Dear parents and carers,

Welcome back! I hope that you all had a wonderful summer break and that your children are looking forward to the school year ahead. There are lots of exciting things coming up where our class will have the opportunity to learn about and contribute towards our community.

Our key question this half-term is ‘How did the world wars affect life in Bampton?’ Through a mixture of history lessons, research, writing and poetry we will explore the idea of Remembrance. We will be working closely with local historian Andrew Powell-Thomas, who will be sharing his extensive research with us. We also have the fantastic opportunity to contribute towards a book that he is creating that will celebrate the lives of some of the citizens of Bampton who played a vital role in the world wars.

In English we will be reading ‘Shackleton’s Journey’ where we will use his incredible exploits to inspire us in writing formal letters as well as third person stories.

In Maths we will be starting with place value which will lead us into our work on the four key operations of maths: addition, subtraction, multiplication and division.

For further information on our curriculum this year please look at the Stags class page on the school website.

The rest of this letter provides you with some information that you will find useful for the term ahead.

Routines:

Please ensure that your child checks that they have the following each day:

• A water bottle that can be filled up from the classroom tap.
• Their reading book.
• There is no need to bring in a rucksack or large bag into school as we do not have space in the cloakroom area. It is however very important that they bring in their Chromebook each day and that it is fully charged and ready to be used to support their learning.
• Please could your child bring a waterproof coat into school every day, especially as the weather tends to deteriorate during autumn and the onset of winter.
• If it is due to be a sunny day in September, please ensure your child brings in a hat and has an application of sun cream.
• Your child should be wearing the correct uniform as specified in the uniform policy on the school website.

 

PE days

We will have our PE lesson on Monday and Friday. The children will need to come to school dressed appropriately without having the need of a separate PE kit bag left in school.

Devon County Council requires that jewellery, including earrings and studs, be removed for P.E. and related activities for health and safety reasons.

Home Learning

Home learning is an important part of your child’s education. The home learning set will be planned to reinforce the work being covered in class. Each week home learning activities are set on a Friday. They will be set a variety of different tasks, all of which will be set and fully explained on Google Classroom.

Year 5 and 6 Spellings

A list of spellings are given out every week based on the national curriculum or particular spelling strategies being learnt in class that week. I then test the children on these spellings the following Friday. We will be regularly learning, practising and testing these words so that they become completely internalised by the child. Children should be able to apply their spellings to their own written work and not just in an isolated test.

Times Tables

Children should learn their tables as often as possible, working towards the goal of being able to recall their times tables up to 12. Every child in Stags class has been registered onto Times Tables Rock Stars and will be given a login and password so that they can practise their times tables at home.

Daily Reading

In years 5 and 6 children are strongly encouraged to read for at least 20 minutes each day. We will help and support children to find books that are at their appropriate level and that they find enjoyable, engaging and suitably challenging. Reading regularly, out loud to an adult where possible, is possibly the most beneficial practice that will support all areas of your child’s learning. If you are struggling to find any suitable books for your child then please do speak to me and I will be happy to help. Please also encourage your child to be persistent when trying a new book as it often takes a number of pages before the engagement and enjoyment really kicks in!

Please do not hesitate to contact me if you have any concerns or questions.

Many thanks,

Mark Narramore,

Stags Class Teacher