We had the rare privilege this morning of two hours spent watching the Young Shakespeare Company do their thing in the school hall.  The assembled ranks of Y5 and Y6 children were, at various times through the morning, the English army at Agincourt, the French army at Agincourt, the courts of King Henry V and the French King, witnesses to the marriage of Henry to Queen Catherine (of France), and oars-people or sail-hoisters as the fleet crossed the channel.

The whole experience was fully immersive and several children volunteered for some more starring roles.  The Company are brilliant at mixing traditional Shakespearean language and costume with clear explanations and discussion of what is going on.  It was very inspiring, so thank you for supporting it.

Apart from the lofty heights of Shakespeare, English has focused on biography towards the latter part of this week – including the life story of Jeremy Strong (whose Luke and Ramona story was ‘improved’ by your children on Monday and Tuesday).  It was interesting to learn that he was a teacher and then a headteacher before taking up writing full-time.  In a couple of video interviews he commented on how much he had been influenced by his Year Four and Year Five teachers, and subsequently by the children he himself had taught.  Hear hear to that!

You may have heard about some of our class readers this year.  These have included Street Child, and then different novels.  This is usually a half an hour a week (at most) activity, but it allows us to read (hopefully with the required levels of emphasis and enthusiasm) relatively complex stories which provoke lots of discussion.  Street Child, The Day I was Erased, Laney Park, Fuzzy Mud and Skellig have all gone down well.  We usually have comprehension (understanding) and inference (prediction) activities running alongside these, so that your children get the most out of them.

Maths got into rounding this week.  There was a little confusion – but essentially we are talking about the difference between £49.95 and fifty quid.  That’s rounding.  It is worth practising if you can – they need to be aware of how to round numbers to the nearest ten. hundred and thousand, and also to 1, 2 and 3 decimal places (tenths, hundredths and thousandths).  We are trying to get them away from the idea of rounding down which can be confusing – either the number stays the same (if the subsequent digit is 4 or less) or it rounds up (if the subsequent digit is 5 or over).

We started the Mayans topic this week.  There will be a short pause next week when we deal with all things scientific (including dinosaurs and pendulums) during STEM week.  We also have staff from Johnson Matthey generously giving up their time to do individual class sessions.

There was more tennis this afternoon.  How great it was to be able to play in a bit of Spring sunshine!  Bring on the weekend.  Sports talk this week has also hovered around the delicate issue of Arsenal’s uphill task against Porto at The Emirates next Tuesday…we shall see!

All in all this was a fun week and a productive one.  Your children continue to amaze us with their commitment to their learning, and their wonderful approach to school life.  Every day is different.  Every day is worthwhile.

Have a great weekend and we will see you bright and early on Monday morning.

Y5 Team