Mrs Smith & Mrs Lawry

Please make sure you empty and restock your pencil case over the half term break.

Please also make sure you clear out your bag ready for Autumn 2.

Key Dates

* PE Days return to normal *

PE Days are Tuesday and Thursday 

(Please make sure you have shorts under your long trousers)

11th November - (AM) Hampshire Primary Climate Unity Conference (PM) KS2 House Challenge

16th November - Financial Education Workshop

27th November & 30th November - INSET Days

18th December - Last Day of Term

Home Learning

Home learning is designed to support and extend the children's learning in class.  Although it isn't compulsory, it will help your child to build good homework habits in preparation for secondary school. 

The deadline for homework is Thursdays and new challenges will be posted on Fridays.

Reading: 20-30 minutes reading daily.  Try to finish a book this holiday and complete as many stars as possible on your Autumn Reading Challenge.  We will be tracking this in class!

Maths: Learn a new card game over the holiday.

Rest: Yes you heard me right!  Take some time to relax and recharge.  It has been a really long half term and you have all survived brilliantly.  Spend time with family and get outside, even in the rain!

 

Picture News

Class Reader

Find similar suggestions of recommended books for fans of popular children's authors here: BookMatch

A taste of our learning

Autumn Term Week 8 - Lost words

What a catastrophe! Precious words have begun to evaporate before our very eyes. These are words that we use to  describe the natural world around us, like raven, starling, ivy and heather– all of them, completely gone. However, we think you might be able to help conjure back these lost words. If you write a spell of your own, you just might be able to  summon these words back into the mouth and the mind’s eye...

This was the challenge facing the Swifts in our English lessons, and boy have they smashed it!  Using figurative language, including metaphors and similes, Team Swift had to write an acrostic poem to describe a chosen animal.  The creativity I have seen is absolutely exceptional, and I can't wait to see the narratives they produce after half term.

Also, a huge congratulations to all twenty of our new Play Leaders!  Everyone who applied convinced us that they would make an excellent Play Leader so we simply couldn't choose between them.  Well done Swifties, an incredible effort!  Picture to follow after half term...

Autumn Term Week 7 - Play Leader Training

This week the Swifties had their Play Leader training with Sara from Perins School.  They learned all about what the acronym SPACE stood for - Safety People Area Communication Equipment - and used this to help them in delivering their games to the rest of the class.  A key takeaway from the session was that we want all children to be happy and active throughout the game, so we had to adapt our games to reduce the time spent standing around waiting for our turn.  Sara also showed us a fun way to organise our teams using register order, birth month order and a quick game of rock, paper, scissors!  A special mention to our current Year 6 Play Leaders - Isabel, Rosie and Dotty - who came to speak to us about all the great reasons we should be a Play Leader.

Autumn Term Week 6 - English

We are so close to finishing our first class text 'Friend or Foe' by Michael Morpurgo.  The children have been on the edge of their seats waiting to find out what happened to the second Luftwaffe pilot who made his escape with the help of David and Tucky, two young evacuees from London.  The story has given us the opportunity to explore lots of ways to improve our writing through the use of relative clauses and adverbials to create cohesion across our paragraphs.  The Swifts have used their strong inference skills to help them write in role as characters from the story.  This unit has been a lot of fun for the Swifties, who have written letters, persuasive speeches and a newspaper report!  You can see some of our draft paragraphs for our newspaper reports below.  Our final task is to add in some interviews and come up with a catchy headline.  We can't wait for you to read them!

Autumn Term Week 5 - Art

Our Art unit this term is exploring Op Art which is short for optical art. These are pictures that use shapes, patterns and colours to make optical illusions.  The British artist Bridget Riley is well known for her Op Art pictures, which are all painted by hand with paint also mixed by hand to ensure consistency across the piece.  The Swifties have been experimenting this week with the op art style, exploring how different lines and patterns create different effects.  We have realised just how important it is to work with sharp pencils and have accurate colouring!  I can't wait to see what they will produce for their final pieces!

Autumn Term Week 4 - PE

The Swifties have been smashing life lately!  We have had a great week, really focussed and fun.  Our swimming sessions at Churcher's are going really well, with all children in the class swimming lengths of the pool.  In PE the children have been working on their football skills with Mr James.  They've been passing, dribbling and turning with the ball, all in preparation for playing some inter-class matches.  (Photo credit to Henry R)

Autumn Term Week 3 - Science and School Parliament

Introducing our new Swift Parliament!  Congratulations to all who put themselves forward and were voted in.  Disappointingly, we had two positions that weren't filled, so our School Parliament is smaller than it has been previously.  I'm hoping that there will be a bigger uptake on our Play Leader positions when they come up in a few weeks - I know we have lots of budding House Captains in the making...

To support the children in understanding the role, this year all of Year 5 will benefit from the Play Leader training on 14th October. They will then be given an opportunity to apply to become a Play Leader if they think this could be the role for them. More details to follow!

Do you know how old the Earth is?  In Science, we looked at key events in Earth's history and tried to get our heads around how long humans have been on Earth compared to when life first appeared.  In groups, the Swifties had to add key events to a timeline of 5 billion years, with each centimetre representing 10 million years!

Autumn Term Week 2 - People Project

Our class charters are now complete and can be found at the bottom of this page.  All the votes are also now in for our positions of responsibility so congratulations to all who were successful and a huge well done to everyone who put themselves forward to deliver their speeches.

The 'Meet the Teacher' slides can also be found at the end of this page for any of you who couldn't make the meeting on Monday.

The Swifts have been working really hard in class this week.  In PSHE we met our first People Project person - Harriet Tubman - who was an American abolitionist and equal rights activist.  She was born into slavery but managed to escape through an 'Underground Railroad' which was a network of secret safe houses called stations and kind people who wanted to help enslaved people escape the slave states.  Harriet later became one of the most successful conductors of the Underground Railroad, helping hundreds of enslaved people to freedom.  The Swifts designed a square as part of a Peace Quilt to represent Harriet's life achievements.

Autumn Term Week 1 - Class Charters

What a great start to the school year the Swifties have had!  They have come in organised, calm and ready to learn.  This week we have been getting to know each other and embedding our daily routines ready to hit the ground running with our learning next week.  One thing we spent time looking at was our Year 5 Learning Behaviours.  As a class we decided that, in order to reach our full potential in Year 5, we need to be: collaborative, focused, positive, resilient and respectful.  It's definitely going to be a  great year!