Dear Parents/Carers,

It seems apt to begin with a huge thank you to those who attended, ran and helped out at the Sonning Common 10k Run last Sunday. Your support was much appreciated, and it is always so nice to see our school (and school community) in action in such a positive way.

Bringing the focus back to Year 5, our approach to writing came from two very different angles this week. The first was the conclusion of our work on poetry, where the children planned and wrote their own shape poems – these could be in the shape of an animal, human or building – before having a go at writing their own poems in the more traditional verse-style format. Again, these included some lovely examples of figurative language, and it was good to see the children developing their understanding of the differences in structure between verses and the more often used sentences and paragraphs.

Our second piece of writing was completed in this morning’s Big Write session. The children watched a short video called ‘Pigeon Impossible,’ where a secret agent’s lunch break is interrupted by a hungry and technically inept pigeon. The pigeon initially attempts to grab some of the agent’s bagel, but ends up falling into the secret agent’s briefcase (the interior of which is complete with a series of buttons and screens) and causing mayhem. The children took the main information from these scenes and converted them into their own comic strip, where they added some humour and speech to what they had seen. Next week, we will have a SPaG focus to our Literacy lessons, beginning with using a wider range of conjunctions and going on to develop our use, and understanding of, commas.

Maths saw us draw ever closer to the end of our unit on adding and subtracting. The children have used their rounding skills to check their answers, had a go at comprehending the usefulness of the inverse concept, and have shown some good knowledge of multi-step problems and comparing sums (eg without working out the answer, how do I know which sum will give me the highest or lowest answer?). The week to come will see us concluding this unit and embarking on the challenges of multiplication and division.

The afternoons have also seen their usual range of interesting practical activities and discussions. By this point, we imagine your child has mentioned the joy of using Oreo cookies to demonstrate their learning of the different phases of the moon in Science. Who would’ve thought finding out about the waxing gibbous would have the children waxing lyrical?

Another fascinating discussion came during our PSHE lesson, where we talked about the idea of ‘pressure groups’ and what they stand for. We especially focused on the work and logos of ‘Keep Britain Tidy,’ an organisation that has spent many years aiming to reduce the amount of litter in our streets and recreational areas. We talked about the good and, in the opinion of many, not so good ideas and logo designs over the years (who could’ve guessed that the idea of a ‘Dog Poo Fairy’ wouldn’t catch on?) before producing our own simple but effective pieces just in case ‘Keep Britain Tidy’ ever come calling.

All in all, a really good week, and we look forward to reporting on another next time.

Have a fantastic weekend,

The Y5 Team