Dear Parents and Carers,

This week the children have been participating in the annual STEM Week, which this year had the theme of  ‘change and adapt.’ Both classes were visited by local scientists from Johnson Matthey, where they carried out an experiment to try and capture CO2. Towards the end of the week, the children created an animal that they believed would be able to adapt to, and then survive in, the conditions on a faraway planet before having a go at their own version of adaptation – covering one hand with a rubber glove and butter whilst the other hand remained free – and submerging them both in a bowl of ice. We then discussed the results. Why was the bare hand much colder? How did the extra layers on your other hand prevent it from turning cold?

In Literacy, the children planned and composed their own autobiographies, and revelled in the chance to tell some (mostly funny) stories from their early years. Next week, we move onto biographies, and their task over the weekend is to think of a famous person who they would like to write a biography about. We will conduct the research and then write up our notes in the lessons, so no need to write anything down at home unless they really want to.

In keeping with the Literacy theme, the children have been engaging with a text by the children’s poet Michael Rosen, Car Trip, in our Guided Reading lessons this week. This gave the children the chance to practise their comprehension skills, mainly focusing on tasks such as ‘find and copy one word that tells you…’ and developing their understanding of what is required to answer ‘what’ and ‘why’ questions.

We continued to focus on decimals in Maths, looking at thousandths when presented as fractions and as decimals, and learning how we can relate the number of zeroes in a number to the amount of digits that follow the decimal point. For example, the number ten has one zero in it, so a tenth would be a number such as 0.1, whereas one thousand has three zeroes in it, which means that a thousandth would be shown by a decimal number such as 0.234. Next week, we move on to comparing and ordering fractions and decimals, and hope to have time to round numbers of various decimal places.

The children have also embraced some new ideas in our foundation subjects. They have experimented with logograms in an attempt to recreate some Mayan-style writing, and have enjoyed a lively discussion about potential (and suitable) careers, as well as the required range of skills, in PSHE. They are applying their passing and moving skills to attack versus defence games with more consistency in netball, and their forehand shots and volleys are coming along nicely in our tennis lessons.

A couple of reminders for next week:

• Next Wednesday is the final swimming session for class 5RF/JM. Please bring the same kit as usual.
• Parent Consultations are next Tuesday and Thursday. Both begin at 4pm and run until 7pm and will take place online. The link will be sent to you in due course.
• Wednesday morning will see us visiting MECE for a secondary taster morning – aiming to leave just after 9am and returning during lunchtime. As it stands we have enough staff to walk with us there and back, but will let you know if this changes.

Enjoy the weekend,

The Y5 Team