Year 5 Newsletter

January 2017
Welcome back! I hope you have all had a lovely Christmas break and a Happy New
Year. We have a very busy and exciting Spring term coming up.

English
This half-term we will begin by be exploring poetry and images created by the
authors. This will allow us to develop our understanding of personification and
metaphors and how they influence the readers perception of what is going on.
We will build up our knowledge of different poetic styles and understand each
style through using role play and exploring language and meaning. We will then
progress onto persuasive writing by first understanding the features of persuasive writing and
then working towards writing persuasive pieces from a variety of viewpoints.
Ways to help
In lessons, there will be a key focus on creating images and understanding exactly what they want
to reader to gain from their writing. In reading, we are going to work on developing a deeper
understanding of the key skills of reading from retrieving information to making
predictions and inferring feelings of a character. Any additional work that can be
completed on these areas would be very helpful and please communicate any
problems, struggles or achievements with your child so these observations can be
used to benefit their daily learning.

Maths
We will be starting this half term learning roman numerals and recapping place value to improve our
knowledge of the value of larger numbers and begin to understand negative
numbers. We will then progress onto learning to solve problems using all four
operations securing our use of the correct written methods. Following this
we will then finish the half term learning about shape, angles and reflection
and translation. There will be a focus on arithmetic skills this term, with two
sessions a week to practise our skills.
Ways to help
Practice instant recall of all multiplication tables. Use the vocabulary of
multiples, factors and prime numbers to support these terms and ensure they have a good basic
understanding of digital and analogue times.

Science Properties and changes of materials

In science, we will explore materials through conducting a variety of
experiments to test different variables. The children are going to be working
on carrying out different scientific enquiries to test metal, wood and plastic
and exploring reversible and irreversible changes. They will then deepen their
understanding using scientific research to support and challenge their
questions and experiments to write detailed conclusions.
Ways to help
Investigate different materials at home and provide evidence of reversible and irreversible
changes at home when you melt solids or turn liquids into gas. You could also read a range of nonfiction books exploring materials at home.

Creative Curriculum
Geography The Amazon and South America.
Computing 3D modelling using Google sketch-up (its free to download if you want to practice
at home)
RE Islam
Art and Design Textile and sewing skills
PE- Grasshoppers will be delivering our outdoor tag-rugby sessions on Friday mornings (suitable
cold weather sportswear will be required). Also swimming lessons will continue on Wednesday
morning (9-10).
French Places in a town.
Music Woodwind instruments with Mrs Holt on a Tuesday afternoon.
PSHE Living in the wider world economy.

Homework
In year 5 this term there are two pieces of homework per week both set on Fridays and due
back in the following Friday. Spellings and times table practice sheets will also be set on a Friday
for a test the following Friday. The spellings for each week can be found at:
www.spellingcity.com/Harrisfive

Thank-you for your support, please do not hesitate to contact me if there is something you wish to
discuss either in person, by phone or via email at i.groom@harris.lancs.sch.uk
Regards,
Mr Groom