Dear Parents and Carers,

Half term is finally upon us, and the children’s first term as Year 5 pupils is complete. We have covered lots of new things, had some great discussions and have thoroughly earned a rest!

Literacy has seen us focusing on our SPaG and comprehension skills. We have uplevelled sentences using a wider range of vocabulary and punctuation such as speech marks, exclamation marks and question marks, while our reading comprehension – based on a passage about energy drinks – led to an interesting conversation on whether such drinks are good for us and what we could do to avoid feeling a need to consume them, for example exercising regularly, eating well and getting a good amount of sleep. After half term, we switch our focus to the story of ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty, a novel which follows the life of a young boy called Jim Jarvis as he navigates his way through the darker times of the Victorian era.

In Maths, we continued to put our times tables knowledge to good use, concentrating on the difference between multiples and factors and finding out which numbers have common factors. We also spent time looking for the ‘highest common factor’ and ‘lowest common factor’ to broaden our grasp of mathematical language. More on this after half term, when we begin to study prime, square and cube numbers.

Our Topic for Term 2 will be ‘The Victorians.’ As a result, the afternoon sessions will be changing slightly. Once we have completed our Art unit on drawing, we will be constructing our own Victorian Cam Toys using cardboard and wooden cams. As an early heads up, we will be asking the children to bring in some cardboard after half term, so please save some where you can. If you do have some, please don’t send this in straight away – we probably won’t need it until at least the third week back.

Also as part of our Victorians topic, we will be heading out on our first trip of the year – to Milestones Museum in Basingstoke – on Friday 8th November (the first Friday back). Thanks to those adults who have kindly given up their time to come and help, and further thanks to all of you who have given your child permission to come on the trip so far. We will be travelling there and back by coach, and your child will need their own drink and packed lunch. Please let the office know if you would like the school to provide a lunch for your child.

To finish, all sports clubs will restart on their usual days in the first week back unless told otherwise by the adult in charge.

We wish you and your children a wonderful half term,

The Y5 Team