Year 5 - Birch Class 2021 - 2022

WELCOME BACK EVERYONE!

How did they change the world?

Autumn 1

This half term, our focus text is ‘Queen of the Falls’ by Chris Van Allsburg. Our text tells the true story of Annie Taylor, a feisty 62-year-old woman, who became the first person to cross over Niagara Falls in a barrel.

Taylor's story is one of pluck and ambition but as an older, decidedly non-glamorous woman, she never achieves fame and fortune that motivated her to undertake such a daring feat, in her lifetime.

Linking to the context of our story, we will voyage across the Atlantic to discover the continent of North America and all its amazing countries, cities and landscapes. We will identify the 23 countries of North America, from the vast lands of the USA and Canada down through Central America and on to the Caribbean islands. On the way, we will explore the various geographical features of different areas of North America and compare them with our own locality.

Keeping Up with Birch Class

There will be lots of new learning happening over the course of the year and we are really excited to share our achievements with you all. We will post daily updates on our class Twitter page so please keep up to date with all that is going on in Year 5!

Reading

At Westfield, we expect all children to complete five reading sessions a week. These should be recorded in each child’s individual planner. Pupils' planners are checked every morning by the class teacher. A reminder of expectations can be found in the front of pupil planners.

Spelling

Every Tuesday, spellings will be given to the children to learn. These spellings will be introduced to the children through a discreetly taught spelling session. Children will be tested on these spellings on a Friday. 

Online Learning Resources

Our children have access to a range of online resources to aid their learning. Here are the links to some useful websites that children can use whilst not in school. All children are familiar with how to use these.

Bug Club: https://www.activelearnprimary.co.uk/login?c=0

TTRockstars: https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school/student/86651

Spelling Shed: https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb 

Purple Mash: https://www.purplemash.com/sch/westfieldwa7

Covid-19 Isolation

In the event of a child having to isolate, remote learning will be provided through Google Classroom. Every child has been given their own Gmail address. They are able to log onto our online classroom using these details.

It is a requirement that children access our remote learning platform on the days that they would usually attend school. It is important that good communication between school and parents/carers maintains during an isolation period. We ask that all children respond to the daily task briefing on their Google Classroom homepage. This is so that the class teacher can record who has been able to engage with the learning tasks.

If you have any questions, please contact the school office.