Friday 24th January 2025

One of the highlights of our week this week was hearing the children’s speeches for Kerem Cares. They all did such a brilliant job and we felt really proud. We worked hard with the children on managing their feelings when the results were announced, as we know they all worked very hard and would have done a fantastic job on one of the councils. 

In science the children learned about why people thought that the Earth was flat in ancient times, and how the geocentric model of the solar system (it was thought that the sun and other celestial bodies orbited the Earth, rather than the sun) was disproven. 

In history they wrote a newspaper report about Queen Victoria, her life and her achievements during her long and impactful reign. 

In English lessons we enjoyed reading chapter 3 of Chimney Child, and wrote a poem to describe the foggy and maze-like back-streets of London, with lots of sensory descriptions. In our grammar lesson we learned about auxiliary verbs, such as was, have, were, am. When these are used with a verb they create different tenses, such as we have gone for a walk, I have done all my homework. Other examples of clauses using auxiliary verbs are: I am waiting, we were singing. A common misconception was using just the auxiliary verb without a main verb, e.g. I have a headache (a noun follows ‘have’ and not a verb). This is an example of ‘have’ being used in a different way and fulfilling a different purpose, rather than as an auxiliary verb.

In our spelling lesson the children learned about words with the suffix ‘ible’.

• audible 
• destructible 
• indestructible 
• edible 
• invincible 
• legible 
• possible 
• reversible 
• terrible 
• visible 

The common exception words were equip (–ped, –ment), especially, exaggerate.

In maths this week the children looked in depth at the properties of shapes, comparing squares and rectangles, and using their knowledge to find missing lengths and angles. They also learned a new piece of maths vocabulary, congruent, meaning the exact same shape/ size. For example, both a square and a rectangle have 4 congruent angles. 

In computing this week the children continued with their work researching a famous figure in computing history. They began to create their own slides about their figure.

Some book recommendations from Year 5

I am Rebel - Ross Montgomery

No Ballet Shoes in Syria - Catherine Bruton

Pocketful of Stars - Aisha Bushby 

There’s Boy in the Girls Bathroom - Louis Sachar

Wonder - R J Palacio

Kid Normal - Chris Smith

Mythologica - Stephen Kershaw

Harry Potter - JK Rowling

The Amazing Maurice and his Educated rodents - Terry Prachett

The Treasure under the Jam Factory- Chrissie Sains

Grid Iron - American Football

Ickabog - JK Rowling

Looking forward to another fulfilling and busy week next week!

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose, Mrs Sharman and the Year 5 team

Friday 17th January 2025

Year 5 have had a great week and especially enjoyed their first session of gymnastics on Wednesday afternoon. I was blown away by their risk-taking, resilience and persistence throughout the session, as well as their humour when things didn’t quite go to plan.

Our week began with an incredible Shakespeare workshop based on Hamlet. The children were really engaged and embraced being involved in some parts. In English lessons this week we read chapter 2 of Chimney Child, when we discovered that the character Vic is actually a girl! We learned more about her life and difficult circumstances, in contrast with Albert’s privileged life. The children explored the events of the chapter through the eyes of these 2 characters, then re-told the story so far from their chosen character’s point of view. We also had a punctuation and grammar lesson about nouns and pronouns, how sentences need to start with the noun or name and then have a balance of both, and how to avoid ambiguity by using nouns not just pronouns in sentences.

In spelling, we learned words with the suffix ‘able’.

• avoidable 
• capable 
• breakable
• noticeable 
• manageable
• replaceable 
• comfortable 
• miserable
• reliable 
• vegetable 

The common exception words were disastrous, embarrass, environment.

In maths the children worked very hard on bus stop division. They used their knowledge of multiplication and division and multiples and learned some new vocabulary- divisor (the number dividing by) and dividend (the number being divided).

In history we learned about the life of Queen Victoria and her 63 years of reign. Next week the children will write a newspaper article based on what they have learned.

In science we learned facts about the planets in the solar system, such as their average diameter, whether they are terrestrial, a gas giant or an ice giant, the length of a day in Earth hours, the length of a year in Earth years, and distance from the sun. We were so interested to learn that towards the end of this month, 6 of the major planets in our solar system (Mars, Jupiter, Uranus, Neptune, Venus and Saturn) will be in alignment.

In computing the children discussed changes in technology in their lifetimes, and how computing has evolved. The children researched important figures in computing history. Next week they will begin to create their own slides about their chosen figure.

A reminder that next week we will be conducting our votes for the Kerem Cares committees, please make sure that any presentations are ready and rehearsed by Monday.

Well done Zac for his wonderful presentation about Lego.

Have a great weekend,

Shabbat shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose, Mrs Sharman and the Year 5 team

Friday 10th January 2025

It has been lovely to see the children back at school this week, all looking fresher and taller than they did way back in 2024. We hope you all had a restful, or at least enjoyable, Chanukah and winter break.

This week we have had our first lessons in smaller groups, and these have been both successful and enjoyable. The children have impressed us with their positive attitude and their motivation to learn. In English lessons we read a poem called The Chimney Sweeper by William Blake. It is a complex poem and so we spent much time analysing the meaning behind different words and phrases, and finding examples of different kinds of figurative language. We also began reading our new class book study, Chimney Child: A Victorian Story by Laurie Sheehan, and the children answered comprehension questions on chapter 1. While we know that sometimes to support your children you may buy the school text to have at home, we ask that for the time being you do not let your child read ahead so as not to spoil some surprises in the book.

In maths we have recapped how to multiply multi- digit numbers by a one digit number, and then learned how to multiply 2, 3 and 4 diit numbers by a 2 digit numbers. The children worked through a number of examples to practise the skill, and also had plenty of opportunity to solve some pretty tricky problems.

The children showed lots of curiosity about our new science topic- Space! Our first lesson focused on the history of space exploration, learning not just dates of key events but also how our understanding of space has changed over time.

In history we have begun another engaging new topic, Victorian Britain. The children learned that it was a time when Britain was ruled by Queen Victoria, who was the longest reigning monarch until Elizabeth II. Society was very divided into rich and poor, and it was a difficult life for poor people, including children. It was a time of great change for industry with the introduction of machine manufacturing- we will learn more detail later in the unit. In this lesson we put the era into historical context, showing it on a timeline showing other historical events, including Roman Britain and World Wars 1 and 2. 

In computing we talked about internet safety, how to recognise cyber bullying and how to deal with unwanted or unkind messages. We discussed the importance of sharing any problems with an adult. 
 

on Friday we enjoyed listening to Ethan’s talk about safari on a game reserve.

A small change has been made to our homework schedule this term. Maths homework will continue to be set on Tuesdays, and this is due in for Thursday instead of Friday, so that it can be marked on Thursday and used to shape Friday’s maths lesson, to ensure maximum impact and opportunities to help the children where they might have struggled. Friday homework will now be VR or NVR instead of topic, set on Atom learning. As always if your child is having any difficulties with the homework, please encourage them to send us an email and we can make sure that this is followed up on at school. 

The time has come to vote in our new Kerem Cares committees representatives!

We have 3 Kerem Cares committees.

• Kerem Cares: Kehilla (community)
• Kerem Cares: Tzedakah (charity)
• Kerem Cares: Tikkun Olam (repair of the world - our eco council)

We will need to choose 2 representatives for each of the 3 committees. Pupils can stand for one of the councils even if they have been on one before. If they care about the cause, then we want them! However, they should only stand for one council. Children wishing to stand should prepare a short presentation about why they want to be on Kerem Cares, and what they feel they could offer the role. We will be conducting our votes during week commencing 20th January, so please make sure that any presentations are ready, and at school if a script is needed, by then.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose, Mrs Sharman and the Year 5 team

Friday 13th December 2024

How is it the last day of term? This term has been a real journey and we are so impressed with all of the children and how well they have risen to the challenge of being in Year 5. We can’t wait to see them continue to grow and flourish next term and beyond.

In maths this week we have explored negative numbers! We revised vocabulary such as negative and integer (meanining whole number) and counted from potivie numbers through zero to negative numbers in ones and multiples. 

In English the children have worked very hard, first planning and then writing a new chapter for The Adventures of Odysseus, featuring the monster that they designed last week. 

In spelling this week we learned words ending with ‘ency’.

emergency

frequency

consistency

urgency  

potency  

transparency 

fluency  

leniency

The common exception words were determined, develop, dictionary.

We also spent some time this week of course practising for our end of term show. The children did us all proud!

On Friday we had an amazing Chanukah extravaganza! The children took part in a craft activity with Seed, had a chanukah disco and a dance class. The morning ended with an amazing Chanukah candle lighting with parents. We had  such a brilliant day and can’t wait for Chanukah!

Our PE days next term remain the same next term- Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesdays we will have the privilege of going to Hendon Leisure Centre for a gymnastics session each week. The children should come in their PE kit as usual and ensure that they have a bottle of water. Any earrings must be removed before the start of the school day, or covered with plasters in the morning before school.

We hope you all have a wonderful winter holiday and look forward to seeing the children back at school in January.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 6th December 2024

Monday was Rosh Chodesh and we had a special whole-school tefilah in the shul to welcome the Hebrew month of Kislev. 

The children did a tremendous job in science this week, where we concluded our investigation into air resistance and how parachutes work but looking at our results and drawing conclusions from them. The children critically evaluated whether they felt their results were accurate, if theirs was a fair test and why. We practised using scientific vocabulary in this work and will be emphasising this each week in lessons.

In art the children learned about different kinds of bridges, how they are constructed and their uses. In small groups they made a bridge out of paper, each group working on a different kind. Next we will look at the strongest shapes for a structure! 

In English we redrafted some writing from this unit for our new corridor display. We then mapped all the monsters that Odysseus came into contact with throughout the story, that danger they posed and how he overcame them. The children then designed their own new ancient Greek monster for Odysseus to meet and thought about how he could overcome their monster.

In maths the children worked very hard on adding fractions within 1. This involved adding numbers with different denominators, and the children needed to convert one of the fractions so that it had the same denominator as the other fraction, before adding them. They learned the term ‘lowest common denominator’ and briefly learned how to ‘simplify’ the fractions, eg. 3/9 would be simplified to ⅓. They then looked at adding mixed numbers and showed really good understanding of this.

Last week, the children received their Atom Learning logins and you were sent an email about this on Wednesday. Please check your emails if you haven’t seen it.

In spelling this week we learned words ending with ‘ence’.

• experience
• influence   
• confidence
• silence  
• audience
• intelligence
• preference 
• independence 
• interference
• coincidence

The common exception words were curiosity, definite and desperate.

Some book recommendations from the children this week are

• City of Stolen Magic - Nazneen Ahmed Pathak
• You are a Champion - Marcus Rashford
• Ickabog - JK Rowling
• Who Let the gods out - Maz Evans
• The Secret of Golden Island - Natasha Farrant
• Night Bus Hero - Onjali Q Rauf
• Nura and the Immortal Palace - M.T. Khan

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 29th November 2024

We hope you have all had a great week, Year 5 have been keeping very busy at school!

In English this week we discussed the events in The Adventures of Odysseus that we have read recently and the children prepared an argument either agreeing or disagreeing with Odysseus’s decision not to warn his men that 6 of them would lose their lives passing through the strait with a fearsome dragon with 6 heads. The children also chose a recent piece of writing to put up on display in the corridor. 

On the topic of displays, the children’s versions of Hokusai’s Great Wave have also been put up on display and their work looks wonderful. The children are also really enjoying seeing their topic homework up on the wall in our classroom, and we try to change this often to showcase their fantastic work, which has made the topic come alive so effectively.

In maths lessons we continued to work on fractions, including calculating fractions of amounts and quantities, which the children continued to work on for homework, adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator, and recognising equivalent fractions.

We had such an enjoyable science lesson as the children finally were able to carry out our investigation into the effectiveness of air resistance on different parachutes they had made. After a little time spent ensuring that the parachutes were ready, it was time to go to the stairwell and see how long each parachute took to fall to the ground. The children conducted the drop, timed the descent, and recorded the results themselves and they did a wonderful job.

We discussed what the children are reading, continuing our drive to ensure all children are reading high-quality texts. This week's recommendations were

Sparrow - Michael Morpurgo

Running free - Michael Morpurgo

Boy at the Back of the class - Onjali Q. Raúf (which we will be reading in class later in the year)

In spelling this week we worked on words with the ending 'ent'. There were 2 different word ists this week:

• different  
• moment
• patient  
• environment 
• argument
• document 
• accident  
• improvement  
• appointment

• government 
• development 
• moment
• environment    
• document  
• recent  
• commitment  
• requirement   
• arrangement 
• Improvement

The common exception words this week were convenience, correspond, criticise.

It was fantastic having such insightful and productive conversations with you all at parents’ evening, we are all feeling very proud of the progress the children are making.

Wishing you all an enjoyable weekend!

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 22nd November 2024

We have had a wonderful morning participating in Mitzvah Day, our community’s day of social action. This year’s theme is ‘Stronger Together’. The day began with an assembly and shared tefilah, a special chance to be together and consider the importance of helping those less fortunate than ourselves, with representatives of two of the charities we are supporting, Hammerson House and The North London Hospice, telling us about what they do. Each class then undertook an activity to help others, and ours (together with Year 6) was putting together hygeine packs for the charity Sebby’s Corner, who provide essential items for those who would otherwise go without. This felt like a really meaningful thing to be involved in and the children did a great job. During Kabbalat Shabbat, each class showcased their activity.

Speaking of showcasing, it was lovely to see the parents who were able to join us at our showcase this morning, we hope you enjoyed sharing the children’s work with them. 

In English this week, the children worked on the performance poem written last week. We spent some lessons completing a comprehension, focusing on writing complete sentences to answer questions, referring back to the text to retrieve information and give evidence, and write high-quality and clear answers to inferential questions. We read chapter 6 of The Adventures of Odysseus and wrote a short speech for Odysseus to make to his men about the Song of the Spheres.

In maths we the children reviewed how to divide numbers by 10, 100 and 1000, including where this results as a decimal number. The digits will move one, two or three place value columns to the right to create a smaller number, the value of each digit reduces by a power of 10 each time. We moved on to finding fractions of amounts and quantities, ensuring that the children understand the strong links fractions have with division. The children’s learning advanced to fractions that are equivalent to unit fractions, eg. ⅙ (a unit fraction) = 2/12 (two twelfths, a non-unit fraction).

In spelling this week we learned about words that end in ‘ancy’, such as; 

• pregnancy 
• fancy 
• discrepancy 
• vacancy  
• infancy   
• hesitancy    
• buoyancy  

The common exception words we learned were conscience, conscious and controversy.

We began a new DT unit this week about bridges and structures. The children researched and wrote notes about different types of bridges and considered which were strongest and why. We are all looking forward to delving deeper into this fascinating topic.

See you all next week, stay warm over the weekend,

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 15th November 2024

This week was anti-bullying week, and this year’s theme is ‘Choose Respect’. The week was launched in assembly on Monday morning, and the children took part in a number of activities exploring what respectful and disrespectful behaviour looks like, as well the importance of respect. We had a brilliant and thought-provoking session with Mimi from Streetwise on Monday, and a lunch-time activity with the prefects on Wednesday.

In English this week we have continued to make our way through The Adventures of Odysseus, readings chapters 3, 4 and 5. The children wrote a diary entry from the point of view of one of Odysseus’s crew, including important features such as greeting, present tense, first person and paragraphs for different events or stages of time. We also continued to work on structuring sentences, using subordinate clauses, expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials. The children also experimented with choral poetry, creating their own performances and writing short choral poems about chapter 5 of The Adventures of Odysseus.

In maths lessons we have been learning about prime numbers (numbers with only 2 factors- 1 and the number itself), composite numbers (the other numbers, those that have more than 2 factors), square numbers (those with an odd number of factors because it is the product of a number multiplied by itself, eg. 36 is a square number, as 6 x 6 = 36), and cube numbers (found when we multiply a number by itself and then itself again). 

We are all really enjoying learning about ancient Greece, this week the children learned that ancient Greece was made up of separate city states, and did not have one ruler. The city states only joined together to fight a common enemy. Two of the main city states were Athens and Sparta, and life in these city states was not at all similar. The children learned about the differing way of life and presented this information to the rest of the class, allowing us to continue working on verbal presentation and active listening skills. We also have a new interest table based on this topic, a photo of this is below.

In spelling we broadened the children’s vocabulary by exposing them to different words with the ending ‘-ance’. 

● enhance 

● attendance 

● ambulance 

● guidance 

● disturbance 

● resemblance 

● annoyance 

● elegance 

● reliance

The common exception words we learned were communicate, community and competition.

The children continued to prepare for our investigation of air resistence, and this week they made their parachutes, which can be seen in some of the pictures below. 

We also began our World Religions programme this week- this year the children are learning about Christianity. They found out some key information about Christianity and created a fact file to present this. We can’t wait to see how their knowledge and understanding grows throughout this work.

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 8th November 2024

The children have had a very productive week, with lots of collaboration through group activities and it has been wonderful to see these skills develop.

We have all enjoyed making our way through The Adventures of Odysseus in English. This week the children studied the features of playscripts, learning how to write out the words that the characters say and include stage directions in parentheses (brackets). The children then wrote a playscript in groups of the interaction between Odysseus and the Cyclops Polyphemus. They then created an annotated storyboard of the Cyclops’s story.

In science the children continued their investigation of air resistance and how it impacts how parachutes work. Each group was given a different independent variable, either material of parachute, size of parachute, shape, or weight of the object attached to the parachute. This is the aspect that they will change in each of the 3 parachutes they make. The dependent variable, which we will measure, is the time that it takes for each parachute to descend to the ground. The controlled variables, which each group will make sure stay the same, will be the height and conditions of the drop, the length of the strings, and whichever other variables are not their group’s independent variable. We are all so excited to finish making the parachutes and conduct the investigation next week.

In maths the children have worked hard on our start to multiplication and division. The children recapped the meaning of multiples and factors, and learned the meaning of common multiples and common factors (those that numbers have in common with other numbers), for example, 15 is a common multiple of 5 and 3. 2 is a common factor of 4 and 10.

In computing the children completed the Bebras challenge, an international computational thinking competition. They enjoyed the range of challenges, and we look forward to discussing the different challenges and how to approach them in the next computing lesson.

In spelling this week our common exception words were correct, incorrect and usually.

Our spelling list concentrated on words with the ending ‘ance’. 

• performance  
• importance 
• distance 
• balance  
• advance  
• appearance 
• glance  
• assistance  

Please note that all children with long hair must wear their hair completely tied up, rather than half up and half down. Although this has not been an issue in our class, it has in other classes around the school so we have been asked to remind everyone of this in our efforts to reduce the spread of headlice. Thank you!

Wishing you all Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 1st November 2024

It was lovely to see the children this week after the Succot break, we hope you all had a great week.

At school, we have been getting back into routine as our weekly timetable this half term has some slight changes. The new timetable can be found in the ‘Useful Information’ tab above. Although we no longer have forest school sessions on Wednesdays, this has been replaced by PE, so our PE uniform days have not changed.

The children were excited and curious to begin our new class text, The Adventures of Odysseus. We began the week by reading the prologue, which details the story of Paris and the lead-up to the Trojan War. The children conducted some research about one of the ancient Greek gods and goddesses we met in the prologue and created illustrated profiles of them. After that, having read chapter 1, the children explored the characters of Odysseus and his wife Penelope, and wrote a letter as Oysseus to Penelope and their son Telemachus as he set off to war.

In maths the children have worked very productively, using the formal written columnar method to add and subtract larger numbers. They used this knowledge and understanding to round numbers in order to check answers, solve multi-step problems and find missing numbers. 

In spelling we learned the common exception words category, cemetery and committee, and the spelling rule ‘ant’. 

• important
• servant
• assistant 
• constant
• relevant 
• pleasant
• giant

In science we recapped our learning about forces, specifically gravity and air resistance. We began the very early stages of planning an investigation, and the children will work in groups to design 3 parachutes. Each group was given a different independent variable for their parachutes, such as material, size, shape and weight of the object attached to the parachute. We are looking forward to continuing this investigation next lesson.

In geography we are finishing up our learning on rivers, and this week we learned about how people use rivers and the impact this has on them.

Wishing you all a Shabbat Shalom and a fantastic weekend.

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 11th October 2024

Shana tova! We hope you have had a meaningful and enjoyable Rosh Hashanah, we wish all of you and your families a happy, healthy and sweet year.

In spelling this week, we continued learning the spelling rule tial. All of the spelling words and rules we have learned so far this year can be found on the homework Google Classroom, and the children’s homework is to ensure that they have learned all of these words, both spelling and meaning.

In computing lessons, we have been working on word processing and formatting skills. This week, the children each had a document with a list of tasks, such as; writing the date and title, aligned left for the date and middle for the title, underlined, changing the font, changing the colour, changing the size, making a list with bullet points, and inserting a table. The children were very focused and found that they needed to persist a lot to find what they needed.

In art the children began painting their own version of Hokusai’s The Great Wave off Kanagawa. They worked so hard (see photos below) and are looking forward to continuing this work for our next class display.

In science this week the children explored gravity and the difference between weight and mass, using a Newton-metre to measure this for various objects. 

As mentioned in our last blog post, each week we will be learning about the interests of a pupil in our class through a 5-minute presentation that they have prepared. These begin on 1st November, and it is important that the children are aware of their dates and come prepared for their presentation. The list of dates, children and their chosen topics can be found on the stream of both our Google Classrooms. There are still a few children who haven’t yet decided on the topic of their talk, please discuss their interests with them so that we can have a decision by Monday.

Wishing you all a great weekend and well over the fast for those fasting.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 27th September

In English lessons we revisited some of the aspects of figurative language the children have learned about in the past, such as similes, alliteration, metaphors and onomatopoeia. Some of the children were fairly rusty on their recall of these, and would benefit from going over them at home, through their reading or writing. They were also introduced new types of figurative language- idioms and hyperbole. They were presented with examples and tried to identify which type of figurative language they were.

The children also started to explore different ways to describe their emotions. We discussed how two words with similar meanings could create different effects—for example, both "content" and "glad" suggest a character is happy, but in slightly different ways. The children then analysed how the boy in the book Flotsam felt and what he was thinking over the course of a page.

We also spent some time talking about books that the children are reading and enjoying at home or at school. 

Children’s recommendations included:

• Kane Chronicles - Rick Riordian
• Boy at the Back of the Class - Onjali Q. Rauf
• Pocketful of Stars - Aisha Bushby
• When Hitler Stole Pink Rabbit - Judith Kerr
• We also looked at a few books from the library, these included
• The London Eye Mystery - Siobhan Dowd
• Malamander - Thomas Taylor
• Jessica’s Ghost - Andrew Norriss
• Varjak Paw - S.F Said
• Land of Neverendings - Kate Saunders
• Rooftoppers - Katherine Rundell 

In maths we spent some time comparing and ordering numbers to 1,000,000, including where they would go on a numberline and writing mathematical statements. We then moved on to round numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000, including larger numbers. Number lines are very helpful for understanding this, children may need reminding that they need to look carefully at different place value columns, depending on whether they are round to 10, 100 or 1000.

In spelling we learned about words ending in ‘cial’.

• social 
• special  
• official  
• crucial 
• artificial 
• beneficial  
• superficial  
• unofficial  
• facial 
• antisocial

This week’s common exception words are: attached, available, average.

At Forest School, the children used emotion cards to help them express their feelings. They then participated in a team game, followed by a story. Fortunately, we avoided the rain, and the children were able to choose from a variety of free activities. Some continued making baskets, others created soap from the inside of acorns, while several worked on tent or bridge building. A few took the opportunity to relax in hammocks.

We are excited to introduce an exciting new initiative in Year 5, to help the children develop their speaking and listening skills, encourage them to see one another in different lights and learn new things about each other, one child a week will prepare a 5-minute presentation about something important or interesting to them. Once we have compiled this list, the children will be allocated a date for their talk and this will be posted to both our Google Classrooms. 

Reminders:

School finishes at 13:00 next Wednesday, 2nd October, as it is erev Rosh Hashanah.

Our homework schedule might be slightly different over the coming weeks. We will make any changes clear.

Shabbat Shalom and Shanah Tovah to anyone we will not see,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 20th September 2024

This week we began our new science topic on forces. The children were reminded about the push, pull, twist and turn caused when two objects interact with each other, and forces such as magnetism, air resistance, gravity and bouyancy. The children were given a pile of these terms and sent around the classroom and the corridor, scanning the QR codes that had been put up around those areas for the definitions of the words they were given. The children were introduced to the concept of balanced and unbalanced forces, which will be developed later in the unit.

On Wednesday the children had a super active day and thoroughly enjoyed our outing to Rock Up in Watford. They enjoyed experiencing the challenges they faced together, and really cheered each other on in their endeavours. They also helped one another clip and unclip their harnesses and were considerate of each others’ needs. When we returned to school and had a snack and a rest, we discussed the various Kerem Characteristics that the children had used at Rock up and we were so impressed with their enthusiasm and recognition of this. They were proud of themselves too and felt like they had achieved a lot. Well done Year 5!

In guided reading we read an extract of the book Journey to the River Sea by Eva Ibbotson. This is a fantastic text and we will continue to delve deeper into the extract we read to develop the children’s comprehension skills even further next week.

In maths this week continued to explore the tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands columns and how to read and write 5 and 6 digit numbers with 0 as a place-holder in different columns. The children learned about the term ‘powers of 10’ which is when 10 is multiplied by itself a certain number of times, e.g 100 is a power of ten, because 10 x 10 (ten multiplied by itself) = 100. 1000 is a power of 10 because 10 x 10 x 10 = 1000. This has not yet been formally introduced as squared and cubed. A common misconception is the assumption that powers of 10 are the same as multiples of 10. We will keep going deeper next week!

In English we discussed dialogue and what meaningful dialogue means; that it reveals extra details to the reader about the characters, their history and relationships, or advances the plot. They write some suggested pieces of dialogue to go with the illustrations in Flotsam. They then analysed an illustration from the book and observed (wrote what they could see), wondered (wrote down questions they have about what they can see in the picture) and inferred (came to conclusions about the scene portrayed in the illustration based on the evidence, eg. I observe a group of fish ‘sitting’ on the sofa and an older/larger squid reading a book, I wonder if they are related, I infer that the squid is reading the little fish a story, like a grandpa would to their grandchildren. We looked at a good example and discussed what was good about it.

This week’s spelling words were with the ending ‘tious’:

-tious

• ambitious 
• cautious   
• infectious 
• nutritious   
• superstitious   
• ostentatious   
• facetious     
• pretentious 

The common exception words were ancient, apparent, appreciate

In Forest School the children discussed how to reframe their thoughts, for example, 'my friend is better at this than me', could be reframed as 'we are all good at different things'. The children then worked in threes to complete a teamwork activity before spending time exploring the forest, learning a new basket weaving technique, creating tents and continuing with projects they had started in previous weeks.

We enjoyed seeing the parents who were able to join us at Meet the Teacher on Wednesday night. We hope you found it and the information packs given out (or sent home with children) helpful.

Reminders:

• Please label all items coming into school so that they can be returned in the event that they are left somewhere
• Please regularly ask the children if they need 50p for new pencil box equipment
• Ensure that trainers are only worn on PE uniform days
• Prompt arrival at school so that the children can be in the classroom at 8.30am will give them time to practice their spellings each day, both from spelling lessons and words corrected in books

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 13th September 2024

On Monday we finished our hot air balloons, and the children were excited to see them hanging over the stairs on Tuesday morning as part of our whole school display for the book Flotsam, which all classes across the school are working on. Each class produced a different craft relating to the book.

This week we also enjoyed doing our art assessments, which the children do every year, and you can see some photos of the children hard at work below. These will be displayed around the school next week.

In maths the children learned about Roman numerals up to 1000, and began to embed the understanding of when numerals are added together and when they are subtracted. The children then learned about some new place value columns- tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions. Reading and writing these numbers correctly and the placement of the comma are challenges that we worked on this week, as well as deep understanding of the huge value of these numbers, for example that 1,000,000 (one million) is equal to 1000 thousands.

In English we explored the storyline of Flotsam, using sequencing language including adverbs and adverbials to write clear and simple sentences for each stage of the story to go with the illustrations.

In spelling this week we learned about words ending with the ‘shus’ sound, when this is spelled ‘cious’. Below is a list of example words that follow this spelling pattern- can the children spot them or any others in their reading or the word around them?

• conscious 
• precious
• suspicious  
• delicious  
• vicious  
• spacious  
• gracious 
• ferocious 
• luscious  
• atrocious

The common exception words we learned this week in class were: achieve, aggressive and amateur. We have discussed the meanings of these words in detail, please continue to go over them at home to reinforce this as well as their spellings.

The children and I created a display in our classroom illustrating each stage of the water cycle. They worked in small groups to research their given stage and presented it to the class. 

In Forest School, the children were taken on an earth walk. They looked at a range of different leaves and at ‘magical’ lands on the forest floor. Emma encouraged the children to look more closely at nature and they were amazed at what they observed. They then enjoyed time to explore. Some children used clay to create objects or to add to the ‘lands’ they found in the forest, others spent time in the forest digging and building.

This year, a second Google Classroom has been created especially for homework. We hope that you will find this clear and easy to use. Please make sure your child has joined the Homework Google classroom. A small change has been made to the homework schedule, topic homework will be set on Fridays as this is when the lesson takes place. 

You can find information including our timetable, homework schedule and reading and spelling lists in the Useful Information section at the top of the blog.

Next week:

• We look forward to seeing you at the meet the teacher on Tuesday evening at 6.45pm.
• Our outing to Rock Up will take place on Wednesday. The start and end times of the day will be unchanged, children need to make sure that they bring a water bottle and wear their PE uniform and trainers. They should also wear a school cap.

Shabbat shalom, have a great weekend!

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team

Friday 6th September 2024

It has been a joy seeing the children and having them back at school this week! They have grown so much over the summer and I have enjoyed catching up with them, and Ms Rose and Mrs Goldman have enjoyed getting to know them. Despite some nervous faces on the first day of school, the children settled in well and have made a brilliant start to Year 5.

This week, lessons have involved settling in and helping the children understand expectations for behaviour and presentation. The children have enjoyed meeting their new teachers and getting to know our new classroom, which is already beginning to feel like home. In addition to this, the children have recapped their prior learning about Roman Numerals, visited the library and began  making their own hot air balloons, the purpose of which will become clear next week! 

At Forest School the children discussed sustainability, enjoyed a story about an oak tree, and spent some time exploring the forest area. Some children chose to do some felting and printing, others built hammocks, opened ‘shops’ and started ‘businesses’. 

Reminders and Notices

• Please ensure that all items, including water bottles, snack boxes and school sweatshirts/ cardigans, are labelled. This makes it possible for staff and pupils to return any lost items to children.
• Upcoming dates to note: Tuesday 17th September, Meet the Teacher, 18:45.

Wednesday 18th September, Outing to Rockup (during the school day).

We are looking forward to next week and wish you all a fantastic weekend.

Shabbat Shalom,

Mrs Collins, Ms Rose and the Year 5 team