Year 5 2019-20 Welcome Letter

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the first term of Year 5. May we begin with an introduction to the team; Rachel Ashcroft is the Year Group Leader, who will be responsible for the leadership and coordination of the entire year group. Rachel has worked at DBIS for the last five years and this is her fourth year as Year Group Leader for Year 5. We welcome two new members to the team: Miss Isabelle Manley-Cooper from Year 4 as a classroom teacher and Mrs. Katrien Vismans from Year 1 as an educational assistant. Mrs. Lyndsay McKenzie and Mrs. Helen Kavanagh continue as members of the Year 5 team from last year. We are thrilled that the very talented and wonderfully organised Mrs. Nicola Richardson, will also continue to support the teachers and students this year, as our Year 5 Educational Assistant. An aim of our team this year will be to continue to deliver and add to the special ethos of our year group and cohort. 

This is always an exciting and busy term with many of the highlights coming from our Discovery, enquiry units of Learning to Learn, Full Power and Our Hong Kong. Learning to Learn allows the children to develop a deeper understanding of what it means to be a learner and how we can all aquire and adopt a positive psychology in our daily lives. Full Power is a super exciting science unit, where the children look at electricity through the conceptual lense of energy: how we use it at home, school and within Hong Kong and whether or not this is sustainable for our future. Sustainability, power and change are also the driving forces for our history and geography unit of Our Hong Kong, which looks at our ‘home’/’host’ city’s historical timeline and commemorates 21 years since the handover from the British Empire and exploring the wonderfully diverse cultures and ethnicities within the +852. 

In Year 5, the children will follow our bespoke DBIS Primary curriculum which is based upon the National Curriculum of England, and enhanced by our unique international context. The children will experience quality learning opportunities throughout the year where they will work independently as well as in groups with others.

Guided reading, English (writing) and mathematics are key subjects that the children will learn and focus on, on a daily basis. Through an enquiry learning approach, the children will develop skills, knowledge and understanding in science, geography, history, art and design technology during our Discovery Units (as mentioned above).

Additionally, the children will receive specialist lessons for Mandarin, Learning Technologies,  Music and PE. The children will also continue to build their skills during the many opportunities provided for learning outside the classroom.

The students will be put into mathematics sets after our initial start of year assessments. Up until this point, we will be teaching class based maths and differentiating to your child’s specific learning needs and challenge. After having analysed the student’s’ most recent assessment data and communicated with their previous teachers. The sets that will be created are not fixed for the year, as teachers will continually review whether students need to move sets, to ensure they are making the best possible progress.

Homework has already begun with the students expected to read each night and record the title of their book and the pages that they read in their diaries on a daily basis. We would love it if the children could also record any ‘wow words’ or fantastic conjunctions that they spot whilst reading, this way they will start to build their own bank of challenge words to use within their own writing in school. We would also like it if you could please sign your child’s diary each night, so that we can use their diary as means of communication with yourself if necessary. 

Your child will also receive approximately 30 minutes of mathematics homework twice a week (normally on a Tuesday and Thursday) and a weekly spelling list for their attainment level. With regards to spelling homework, each week we expect the children to:

1. For each word do: ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check’ on the opposite/next available page in your child’s spelling book.
2. Write three sentences, either: three separate sentences using three different words from your child’s list OR three separate sentences using as many words from your list as possible. These three sentences can also be written in your child’s spelling book which they’ll be given at the start of the year. 

All of the above will be explained to your child and written in their diary for clarification.

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. 

We are also a peanut free school. There are students in Year 5 with 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. 

We like to encourage the students to start becoming more independent in Year 5 and 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. 

We will have our ‘Meet the Teacher’ meetings on 19th August and arrange optional parent teacher conferences during the week commencing 26th August. On both of these occasions, you will have the opportunity to ask questions and tell us any important information about your child that you think is important. Class teachers will also provide information relating to the term ahead in more detail during the ‘Meet the Teacher’ session. 

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.

We are extremely excited to be working with you and your children this year and look forward to meeting you at the ‘Meet the Teacher’ session in week 2. 

Kind regards,

The Year 5 Teachers and Educational Assistants 

Rachel Anne Ashcroft (Year Group Leader)       Lyndsay McKenzie Helen Kavanagh Jonny Haines

Nicola Richardson                        Katrien Vismans