Contact us on our class email: boseman@summerswood.herts.sch.uk

                                                 southgate@summerswood.herts.sch.uk

                                                 obama@summerswood.herts.sch.uk    

Year 5/6 2022-23: Welcome!

Week Beginning 12th April 2021

The Summer term is underway and we have made a good start, introducing our new topic - Scream Machine - with some simulated rides on some of the highest, fastest, most twisting rollercoasters in the world. The children have then had a go at designing their own theme parks and mapping these.

In Maths, we have been revising short division with three and four-digit numbers. This has been useful practice and a lot of children are now a lot more confident with this method of division.

Our focus in English has been responding to "The Lion Hunt", which is a famous painting by Peter Paul Rubens. After some good initial discussion, role play and harvesting of vocabulary, the children have worked well to write a poem in response to the painting.

The learning in RE this week has involved collecting our ideas and finding out more about The Bible in the first of our enquiries into sacred texts and sources of wisdom.

Many thanks to those of you who have been working together with your children listen to, discuss and improve their reading.

SCIENCE WEEK

Week beginning 15th March 20201

This week we celebrated 'Science Week'. We had lots of fun taking part in the The Farming STEMterprise project which involved the children completing a series of activities to design, market and produce their own healthy lunch options. Although obviously dedicating a lot of the week to science, we also had time to fit in maths and English learning both alongside the main project and separately throughout the week.

The children enjoyed finding out about the planting and growing times for a range of vegetables and fruit that can be grown in this country, before choosing and planting those which would give us the quickest yield. We also planted examples of plants that can be grown from offshoots rather than seeds, such as strawberries, potatoes and spring onions. Alongside this, we revised the parts of a flower and how flowers are pollinated and fertilised to produce seeds, and the children enjoyed dissecting flowers and examining the parts under a magnifying glass.

Clearly, our plants won't be ready in a week, but the children will have the opportunity to watch and measure their progress and graph the rate of growth of the different crops. 

The children worked in groups to come up with ideas for a healthy lunchtime alternative, then conducted market research across the school to find out which of their options were the most popular. We then had lots of fun making the chosen products and sampling them.

We're back! It's wonderful to see you all again!

Week beginning 8th March 2021

It has been great to have the children back after - surely - the last lockdown. They have settled in quickly and responded well to the return to the school environment.

This week has been largely about getting re-aquainted with each other and class routines.

In English, we have been looking at A Wizard from Earthsea, by Ursula K. Le Guin, which is a text linked to our topic of Alchemy Island. We have been revising noun phrases, sentence structures and the use of commas.

Also linked to our topic, we have been looking at materials and separating solids from a liquid by sieving, filtering and evaporation.

Maths this week has been dedicated to revising our learning of the last two terms, including place valure in larger numbers, ordering and comparing numbers and rounding, including with decimals.

In RE, the children have been reminded of the Easter story and the events of Holy Week.

Key information:

- Children are encouraged to bring a healthy snack into school for nurture time

- It is increasingly important that children read at home daily. Online Reading using Collins Big Cat e-books will continue until the end of the school year and books will be changed weekly.

Year 5 children are expected to read 10-15 mins every evening (at least two times a week with an adult, and three times reading independently). We will send home their reading record books every day for you to sign to say you have heard your child read.

Children have been re-issued with their login details.

*Please find additional information below about logging in*

- Children have their login details for Times Table Rock Stars and should be logging on for a minimum of 3 minutes a day.

- The weekly spellings will be posted on Google classroom on a Wednesday. Next week's spelling test will be on Tuesday.

-NO SCHOOL ON FRIDAY 19th MARCH AS IT IS AN INSET DAY!

We hope you have a lovely weekend!

Learning Week 7: 19th - 23rd November

We have made it through the first half term and we have been very heartened by the positive way in which the children have handled themselves after the long lay off. It is encouraging, too, that they have been able to pick up with their learning and move forward so well.

Thank you to all those of you who sent in donations for Harvest Festival. Below are 5 Parks' poems and 5 Obama reciting their class poem "I love Harvest".

Some parents have been asking about homework. For the moment, we are limiting this to reading - it is important that you continue to listen to your child reading and talk about the text and their understanding of it - Maths Whizz and learning and memorising times tables facts. There is also work set on Google classroom.

Our new topic for the second half of the Autumn term is called "Beast Creator". We will be taking the children out for a mini-beast hunt on Wednesday 4th November and it would be helpful if you could send them to school on this day with a spare pair of shoes in a plastic bag, as we will be going out on the school grounds, which are likely to be muddy!

Thank you in advance for your help with this.

Learning Week 6 - 12th-16th October

Another week has flown by in Year 5, with the highlight being our Ancient Egyptian day on Wednesday. Let us say a huge thank you to parents, carers and children for turning out in some terrific costumes and helping to make the day a big success. 

Along with making Egyptian bread, the children tried their hands at hieroglyphics, the Ancient Egyptian number system, and making Egyptian jewellery.

In English this week, we have begun a new unit, studying the Handbook of Monsterology by the eminent monsterologist, Doctor Ernest Drake. This has required some serious study, both of the monsters themselves and some very challenging vocabulary and sentence contructions. The children have responded with great interest and application.

Following on from our work on factors and multiples last week, our focus in Maths this week has been on prime numbers and finding the prime factors of numbers. This is interesting and useful work, but it highlights the need for children to have a sound understanding of the properties of numbers and good times tables knowledge. Children really need to know their times tables by Year 5 and we are grateful for parental help in encouraging their children to practise and memorise all their times tables.

In RE, we have looked at the features of the synagogue, while the children have continued to enjoy practising their tag rugby skills in PE.

Harvest

At this time of year we enjoy celebrating Harvest and helping those around us. This year, we are going to be celebrating Harvest in a different way! Next week we are asking for families to donate items for the Borehamwood Food Bank. If you are able to donate some items, we would be really grateful to support this brilliant local charity. The picture below shows Food Banks' urgently required items. If you have one of these items at home that you are able to share, please send it to school with your child and it will be collected and delivered to the Borehamwood Food Bank by the end of term. Thank you to those who are able to support us.

Dates for your diary

Photos – 2nd & 3rd November Individual child photos will be taking place in school when we return after the half-term break. Unfortunately, we will be unable to take sibling photos this year, due to the crossing over of Bubbles that this will involve – I realise that this is disappointing, but we are doing all we can to ensure all children are safe in school. Children will need to wear clean shirts and jumpers/cardigans, and if your child normally has PE lessons on one of these days, we will try and schedule their photos for the other day - we hope to publish the timetable next week. 

Learning Week 5: 5th - 9th October

Well done to all the children for continuing to work hard and produce their best this week. For 'Walk to School Week', every class has had a competition to come up with the best Walk to School poster. We had some great entries, but sadly there can only be one winner. Here is the winning poster from 5 Obama. We will post some of the runners up here soon.

This week in English we have been discussing what we know and learning more about Harvest Festival. We have been generating vocabulary and lines for a class poem about Harvest, which we will be sharing in the coming weeks.

Maths has been all about the difference between multiples and factors of numbers, incuding finding factors that different numbers have in common. This is another good excuse for children to learn and memorise those times tables facts they are not yet secure with.

In Science, we have set up a practical test using hard-boiled eggs to test the affect of different liquids on tooth enamel, as we look at the causes of tooth decay.

Our Topic learning this week has focused on everyday life in Ancient Egypt, as well as the process of embalming used in mummification.

A reminder that next Wednesday, 14th October, we are holding our Ancient Egyptian Day in Year 5, when we will be completing different activities linked to our topic and the children are invited to come in in Ancient Egyptian costume.

Learning week 4: 28th September-2nd October

Next week is Walk to School Week!

We encourage as many children as possible to walk, cycle, scoot or 'park and stride' to school.

The past week has again been a very positive one. The children continue to work well and show their enjoyment of being in school.

In English we have finished working on our unit around "Journey to Jo'burg", with some good story writing produced.

Maths has focused on decimals, including comparing, ordering and rounding decimals of up to 3 decimal places and converting them to fractions (tenths, hundredths and thousandths).

Continuing with our topic of the Pharaohs, we have looked at ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and the many Gods and Goddesses important to ancient Egyptians. The children have also been making 'nemes' (Pharaohs' headresses) in art. We are also planning to hold an Ancient Egyptian day in the week beginning 12th October, of which you will receive more details by letter on Monday.

In RE the children have continued their learning about Judaism, looking at the importance of Yom Kippur.

We also had more luck with the weather this week and were able to enjoy another session practising Tag Rugby skills in PE.

Importantly, too, our assembly this week involved a lot of work around the issue

of bullying in the Big Anti-Bullying Assembly. The children all pledged to play their part, raising their hands to take a stand against bullying.

Learning Week 3: September 21st-25th

We have had another good week in Year 5, with positive feedback fromthe children about being back in school, despite colder classrooms with the windows open all the time - which they have to be. 5 Obama got caught out in a thunderstorm while playing rugby on Thursday afternoon, and 5 Parks unfortunately did not get out at all. The children have remained cheerful, however!

In English this week, we have been reading Journey to Jo'burg, by Beverly Naidoo - a story set in Apartheid South Africa. The children have shown a lot of interest in the story and we have done some good work appraising the characters as well as revising single-clause sentences and co-ordinating conjunctions.

Maths this week has focused on counting backwards and forwards beyond zero into negative numbers, adding and subtracting with negative numbers, comparing and ordering numbers and finding differences between positive and negative values.

We have continued looking at food types in Science, with the children designing a healthy meal based on the right balance of proteins, carbohydrates, fruit and vegetables, dairy, fats oils and sugars.

Topic work has been focused on the ancient Egyptians' beliefs of the Afterlife and their process of mummification, as well as finding out about some of the most famous pharaohs.

Learning Week 2 (to September 19th 2020)

Again, this has been a positive week, with the children continuing to work well within the guidelines set out for staying safe in school.

In English, we have completed a two-week unit putting words to the picture-book story Journey by Aaron Becker. This is a project the whole school has been engaged in in different ways. Year 5 have been following instructions to make paper lanterns containing messages with their hopes for the future, they have looked at description and played about with language to produce a class poem, and have finished off the unit writing some very good imaginative continuations of the story.

Our maths work has focused on place value applied to larger numbers, considering the magnitude of numbers up to a million and revising how to compare and order numbers.

We are studying The Pharaohs as our topic this half-term. So far, we have looked at the story of Howard Carter and his discovery of the tomb of Tutankhamun. We have also studied the geography of Egypt and the importance to the country of the river Nile.

In Science, we have been finding out about the different food types and what effect they have on our bodies. This will lead on to a discussion about what constitutes a healthy diet.

RE this term is about Judaism and the children have been learning about the Shema - one of the most important prayers and one of the first that Jewish children learn.

Some important reminders:

• Please would you make sure that your child brings in a bottle of water with his or her name on it every day.
• Almost all children are remembering so far, but please be reminded that PE now happens twice on Thursdays and children need to come to school already dressed in their PE kits on this day.
• We will be keeping doors and windows open in order to keep the classrooms well ventilated, so children should bring different layers of clothing as the weather begins to turn colder - as is forecast for next week.
• Please ensure that children are reading at home and are being listened to at least once weekly. We will be issuing them with new reading records and a book for the week from Monday.
• Finally, wherever possible, please make sure that your child is getting regular practice on Maths Whizz. It is a proven resource that helps significantly with children's understanding of maths.

Many thanks!

Learning Week Beginning Monday 14th September 2020

Our first full week back has been a very positive one. The children have adapted quickly and responsibly to the necessary changes and restrictions put in place throughout the school and have shown a very positive attitude towards their learning, including showing a lot of enthusiasm for our current project: Pharoahs.

Please find below our videos and presentation of "Meet the Teacher", which for obvious reasons we are doing online this year:

It was wonderful to see so many of the children back in school this week after our long enforced break. Watch this space for our Meet the Teacher information.

The children were all very pleased to be  back and quickly adapted to the new routines in place.

Here for the moment are a few pointers on what to expect this term as we ease our way back into whole school learning.

• Beginning and end of the school day: children are to enter the KS2 building at 8:40 through the side fire escape door that leads onto the staircase up to years 5 and 6. They will also exit through this door at the end of the day, onto the lower playground. This will be at 3:10.
• PE will be on a Thursday - morning and afternoon - and children are expected to attend already dressed in their PE kits, including a jumper or tracksuit top for outdoor PE and wearing trainers or plimsols.
• Our big focus this first half term will be on reading, including an emphasis on reading at home, so that there will be no other homework set (other than continuing to learn and memorise times tables facts). We encourage parents to listen to their children read and talk with them about their reading.

Thank you for your support and co-operation. Please note the change of email addresses.

South West Herts Schools Consortium Testing Information to Schools and Parents for Secondary Transfer 2021

Please find the information for Y5 parents about the South West Herts Schools Consortium Testing for Secondary Transfer 2021.

Please note the deadline for applying and the contact details for any questions you may have.