Welcome to Year 5/6!

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Year 5 and 6 Newsletter 2

It’s the middle of half term already!

We have already had a really busy half term, and although things are different, we have tried to give the children as many opportunities as possible. We have already enjoyed our Reading Festival, reading poems for National Poetry Day and have thought about resilience as part of Mental Health Day on October 10th.

Book recommendation of the fortnight

Class 15 have been enjoying reading our class story ’The Goldfish Boy’ by Lisa Thompson. She has also written one of the books on our literature spine for Year 5/6– The Light Jar. We don’t want to give too much away, as we hope that other classes will have the opportunity to read it as well, but so far we are finding the story captivating and mysterious– we have many questions that we want to find the answers to!

My Maths

By now, your child will have received their password and login details for My Maths, a fun online platform which supports the learning your child is doing in class. Every week, your child's teacher will set work on it that your child can complete, either using a tablet, phone or laptop. 

To log in:

School username:

arboretum

School password:

square19

They then need to log on using their individual username and password, which should be found in their reading diary.

Spellers of the Fortnight

Spelling is really important and we love to celebrate those children who are working hard with spellings:

Class 14– Jawaad

Class 15– Hafsah

Class 16– Sienna 

Class 17– Ansh

Class 18– Safa

Stars of the Fortnight

Class 14– Jawan for being resilient and Mitchell for being aspirational.

Class 15– Eva for being a supportive friend during afternoon lessons.

Class 16– Sandis and Reeba for always making good choices

Class 17– Aiza for being successful

Class 18–Sebastian for aspirational topic work.

TTRockstars

Speed and fluency is key for our times tables. You can practise on TTRockstars– can you beat your previous time?

Fastest time in Year 5: Muhammed Zain—1.03 secs

Fastest time in Year 6: Allanah- 0.99 secs

Notices

Please ensure your child wears their PE Kit to school on PE days:

Class 14– Thursday and Friday

Class 15– Tuesday and Thursday

Class 16– Tuesday and Thursday

Class 17– Tuesday and Friday

Class 18– Tuesday and Thursday

Please make sure your child brings a labelled water bottle to school each day.

Homework is given out on a Friday and needs to be returned on a Tuesday. Please ensure your child is completing their homework and bringing it back to school.

Helping your child to succeed in the end of Key Stage 2 SATs

English

There are three English tests:

Reading comprehension - 1 hour

• There will be a range of different text types for the children to read and answer questions on, these may include an extract from a children’s novel, factual information and poetry.
• Some questions relate directly to the text and children need to quote from the text in their answers.
• Some are multiple choice questions.
• Some require children to infer or deduct using text to illustrate their views.

Grammar and Punctuation - 45 minutes

• Formal assessment on grammar, punctuation and spelling. Focus on knowing and applying grammatical terminology and a full range of punctuation.

Spelling

• Children will be tested on twenty spellings which are read aloud to children in the form of missing words in a sentence for them to complete.

Writing

• Writing will be assessed through a number of selected independent pieces of writing completed across the year. This will cover a range of types of writing.
• These could include stories, diary entries, letters, play scripts, descriptions, reports, persuasive writing.
• Throughout all of these text types children will be assessed on their overall use of sentence structure and punctuation, text structure and organisation, appropriateness of language to suit the text and ability to produce texts which are appropriate to the task, reader and purpose.  Writing will also be assessed in other subjects.
• All pupils will be expected to reach the guidelines for the expected standard for the end of year 6.

Handwriting

• Handwriting must be joined, fluent and legible.
• The size and position of words and letters need to be consistent.
• Children need to be able to write legibly and clearly in a sustained piece of writing.

Mathematics

There are three mathematics tests:

• 1 arithmetic paper (30 minutes) covering addition, subtraction, calculations with fraction, long division and long multiplication.
• 2 reasoning papers (40 minutes each) 
•  

Children are tested by being asked to apply their understanding to solve ‘real life’ problems. There is an increasing emphasis on this aspect of mathematics. They should be able to show accuracy, fluency and speed in carrying out calculations and mental agility.

Children should:

• Be able to read a question and know what it is asking.
• Know all their multiplication facts.  Be able to perform calculations using the four rules of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using thousands, hundreds, tens and units.
• Be able to solve mathematical problems, applying the four rules above.
• Be able to use and compare simple fractions, decimals and percentages.

Children will also be tested on:

• Measures e.g. length, mass, capacity, and time.
• Shape e.g. 2D and 3D shapes and symmetry.
• Handling data e.g. interpreting graphs, plotting co-ordinates and probability.

Science

Science will be teacher assessed with the expectation all pupils will reach the expected standard based on children’s knowledge and understanding of:

• Green plants: parts of a plant and their function, adaptation of plants to different environments.
• The Human body: parts of the body and their functions, food and healthy eating.
• Materials: recognising and naming common materials and their everyday uses, the effect of changes, separating mixtures of materials.
• Electricity, forces (e.g. magnetism, gravity, friction), light, sound and the solar system.
• Children will also need to know how to plan and carry out an experiment and how to read and interpret data from results, including from a graph. They will need to be able to apply their knowledge and understanding to solve problems in different situations.