Well, can you believe it? We have reached the end of the first half term and we have managed to get through so much! We are very proud of all the children for the effort and dedication they have put in over the last 7 weeks, and know that they will continue for the rest of the year.
Parent's evening
You should have received a letter this week informing you of your time slot for parent's evenings on either Wednesday or Thursday evening this week. If not, please see your child's classteacher on Monday. Each slot is 5 minutes, since there are 30 children in each class. Should you require a longer appointment, then we will be happy to arrange another appointment at a later date, Many thanks for your co-operation with this.
As a point to note, the 5/6 team will be arranging a workshop for parents about what you can do to support your child during the SATs preparation in the near future. This will include lots of information about the actual tests and will be very interactive! Be prepared to have a go at some questions yourself!
Literacy
This week, we will be finishing our autobiography and biography genre. The children have been 'hotseating' a book character, where they are in role as that character, and have to answer questions AS that character. They have thoroughly enjoyed this and have produced some fantastic interviews. This week, the children will be using their ICT skills to produced their own autobiography. They will be asked to take a photograph of each other and use the image to make a front cover of their autobiography. They will also use their word-processing skills to type the first chapter of the book.
Numeracy
The week before every half term, will be an assessment week for numeracy. We will be checking how much the children are able to recall from the work over the last half term. Please let us know whether you have found the numeracy newsletter from Mrs Worrall's maths group useful to support your child's learning. We hope to role this out over all the groups in year 5/6 after the half term.
We are having a real push on the children knowing their times tables, with the focus being on one table per week. Children who already know their tables, have a distinct advantage, as many areas of numeracy rely on this knowledge to move them forward.
By the end of this week, you will also receive a 'bubble' sheet for numeracy. These contain all the mental maths objectives that your child will need to knoow by the end of the year.
Science
We will be finishing our topic on reversible and irreversible change this week. The children will be expected to complete some SATs style questions on the subject. Ask them if they can explain the following words to you at home:
evaporation; condensation; filtering; solution; sieving; dissolving
Problem solving
The children will be given a problem to solve about the Aztecs this week and they will have to come up with their own solution. It will be based on something which actually happened, but we want to see how the children would solve the problem themselves, if they had actually been in that situation. At the end of the week, we will let the children see what actually happened, and they will be able to compare their own solution with reality. Of course, we know that their's will be much better!!
Diaries
A big thank you to all parents who are checking and signing the diaries on a regular basis. There is lots of information in there, which is specific to your child, including their individual reading target, high-frequency word checks and help with numeracy etc. It is checked regularly and any comments which you make are always followed up by your child's teacher. Although we appreciate it is difficult to get your child to read out loud in years 5/6, you can ask them to predict what may happen next, or to recount to you what happened in the last chapter. Try reading the last few pages of their reading book when they have gone to bed, and asking them a few questions about it in the morning over cornflakes!
We love to read ANY comments from you and would love to read more!
Have a good week and a great half term! We return to school on Monday 30th October at 8.45am.
