Monday 6th January 2020
Dear Year 5 Parents,
Welcome back and may I wish you all a happy and prosperous new year and decade! We hope that you all managed to have a lovely holiday with friends and family. This overview provides a summary of what your child will be learning this term, before the Easter holidays in April.Â
In English this term, we will be starting by reading the novel ‘Cosmic’. This is a story from the much loved children’s author Frank Cottrell Boyce, about a boy called Liam, who is too big for his boots. And his football strip. And his school blazer. But being super-sized height-wise has its advantages: he’s the only eleven-year-old to ever ride the G-force defying Cosmic rollercoaster – or be offered the chance to drive a Porsche. Long-legged Liam makes a giant leap for boy-kind by competing with a group of adults for the chance to go into space. Is Liam the best boy for the job? Sometimes being big isn’t all about being a grown-up! This novel will tie in beautifully to our Interstellar unit and bring it to a close before Chinese New Year.Â
In February, the children will begin to look at poetry and narrative writing, which again will link to our Discovery Unit of Our Hong Kong…
Within this Discovery Unit, the children will be exploring how our home, Hong Kong, has changed over time and the impact that this has had on its geography, its people and its history. They will also be following these questions to support them through their lines of enquiry: What do you know about the place in which we live? Have you ever stopped to wonder what Hong Kong looked like 100 years ago, 1000 years ago, or even what it will look like in 100 years time? Please discuss these questions with your children, especially over Chinese New Year, so as to prepare them for this very exciting and unique learning opportunity.Â
In Maths this term, the children will be looking at the numerical concepts of measurement, multiplication and division, fractions and recapping on place value. We look forward to studying these areas of mathematics with the children and refining their skills, fluency, problem solving, reasoning and methods within these areas of the curriculum.
Towards the end of Term 2, we have our Year 5 Camp to look forward to. We will be in touch soon with further details on this, as we will be hosting a parent meeting with the Treasure Island Group, from Pui O. But for now, please note that the camp will run from Monday 30th March until Wednesday 1st of April. If you have any questions regarding the camp at this stage, please do speak to your child’s classroom teacher.
With regards to homework, we will be continuing with our regular system and schedule of:
- Your child’s individual spelling list given out on Monday (and tested the following week) – children to do Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check for each word and then write three separate sentences using three words of their choice or as many words from their list as possible.
- Maths homework set by your child’s maths teacher on MangaHigh or MyimathsÂ
- iReading for 20-30 minutes each night. Children are to record the title of their book and the pages that they read in their diaries on a daily basis. Please can you, as parents, sign this too.
The P.E. department has asked us to remind students to bring both a water bottle and sunhat to every lesson. In addition to this, the school has a ‘no hat, no play’ policy and therefore to ensure their health and safety, students are required to wear hats during all playtimes.Â
A gentle reminder: we are also a peanut free school. There are students in Year 5 with severe peanut allergies and so we would kindly ask that all food items for snacks, lunches, birthday cakes and food for shared lunches do not contain nuts.Â
As mentioned at the start of the year, we like to encourage the students to start becoming more independent in Year 5. You can support your child by helping them to organise their belongings at the start and the end of the day and ensure homework is completed early in the evening. The upstairs area outside classrooms is quite narrow in parts, therefore to avoid congestion we kindly ask that you arrange an area to meet your child downstairs in the playground at the end of the day. Should you need to meet with class teachers, you are of course most welcome before or after school.Â
Our aim in Year 5 is for each student to reach their full potential; academically, personally and socially and it is integral that there is a strong partnership between the teachers, parents and the students for this to occur. We strongly value the importance of communication between home and school in achieving this aim, so should you wish to contact your child’s class teacher, please do not hesitate to do so by means of recording in your child’s diary or by organising a meeting with your child’s class teacher.
This is going to be another fun filled and challenging term for your child! If you have any questions, please contact your child’s class teacher.
Kind regards,
Rachel Ashcroft, Helen Kavanagh, Lyndsay McKenzie, Isabelle Manley-Cooper, Nicola Richardson and Katrien VismansÂ