Magical Masterminds

Welcome back!  This will be a short but exciting half term as we build on our WWII topic and begin preparations for our class assembly.  Thanks to all the pupils who worked hard on their Propaganda Posters during the holidays, they look wonderful on our walls! 

During our topic, we will use eye-witness accounts of ‘Life in the Blitz’ to learn more about this period in history, including those from the grandparents of our teachers!  Throughout this topic, we encourage you to investigate your own family history and their lives during the war. 

In science we will be learning about life cycles, moving onto SRE later in the half-term.  You will shortly receive letters to give consent for your child to be part of these sessions.  We also have a ‘Polar Exploration Day’ to look forward tou2026 more details to be revealed soon!

Targets 

Thank you to all of the parents who are supporting our reading rewards system.  It was lovely to see the children presented with their bronze medals last half term.  There are still some children who aren’t getting their Reading Records signed so haven’t been able to work towards their medals.  It is so important that children are reading at home to develop their vocabulary, comprehension skillsu2026 and just to enjoy it!

These science targets link very closely with the PSHE work we will be doing on Sex and Relationship Education.  If you haven’t returned the SRE permission slip, please do so as soon as possible.  We don’t require permission slips for the Science lessons as it is a statutory part of the curriculum.  If you have any questions about what is covered in each of the lessons, please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

Homework

Your child will receive homework every Friday to be handed in the following Wednesday.  

Spellings will be handed out on a Wednesday to be tested the following Monday. 

While most children practise their spellings each week, there are still some pupils who are consistently scoring less than 5 in their weekly test.  Please remember that there used to be 10 spellings to learn and we reduced it to make learning spellings more manageable!  Please help your child avoid falling behind by practising their 6 spellings with them.

Dates for the diary

• Thursday 1^st March – World Book Day
• Monday 5^th March – Online Safety Day
• Tuesday 13^th March – Polar Exploration Day
• Thursday 15^th March – 1^st Parents’ Evening
• Monday 19^th March – 2^nd Parents’ Evening
• Tuesday 20^th March – SRE Day
• Thursday 22^nd March at 2:30 – Y5C Class Assembly

If you have any questions or if there is anything we can do to help, please get in touch!

Mrs Caballero

Click to download and view our topic web, with all the exciting things we'll be learning this term:

We learned all about how children were evacuated to the countryside to avoid the risks of bombing in major cities.  Thanks to everyone who made such a wonderful effort!

We hope that you have had a fun and festive Christmas holiday and are recharged and ready for the new term!

We would like to begin by welcoming Mr Commander to our classroom.  He will be with us for his final teaching placement and we are looking forward to working with him.

This new term will start with a 4-week geography topic on Florida, where we will learn about the tourism and travel industry in Orlando, as well as seeing how it compares to the UK.  After this, we will go back in time to study WWII and investigate how it affected life in Britain. 

Targets

Homework
Your child will receive homework every Friday to be handed in the following Wednesday.  

Spellings will be handed out on a Wednesday to be tested the following Monday.  Children can then take their books home so that you can see their results but they must have their book in school every Monday.  Please support your child by asking them to practise their spellings as these are revisited at the end of each half-term, at the end of the year and eventually in the SATs!

Dates for the diary

• Tuesday 6^th February – Safer Internet Day
• Wednesday 14^th February 2:30pm – KS2 Maths Fair!  This will a celebration of our hard work in maths and will also be a valuable opportunity for parents to learn about the methods that we use! 
• Thursday 8^th February – WWII Day!  A list of ideas for the day will be sent home soonu2026

If you have any questions or if there is anything we can do to help, please get in touch!
Mrs Caballero

Click to download and view our topic web, with all the exciting things we'll be learning this term:

The Magical Masterminds had a fun day of celebrating our uniqueness as part of Anti-Bullying Week.  We dressed up in blue, wore odd socks and took part in an Anti-Bullying workshop!

Click to download and view our topic web, with all the exciting things we'll be learning this term:

The Magical Masterminds learned how to write their names in Arabic, dress ready for a Hajj pilgrimage and visited a Mosque!

We learned about famous historical figures and how they changed the world we live in today. We also had great fun in our African dance and drumming workshop!

We arrived at school on Monday 16th October to discover a scene of madness and mayhem - what had happened?  Luckily, the  Magical Masterminds were there to investigate...

Welcome back Magical Masterminds!  I hope that you have had a lovely Summer holiday and are now refreshed and ready to take on the challenges of Year 5! 

We have had a busy start to the week, learning our new model text – ‘Find Me’, which you can hear by following the link below:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rx3hm

This will give us the techniques, language and grammar skills needed to write our own spooky adventure stories, which we hope to display in our local area (details coming soon!).   To help fuel our imaginations, we are reading ‘The Witches’ by Roald Dahl – we’re already hooked!

To help us develop our reading skills, we would like to ask you to hear your child read for at least 10 minutes, 3 times a week and sign their reading record.  This can be their class book or a book from their Lexiled reading list, which can be found by logging into Reading Pro.  We appreciate your support with this, we know how busy life can be but those extra reading sessions will help your children to achieve their highest potential.  As a reward for reading regularly, each child will be awarded a sticker each week that they read 3 times to an adult (not including this week!).  If they get 12 stickers, then they will achieve the Bronze Reading Medal!  You can do it Magical Masterminds!

This year, our class will be taking part in ‘Mindfulness’ training, which aims to help our pupils be more aware of their emotions and reactions.  The lessons should enable our children to improve their decisions when under pressure or angry and to help them to recognise when they are feeling these emotions so that they can begin to regulate them.  Look out for the meditation diary which we will be sending home soonu2026

Finally, I hope that our children have a wonderful year and it is a pleasure to be working with you all again! 

Targets

Reading

Science 

Passport 

Homework 
Your child will receive homework every Friday to be handed in the following Wednesday. 

Spellings will be handed out on a Wednesday to be tested the following Monday.  Children can then take their books home so that you can see their results but they must have their book back in school every Monday.  As you will have seen from the Spellings letter, children are now having 6 spellings a week with the expectation that they will get 5 or 6 correct every week. 

With this letter, we are sending home a copy of the words that children need to spell correctly in Years 5 & 6.  Some of these will be sent home for the spelling tests but you may want to work through them with your child as they will need to use them in their writing during Years 5 and 6.
Water Bottles & PE Kit

Children are encouraged to bring drinks bottles to school with water so they can have a drink in class.

This half term, indoor PE will be on a Wednesday afternoon and outdoor on a Friday afternoon. Please ensure your child has appropriate kit in school on these days.  Long hair must be tied back and earrings should be removed.

Parent Helpers
We now have a volunteer to hear readers on our class however we still need more help to give our children as many opportunities to read as possible.  We would also be grateful if anyone would be able to test pupils on their times tables – we will give you a sheet with the answers on so don’t worry if you’re rusty!  Even 20 minutes would be appreciated so please get in touch. 

If you have any questions or if there is anything I can do to help then please do not hesitate to ask!

Mrs Caballero

Click to download and view our topic web, with all the exciting things we'll be learning this term: