Computing (coding).

Supporting learning at home

Reading – it is of utmost importance that children read regularly at home in order to apply and cement the knowledge they get at school.  The children should be reading their school reading book at least three times a week. We encourage the children to read their own texts in addition to the school reading books to help develop a love of reading. 

It is also important to talk to the children about what they have read, to make sure they understand what they read rather than just decoding it. If you would like some example questions to support your child with this, please just ask. Countless studies have shown that this is the single most important thing that you can do to aid your child’s academic progress. Your comments in their reading diary are also greatly      appreciated!  We will hear the children read their reading book at least once a week, alongside our   reading for meaning sessions and reading comprehension sessions.

Times tables - Please help your child to practise their times tables at home up to 12x12.

Spelling – Your child will have weekly spellings for them to practise. These spellings will help your child during our spelling, punctuation and grammar (SPaG) lessons. As well as practising the spellings please complete the other second sheet where they write the words into a sentence. This ensures that the     children understand the meaning of the words, allowing them to apply them to their writing.   

Please Don’t Forget…

· In the Autumn term, we will be swimming on a Monday and PE with Mr Edmonds will be on a Thursday; please ensure the children have a full school P.E. kit in school so they can take part.

· Please ensure cardigans, jumpers and water bottles are clearly labelled to avoid loss!  

· Healthy/ appropriate snacks can be bought in from home each day, and children can eat them at breaktime.