Samphire Class - Year 5
Staff: Mrs Roy and Mrs Bunting
Welcome to Summer Term in Samphire Class! ⛵🌾
Welcome to the final term of the school year for our amazing children! This Summer Term, our learning is beautifully guided by our school vision: "Anchored in the community; a place to belong, a world to explore." We have a thrilling line-up of history, hands-on science, creative arts, and community events to cap off the year.
Maths
🔢 Maths: Measures, Multiplication & Division
We are focusing on practical maths skills and sharpening our calculation strategies this term:
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Measures Mastery: Children will learn to convert between different metric units (like grams to kilograms, and litres to millilitres) and explore imperial units like inches, pounds, and pints. They will also practice converting units of time and calculating the perimeter, area, and volume of shapes.
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Problem Solving: We will be using all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division) to solve real-world problems involving scaling, money, decimals, and rates. Children will also use mental strategies, partitioning, and estimation to check their accuracy.
English
📚 English & Guided Reading
Our reading and writing projects this term will stretch the children’s imaginations and build sophisticated language skills:
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The Writing Project (King Kong): Inspired by this classic story, the children will learn to use advanced punctuation like brackets for parenthesis and commas to prevent ambiguity. They will practice writing with relative clauses and modal verbs, culminating in two major pieces of writing: a dilemma narrative and a balanced argument.
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Guided Reading (Overheard in a Tower Block): Through this text, the children will explore deeply relatable themes like friendship, courage, and navigating the challenges of growing up. They will practice explaining the meaning of words in context, summarizing main ideas, and making predictions.
Discovery Learning
🔬 Science: May the Forces Be With You!
Get ready for some serious experimenting! In Science, we are exploring Forces. The children will use equipment like ramps, toy cars, and parachutes to measure the effects of friction, air resistance, and water resistance. They will learn how to design a "fair test," record their data in charts, and look at how gears and levers work in everyday life.
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The Big Outcome: The children will design, create, and test their very own parachutes!
🏺 Uncovering Ancient Egypt (History & Art)
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Step Back in Time (History): We are traveling thousands of years into the past to study Ancient Egypt! The children will examine artifacts, images, and texts to understand daily Egyptian life and compare their society to the Romans and Greeks. To celebrate their learning, they will write a museum-style information plaque about an exhibit.
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Creative Craftsmanship (Art): In art, we will design and construct 3D Egyptian-style masks! Using sketchbooks to map out symmetrical patterns and symbols, the children will build their masks using papier-mâché, card, or Modroc, before decorating them with vibrant paint and embellishments.
🌍 PSHE: Looking to the Future
In our Personal, Social, and Emotional development, we are exploring "Living in the wider world" and thinking about future careers. The children will reflect on their personal strengths, research different jobs, challenge stereotypes, and set inspiring personal goals.
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The Big Outcome: The children will design and share a "Future Me" presentation showcasing their dreams and ambitions!
🎵 Music & Spanish
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Music Partnership: The children are becoming musicians by learning flutes and recorders! They will practice playing simple tunes with accurate rhythm, following a conductor, and working together as a group to prepare for a live concert performance alongside other musicians.
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Spanish ("Tell me when"): We will be learning how to say and order the days of the week and months of the year, count up to 31, and ask/answer questions about our birthdays in Spanish.
💻 Computing: Quiz Masters
The children will learn how to become programmers by exploring selection statements in coding. They will write programs to create interactive quizzes that provide different feedback paths depending on the user's answers, using variables to keep track of the player's score.
🏃♂️ PE: Cricket & Athletics
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Cricket: Developing accurate bowling within the rules, building batting skills, and learning how to apply smart fielding tactics under pressure.
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Athletics: Learning to pace speeds over different distances, mastering smooth relay baton changeovers, building momentum for the triple jump, and throwing with force for distance.
🗓️ Community Links & Special Events
True to being "anchored in the community," we have some incredible experiences lined up for Samphire Class this term:
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A fantastic visit to Norwich Castle to bring our Ancient Egypt theme to life!
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A school Science Workshop Day.
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Participating in a Community Poetry Competition.
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Welcoming a Community Reader into our class.
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R.E. Debate: Exploring the big question "Does religion bring peace, conflict, or both?" across Christianity, Islam, and Judaism, culminating in a respectful, reasoned classroom debate.
General Notices
P.E. and Outdoor Learning
PE days are Tuesday and Friday.
Reading Challenge
In Year 5, we are working hard to promote the importance of reading and show children how enjoyable reading can be. We promote reading for pleasure throughout the school and encourage the children to read every day. At school, we have supplied our in-class reading area with a range of age-appropriate fiction and non-fiction high-quality texts for children to access.
Class Dojo
Class Dojo will continue to be used this year. It is a great space where you can view photos, videos and information about what is happening in Year 5 and across the school. If you require another invitation to join, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Belongings
Please can you ensure that all belongings and named (PE Kits – Wellies – School Uniform – Bags – Coats – Water bottles etc).