Year 5

Welcome to our Year 5 Class at St James’

Welcome to Year 5 my name is Mr Monaghan and I am the current Class teacher in Year 5. In Year 5 we are supported by a variety of Teaching Assistants. We cover a huge range of topics in Year 5, which the children will undoubtedly love exploring. As well as the World Wars, we delve into the functions of the human body (including the opportunity to dissect a heart), as well as life beyond our planet where we will be unravelling the mysteries of space and our solar system. Within Year 5, learning is not restricted to within the classroom. Children will be offered the wonderful opportunity to perform Shakespeare live on stage, as well as visiting the Youth Village.

There is only one rule in my classroom; try your best. If the children do that, they will thrive and have fun along the way.

Year 5 Noticeboard

Homework is given out each Friday and should be returned for the following Tuesday
Spellings are handed out each Friday and will be tested the following Friday. The spelling rules of that week will be reiterated during school time.
Accelerated reader – The children will read their reading books for 15 minutes every day. The children can take their book home for extra reading, but this must come back in each day ready to read in class.
PE in Year 5 is on Wednesday. Make sure you have your full St James PE kit.
Please bring fresh water daily.
We pray every day in school. Please help your child to become familiar with our prayers here Little Book of Prayers Upper KS2

Year 5 Youth Village Residential

This will be populated with information for the Year 5 Youth Village Residential during the Spring Term.

Autumn Term in Year 5

This half term is unfolding nicely in Year 5, with the children working hard, making progress, and most importantly having fun along the way.

In maths, they have been up and on the move in some fun and engaging Teach Active lessons, consolidating their understanding of things like Roman numerals and place value.

The focus in Literacy recently has been on the life of children pre WW1, and has moved on to diary entries from those soldiers involved in “The Great War.” The children have really been progress with their use of ambitious vocabulary, using expanded noun phrases and persuasive language. All of this comes after their non-chronological reports in their first writing cycle of the Autumn term.

Anglo Saxons have landed on our shores in Year 5 History, with the children learning of the various reasons for the Jutes, Saxons and Angles arriving in Britain, and how they helped shape the country we live in today. This ties in nicely with their Settlements topic in Geography, where the children have been looking at hamlets and villages, towns and cities.

The children have also had the chance to use syncopation in music, coming up with their own beats and rhythms in groups in class, and practising familiar songs with Mr Richardson that use syncopation too. Who knew banging rulers off the desk could help you hit a learning objective in a lesson.

We have visitors in Year 5 until October half-term, with our very own worm hotel in the classroom. The children have been learning lots about earthworms, with the longest being 3 metres long! It is all linked to our animals and plants topic, and the hope is that 8 worms went into the hotel; many more will leave it. The children have learnt about how these worms can reproduce on their own, creating clones of themselves.

The Year 5 children have also been enjoying their PE with new coach Tom; he is already proving to be a great asset for St James.

Tips on how to help your child’s learning during the Autumn Term:

Encourage your children to practise their times tables regularly. This could be five minutes in the car, or a spare few minutes before tea. Times Tables Rockstars is a super app to use. Times tables are so important in every strand of Maths.
When walking around the local Hebburn or Jarrow area, discuss any changes that have happened over the years and the possible reasons why. For example, an old factory could have been replaced with a block of flats, to accommodate a rising population in the area. This will support our Settlements topic in Geography.
Children could start researching all things WWII. We are currently working on WWI, but will be moving on to WWII after half term.

It’s the end of our Autumn Term

It’s been a busy festive period at St James as it always is, with Year 5 playing their part. The Y5 children sang fantastically in the recent Christmas carols performance alongside Year 6, with some notable solo performances from Alexis, Keira, Lucy and Evie.

The children have produced some lovely pieces of art in recent weeks too. As a school, we took part in the nationwide CAFOD competition for “Climate For Change.” In Year 5, we decided to show how amazing our planet is, paralleled with the harmful things happening to our environment and climate. The finished pieces from the children were brilliant. They also finished off their pop art work, using tissue paper to show contrasting colours working together.

A really good term from the children; they have made great progress in a short space of time, in how they interact with each other and how hard they work in class. A massive thank you to all parents and carers for their support in Year 5 so far, and I wish you all a very Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

Year 6 News

Year 5 children were delighted to have received an invite from Tyne & Wear Fire and Rescue to the official opening of Hebburn Tri-Station. The event was attended by His Royal Highness the Duke of Edinburgh. Our Year 5 children thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to attend such a prestigious ceremony

The children in Y5 have been busy in November. They have been honing their acting skills in Literacy lessons, trying to stay in role throughout the entirety of a scene or extract. They have also got to grips with some amazing artefacts from the Anglo-Saxon period which they are studying in History lessons. The Saxon board game proved extremely popular indeed. The children tried their luck at Mathopoly as well, using their knowledge of shape and geometry to make their way around the board. Plenty of fun had; plenty of learning accomplished along the way.