Dear Parents and Carers,

I hope you all had an enjoyable February half term break.

During this coming half term, our project will explore the Maya civilisation. We will compare the Maya and the Anglo-Saxons, investigate how the Maya settled in the rainforest, their religious beliefs, homes and what archaeological remains tell us about Maya cities. Using primary evidence, we will examine theories into how the Maya cities declined.

Our focus in English will be on short narratives including setting descriptions. We will also be planning and writing information texts, around aspects of The Mayan Civilisation. This will link with both our class project and our class book ‘The curse of Maya’.

In maths we will be continuing to build our mathematical understanding of time, data handling, algebra, and ratio. We will also be exploring some SATs style questions, during both our English and maths lessons.

Staffing: Miss Edwards teaches Year 5 and 6 for English and Maths every morning supported by Mr Waters. In the afternoons, children in Years 5 and 6 are taught alongside Years 3 and 4 by Mr Pengelly (Monday, Tuesday and Friday) and Miss Edwards (Wednesday and Thursday). Mr Waters supports the class Monday to Thursday, and Mrs Eagles assists on Fridays. Mrs Lindsell teaches the PE session on Tuesday afternoons.

Routines: PE lessons will be on Tuesdays and Fridays. Children’s PE kit should be kept in school at all times. We try to take our learning outdoors whenever possible so we also ask that children should keep outdoor shoes/wellies at school if possible.

Home Support

Reading

Please support your child with reading at home as much as possible. The benefits of reading and discussing what they have read are huge, and it is always wonderful to see the progress that children make, especially as they move onto longer and more complex books. When children have finished a book, they can take an Accelerated Reader quiz on it at school – this helps to check their understanding and keeps a record of what they have read. Most published books are on the AR system so if your child reads a book that is not from school, they are very welcome to take a quiz on that – all books that they read contribute to their half-termly target.

Times Tables

Having confident rapid recall of times tables is extremely useful in all areas of maths and is a very good thing to practise at home. Your child has been given a Login to Times Tables Rockstars – an online game that is very good for practising tables and for tracking progress. For those who are confident with multiplication facts, TTR can also be used to practise rapid recall of division facts. In addition, the free game Hit the Button is a very good way to practise individual tables and other key number facts. As a general rule, children should try to target getting at least 15 correct in a minute to demonstrate that they know a times table well. https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

Other Maths Games:

During our work on time-telling we use: https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/116/telling-the-time

During our work on fractions, we use: https://phet.colorado.edu/sims/html/build-a-fraction/latest/build-a-fraction_en.html

All of these games should be easily accessible and are an excellent way to practice knowledge and skills in maths.

Spelling

These are the statutory spellings for Years 5 and 6. Any help you can give your child with learning and retaining the spelling of these words will be very beneficial.