Teaching Team: Miss Mercer, Ms Swannell and Ms Edmed

oak@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Dear Parent/Carer,

 

Hello all and welcome to Oak Class: the final year of primary school!

I hope everyone is settling in well and is getting used to life back at school. It is so lovely to have a classroom full of children again and everyone has made a really positive start to the year. Miss Swannell, Miss Edmed and I are really looking forward to getting to know everyone and enjoying a fun final year at St Barnabas.

English

This term much of our work will be linked to our topic of Ancient Greece. For the first half of the term, we will be finding out what life was like in Ancient Greece, focusing mostly on the Classical Period (500 – 336 BC), and creating diary entries and a newspaper article. After half term, we will look at Greek mythology and religion, reading sections of The Iliad, which tells the story of the Trojan War, and The Odyssey, which follows the adventures of Odysseus, as well as well-known myths such as Pandora’s Box and Perseus and Medusa. Our class book this term is Who Let The Gods Out by Maz Evans. In addition to this, we will be focusing on punctuation and grammar including relative clauses, parenthesis, determiners, conjunctions, prepositions and subjunctive form.

Maths

This term we will begin by covering units on place value, before moving onto formal written methods for all four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) which builds on the work done in previous years and enables them to calculate with larger numbers. After half term we tackle everyone’s favourite…fractions. We will be comparing, converting, adding, subtracting, multiplying, dividing and finding fractions of amounts. We will also complete a shorter unit on position and direction. In addition, we will be improving our reasoning and problem-solving skills and building on our times tables knowledge.

RE

The topic for this term is ‘Creation and Science: are they in conflict or complementary?’ We will look at the creation story told in Genesis and consider how the Christian view of creation can work alongside scientific theories of the big bang and evolution. After half term, we consider the evidence for Jesus being the Christian messiah.

Science

In the first half of the term, we look at inheritance and adaptation which covers processes and evidence for evolution. This works well along the RE topic of creation. After half term, we learn about living things and their habitats which includes a look at micro-organisms and the classification of plants and animals.

ICT

Our first topic of the year will be learning how to use search engines safely and effectively. We will look at refining searches using keywords and how search engines sort their results. After half term, we will move onto web page design - working up to creating one of our own.

PE

PE will take place on Wednesday afternoons. Please remind your child that they need to have their PE kits in school that day. They should bring it in rather than wear it to school.

Home Learning

There will be a spelling test each week on a Wednesday. Children will be given a list of words to take home to learn but they can also be found on Google Classroom. Spare copies will also be pinned on the homework board in class.

A times tables test will take place every Thursday and children will identify which times table they need to practise. Times tables are linked to almost every aspect of the maths curriculum and a secure recall of all tables up to twelve makes a huge impact on their understanding of each topic, so we would really appreciate your support. Just a couple of minutes practise a day or a few quick fire questions as you are cooking dinner can make all the difference. If you require any practise sheets or other materials, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Regular reading has a positive impact on a child’s comprehension and writing skills. For this reason, we are asking students to read for a minimum of 25 minutes a day. They can comment on what they have read in their reading journal which will be checked weekly. The children are responsible for changing their own books if they are reading from the selection of class books.

Reading records should be bought in on a Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and should be signed by an adult at least once a week.

Homework will be handed out on a Monday and will be due by the following Monday at the latest. They will receive one piece of maths work and one piece of English, which could be reading, writing or SPAG focused. Google Classroom has been set up for this year’s homework to help with homework getting ‘lost’ or damaged. Your children have been shown how to log in, in our ICT lesson and should all be able to access their accounts. However, I advise that they check this out at home at the beginning of the week to give me a chance to help with any issues. Paper copies will be given to any children that do not have access to a laptop or tablet at home and there will ALWAYS be spare copies pinned on the homework board in class for anyone that loses theirs. I expect EVERYONE to be completing their homework and will ask anyone who does not bring it in on time to complete it during break or lunch time. They will be receiving a lot more homework when they move onto secondary school and I feel part of my job as a year six teacher is to get them into a regular routine of getting it done so they avoid detentions next year.

Logging into google classroom for the first time:

1. Go to classroom.google.com and click Go to Classroom.
2. Enter the email address for your Classroom account and click Next.
3. Enter your password and click Next.
4. If there is a welcome message, review it and click Accept

Dojo points

I will be using the dojo points reward system this year. They will receive points for regular reading, scoring well on their spelling tests, improving times table scores and completing homework. They can also be awarded points for participation and effort. Points can be removed for persistent lack of homework or poor behaviour. I like this system because it gives every child the same chance to earn points and rewards those that continually put effort in. It can also be a good incentive! Each child was given a code to log into the class dojo at home. This will enable them to customise their avatars and will allow you to see how they are doing in class and what they are earning points for. At the end of each term, the children are allowed to exchange their points for rewards.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to catch me after school. Do also email me at oak@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk anytime, if you have any questions or concerns, or even if you just want to say hi 🙂

 

Best wishes,

 

Miss Mercer