Dates for your diary for next term:

• Family consultations 12th and 19th November 14:30 - 18:45. Children will be present as they give a short presentation about their experiences and successes in Year 5 so far. Book a slot via the Office.
• School Christmas Fair Saturday 22nd November.
• Year 5&6 Book Club Wednesday 3rd December 3:30 - 4:30 pm we will discuss A Box Full of Murders by Janice Hallett.
• Trip to London to see Hercules - Thursday 11th December.
• Christmas Lunch Friday 12th December.
• Christmas Carol service Wednesday 17th December 6pm St Mary's Church.
• Break up for Christmas Thursday 18th December 1:30pm.

Friday 17th October

********Congratulations to Neave and Jack, chosen for this term's Head Teacher Awards!******

We can’t quite believe it—that’s the first term in Year 5 done! What a term it has been. Everyone has settled in so well to the class routines and the demands of daily life, and we have truly enjoyed getting to know the children. What a lovely bunch they are.

On the same note, a big welcome to the newest member of our class, who joined us this week. The children have shown such kindness and support to ensure a smooth transition—thank you, everyone.

This week, the class completed their final art project: impressive and striking self-portraits focusing on expressing intense feelings using vivid colours, distorted features and poignant words. The children thoroughly enjoyed this topic and have showcased techniques inspired by their learning about Expressionist art. They are so proud of their creations that we just had to share them with you below.

Looking ahead to next term, our topics will include:

• Science: Properties and Changes of Materials
• Geography: Investigating Our World
• Art: An exciting Mixed Media project, where Mrs Hester will work with the children to create a large whole-class canvas for our Year 5 RE learning on Salvation. This forms part of a whole-school RE initiative led by Mrs Cheshire—so watch this space!

We wish you all a fun and restful holiday and look forward to welcoming everyone back on Monday 3rd November.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

HOMEWORK:

Maths - Atom Learning. I have set 2 different levels for all children as I have had feedback that it can be extremely tricky.

Level 1 is slightly more straightforward. If that suits your child better, there is no need to do Level 2.

We will start regular comprehension homework after half-term. Please keep reading in the holidays.

***********************Well done to Kitty, our Y5 Star of The Week***********************

Friday 10th October, 2025.

Firstly, I hope you all enjoyed the Harvest celebration as much as we did. Y5 absolutely smashed their drama performance. Thank you for all your donations and for supporting the children with line learning, method-acting advice, and preparing costumes and props. But we all know the real hard work was done by the children. Each one of them spoke clearly, confidently, and with poise. We had several comments about how impressive the class were as a whole in their presenting and speaking. So well done to you, Y5.

In English, the children have started their final piece of writing: a series of diary entries or recounts of Annie’s daring feat. It’s the culmination of this term’s work, ideas, and planning. The children were keen to use many recount skills and proudly used paragraphs to organise their work into themes, the first-person viewpoint, and a mix of appropriate tenses, as well as astounding vocabulary and impressive punctuation to add meaning. They included super-detailed descriptions and feelings to entertain the reader. A sprinkling of fronted adverbials were used, along with lots of contractions and focused spellings from the term. Well done, everyone, for such an effort. The classroom was very peaceful today, as the children were focused and really enjoying the opportunity to write for fun and purpose, and to show off their superb writing skills.

Netball was fun today as the class explored the different types of passing and the appropriate times to use them within a game situation. We have been remembering the rules of footwork, keeping our distance, and using timely, varied passing. I’m excited to say that everyone was trying their best, and we have a very able set of netballers.

Please see below for the homework and keep up the reading at home. I'm sure we will have a good final week of term, ready for a well-earned two-week break.

Have a good weekend,

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

HOMEWORK:

Maths - Mental Multiplication and division on Atom

English/History - spend a short time researching your chosen person for Black History Month. Don't forget to include KS2 or children/kids in the search engine. Email or bring in notes for Monday.

Spellings: the 'ay' sound spelt ei or ey

• beige
• disobey
• obey
• eight
• freight
• grey
• neighbour
• osprey
• prey
• reign
• they
• vein
• weigh
• sleigh

*********************************** Well done to Theo - this week's Star of The Week *************************************

Friday 3rd October, 2025.

Year 5 has been a hive of activity this week. We have come to the end of our Maths chapter on addition and subtraction and will be moving onto a new chapter covering multiplication and division.

In English, we have been working on writing and organising our recounts, focussing on a first person account of Annie’s day when she went over Niagara Falls in a barrel. The class are writing with flare, using exciting vocabulary to add interest, and punctuation to clarify meaning. They are working really hard to include all our Mastery Keys and we have even spotted some fronted adverbials, go year 5! We are encouraging the children to use their five senses in their writing, in order to hook the reader, and it seems to be working.

Our topic has moved on to Expression, the children have been learning the origins of this art movement and what it entails. The class were keen to get sketching some self-portraits expressing their inner most feelings, with vibrant contrasting colours and unrealistic facial dimensions and distorted faces. Such a fun type of art we can all get on board with.

Having had 5 glorious weeks of football in the sun, ok apart from Friday when we were all a bit soggy, we will be starting netball. Their skills of passing, shooting, footwork and team work will be put to the test, we will work on balance, hand-eye coordination, ball skills and game tactics. So many of y5 are already involved in Netball Club which is great to see. It's such a fun sport and a popular game at secondary school. 

Looking ahead to this week, the whole school will be celebrating Harvest, at the church, Wednesday 8th October at 09:15. The Y5 actors have been working hard memorising lines and delivering them with confidence and enthusiasm, and are excited to share a short piece of drama with you. Please check your emails for ideas on each child's costume. Any problems, do let us know. Over the weekend, please can each child have some fun decorating a harvest envelope, with an optional donation inside and bring it in along with a non-perishable food donation on Wednesday (see list below from the food bank). The cash donations will be going to our partner school in Bondeni and the food items will go to Edenbridge food bank.

Also a reminder for this Friday, 10th October - Friday 💙 Wear It Blue Day.  Purpose: Support West Kent Mind – raising awareness and funds for mental health in our community 👕 Wear anything blue, no school uniform required 💰 Donations Via JustGiving link on the school website: 🔗 https://www.justgiving.com/campaign/wearitblueforwkm2025

A quick staffing update for next week only, Mrs Silander will be with the class on Monday and Friday, with Mrs Hester teaching on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. 

We hope you have a restful weekend.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Homework this week -

HARVEST - please go over your Harvest lines, look out your Harvest costume, food donation and decorate your envelope.

SPELLING -

Key spelling rule: An apostrophe is used for contraction to show the place of missing letters. Contractions are two words shortened into one with letters removed and an apostrophe in their place. Contractions are often used in speech as they are easier to say e.g. I wish I’d remembered my pocket money.

Examples : should’ve, could’ve, would’ve, must’ve, might’ve, mustn’t, won’t, mightn’t, you’re (your), shan’t, it’s (its).

Thank you.

********************************Congratulations to Molayo- this week's Star of The Week************************************************

Friday 26th September

We've had another busy week in Year 5. The Harvest Service is fast approaching on Wednesday 8th October and Year 5 are doing a short drama so we have been practising for that. There's no homework this week as I would like the children to familiarise themselves with their words - see attached script.

On Wednesday, the children took part in a drama workshop based on Jack and The Beanstalk and run by WestEnd in Schools. They  engaged with enthusiasm and their workshop leader was impressed with their creativity and confidence. We were lucky enough to be able to pay for this through the Enrichment Fund so thank you for all your contributions.

In maths, we are looking at various ways to add and subtract large numbers and have been discussing using number lines, column addition and place value counters. Children are beginning to grasp the concept of rounding numbers to estimate a total before adding or subtracting.

One of our English lessons this week involved the children taking part in a short debate. It was wonderful to hear them articulate themselves brilliantly while also being respectful of the views of others  - they could teach our MPs a thing or two!

Have a relaxing weekend.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander.

HOMEWORK:

Learn words for the Harvest Drama

Spellings: we will be covering the same spellings and rules as last week.

******************************************Congratulations to Arti, this week's Star of the Week. ******************************************

The class has had a wonderful balance of fun and hard work this week. Our trip to Hampton Court really engaged the children and brought Tudor times to life. They loved seeing and experiencing it for themselves, which always helps to cement the learning we have been doing in class for our topic Off with Her Head. The children returned full of fascinating facts and stories about the Terrible Tudors. The sheer size and grandeur of this historic venue truly impressed them and made for a memorable trip.

Back in the classroom, we completed our baseline assessments. The children responded brilliantly and impressed us with their positive attitudes. Mrs Hester and I will use the results to inform our planning and to support each child’s learning as we begin the year.

We also enjoyed an exciting art session this week. The children worked hard to create striking Tudor self-portraits, filled with symbols, royal colours, regal head dresses, and powerful poses—worthy of impressing noblemen and countrymen alike.

We hope you have a restful weekend and look forward to seeing the children on Monday.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

HOMEWORK:

Maths: Atom Learning - mental addition and subtraction

English: Atom Learning - sentence structure

Spelling: adding suffixes -ed and -ing to root words

• Key spelling rule: The e at the end of the root word is dropped before adding -ing, -ed e.g. interfering.

• Key spelling rule: The y is changed to an i before adding -ed but not -ing e.g. occupied.

• Apply to the words below.

achieve, bruise, persuade, queue.

accompany, magnify, qualify, simplify.

****************************Congratulations to EMILY, this week's Star of the week.*****************************

Our trip to Hampton Court is on Wednesday:

• Arrive at school at 08:30
• Red hat
• coat
• Snack
• Packed lunch
• Water 
• We hope to be back by 4pm but will keep you informed 

Friday 12th September

Two weeks into term and the children have settled in very well. Their engagement and enthusiasm are infectious and we are enjoying getting to know them.

Our first 'buddies' session was definitely a highlight this week. Each child has been given a reading buddy in Year 1 and they spent a pleasant 15 minutes sharing a couple of picture books with their young partners, reading aloud to them and discussing the text. This, weekly, session is extremely popular and happens every Monday. Feel free to send your child in with a (named) book or two from their younger days if they would like to share these with their buddy. We will ensure the books return home safely in their school bags.

In maths, we have moved on to rounding numbers. Many children find it difficult to round large numbers into the tens and 100s, often forgetting to include the tens and hundreds of 1000s. For example: 56,724 rounded to the nearest hundred, frequently, mistakenly, becomes 700. It helps to put these numbers in the context of money - no one would be happy to receive a paltry £700 when they'd been promised £56,724.

Our new English programme is proving effective and fun. Children have already rattled out a diary entry, postcard and piece of description - their writing is ambitious and imaginative which is fantastic.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

HOMEWORK: 

Atom Maths: Rounding Numbers

Atom English: Punctuating sentences

Spelling: adding the suffixes 'ed' and 'ing' to root words

1. grab/grabbing/grabbed, thud/thudding/thudded, stop/stopping/stopped

2. admit/admitting/admitted, control/controlling/controlled, begin/beginning

3. lengthen/lengthening/lengthened, happen/happening/happened, straighten/straightening/straightened.

RULES when adding the suffixes -ed and -ing.

1. Double the last consonant to keep the vowel short when adding a suffix.

2. If the second syllable is stressed, double the final consonant when adding a suffix.

3. If the first syllable is stressed, no doubling of the final consonant. 

Friday 5th September

What a delight it has been to welcome the children back into School. They bounced into year 5, eager to learn with gratifyingly well stocked pencil cases - thank you.

Keen not to waste any time, we have begun the maths curriculum with revision of place value, looking at numbers to a million. Many children find reading large numbers challenging so we have spent time on how to ascertain whether a number is in the millions, hundreds or tens of thousands. There is Maths Homework this week - see below - please avoid giving your children too much help with this as it is better to allow the algorithm to set the challenge level. If they are finding it too difficult, please let us know.

In literacy, we have begun our new Pathways to Write programme, hooking the children in with a hair-raising true story about an elderly woman who decided to throw herself off the Niagara Falls in a barrel - she survived with a few bumps and bruises but never quite reached the level of fame and fortune she expected. (See below for more details on Pathways to Write and Spell).

We have also started reading our class book, TREASON; a story based in Tudor times with a nail-biting plot and brilliantly wrought characters. 

The children are already engaged with our Tudor topic and have begun by taking part in a Tudor drama and by making Tudor Roses - we hope to be able to share both with parents at some point.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Hester and Mrs Silander

HOMEWORK:

MATHS - Place Value on Atom Learning (ALL LOGINS ARE THE SAME AS IN YEAR 4)

SPELLING -  the words we're covering next week are from the KS2 list of statutory spellings - the attached document details the rules we'll be covering this term as well as a poster with some strategies for learning spellings.

NOT ALL CHILDREN WILL BE EXPECTED TO LEARN ALL THE WORDS EACH WEEK - WE WILL ADAPT ACCORDINGLY.

Next week's words include - achieve, bruise, marvellous, muscle and temperature (this has been edited as the original list was published by mistake - apologies)

New Writing and Spelling Programme

We are in the process of introducing a new writing and spelling programme called Pathways to Write and Pathways to Spell. This enables us to conform to the Government's latest advice in the newly published Writing Framework, and will lead to a more consistent approach across the School. As a result, we will no longer be doing weekly spelling tests . Our focus will be on techniques for learning spelling rules and spelling words, encouraging children to first recognise and understand the words before breaking them down in order to recall their spellings. Teachers will still put the weekly focus words and spelling rules on their web pages and we encourage you to go over these with your children. We will, however, no longer be working towards a test. This is a far more inclusive approach and we hope it will help broaden children's vocabulary while embedding strategies for learning how to spell. 

Please do not hesitate to contact me via the office if you have any queries.

Kind regards

Rosie Hester (English Lead)