Welcome to Beech Class

Year 5

 Mrs Helsden- class teacher

LSA- Mrs King

Welcome to the year 5 Beech class page and welcome to the new autumn term 2023/34.

Whilst learning, we will be spending the first week settling and establishing schools rules and growth mindset, to ensure our class learns to the best of its ability at all times. This will involve working to get to know each other, as a class, whilst ensuring we develop and embed learning styles effectively. About the class daily routines:

PE is on a Wednesday and on one other day during the week- changing dependent on curriculum needs. You do not now need to take your PE kits home weekly so, please leave them at school for the half term- if you take them home, please return them the next day because they are needed most days in year 5.

Please bring in your school water bottle, reading record and reading book, everyday.

You should be reading at home as well as practising times tables and the weekly spelling at homes. Our spelling and times tables tests will be every Friday.

We would encourage a spare kit of scruffy clothes, that are warm and waterproof but that you don't mind getting dirty. This should not be anything new, just old clothes that can be placed over uniforms, so uniforms are kept clean when we are learning outside.

Spelling 

In Year 5 we have continued to learn how to spell the Common Exception Words for Year 5 and 6 and vocabulary relating to our handwriting and text. It is expected that we will be able to use half of these words appropriately and to spell them accurately in independent writing by the end of year 5. Each week, pupils will have a spelling list in their reading records and be expected to learn these words for Friday. 

In class at the end of the day we read together. At the end of last year, the class chose a class book to read and they chose to begin reading 'The Boy Who Grew Dragons' by Andy Shepherd. This is a humorous book that really encourages the understanding of vocabulary and embeds inference skills really well. It is a book we will use to develop our writing with too.

In Beech Class, we also use high quality texts and study them in our guided reading sessions, by studying the first chapter and using VIPERS to answer high quality questions.

In English this half term, we will begin our establishment week by writing some amazing letters to people we need to persuade to change things.  We are going to use our outdoor learning and climate understanding to write letters to local MPs about how we want to change our environment. We will share these with you when we have written them and these will be actually sent to the relevant MP to respond to.

We will be starting our maths journey by using real life maths in the classroom. This will involve buying a bus ticket, buying and costing up the spending of money on seeds and plants for our garden and looking at what we need do to eventually create a sustainable classroom. This will be a journey we begin during our establishment week.