Fox Class (Year 5) 2024 - 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the class page for Fox Class.

Here you will find all of the exciting and wonderful things that your child will be learning during their time in Year 5. If you have any questions, please use Class Dojo or speak to a member of our team at drop off/ pick up.

Thank you. 

Mr Baxendale & Miss Eva

Autumn 2

Our English text for Autumn1 is FArTHER by Graham Baker-Smith. 

A young boy, bewitched by his father's unrelenting passion to fly; a desperate craving that absorbs his every waking minute, finds himself entranced by the dream. When his father goes to war and does not return it seems the spell is broken.

Much later, the boy, now a young man finds himself drawn once more to his father's drawings and failed experiments. Finally able to make his father's dream a reality, he flies. Will his own son be visited by this unrelenting passion?

The children will complete two pieces of writing during this unit: A setting description and a letter.

Continuing with our half termly topic all about the Vikings, we will be reading 'Odd and the Frost Giants', a fantasy/ adventure story by Neil Gaiman. Set during the Viking times in Norway, we follow Odd on his adventures alongside some familiar gods like Thor, Loki and Odin! 

We will be using our different VIPERS skills: Vocabulary, Infer, Predict, Explain, Retrieve and Summarise to

improve our understanding of what we read.

'Reading for Pleasure' has great amounts of benefits for your child. In Year 5, we ensure your child has time to read for pleasure and we set time aside to read our class book. 

Benefits of 'reading for pleasure':

Inspires imagination and creativity.

Enrinches cultural awareness and understanding. 

Increases empathy and improves relationships with others.

Lifts well-being levels and improves mood.

Improves progress in vocabulary, spelllings and even maths.

Encourages children to take a screen break.

Read with your child every day even if it is just 2 minutes- this can make all the difference. 
Record in their reading diaries to ensure that your child is receiving their stamp for their book from the vending machine, or reading buddy. 

You could ask your child about what they think might happen next in the story, how do they think the character is feeling, who is the author and what do they do. 

During Autumn 2, we will be really focusing on applying our multiplication and division knowledge to solve problems with fractions. We will be finding equivalent fractions, ordering/ comparing/ sequencing fractions and adding/subtracting fractions with different denominators.

Times Tables knowledge is so important! It is used in all areas of maths, especially fractions/ decimals/ percentages which forms a large part of new learning within the Y5 Maths curriculum. If your child can rapidly recall them, this will support them when solving challenging maths fluency and problem solving questions. 

Children will have ongoing access to their TT Rockstars logins at home.Please ensure that your child is practising them at home as it is very beneficial for their learning.

If you have misplaced your child's login, please drop me a message on Class Dojo and I will resend for you.

This half term in Science, we will be exploring Forces.

We will be completing lots of practical investigations to find out about how forces act upon the world around us, including gravity, air resistance, friction and buoyancy.  

In History, we will be learning about the 'Vicious Vikings' and whether they really were so vicious after all! We will be evaluating different sources to find out more about what life was really like in Viking Britain, as well as how the Vikings affected our lives today. 

Your child will have a music lesson each week where they will learn to explore their musical abilities.

During Autumn 2, children are introduced to the Blues genre of music and its history, and learn to identify the key features and mood of Blues music and its importance and purpose. They also get to grips with the 12-bar Blues and the Blues scale, and combine these to create an improvised piece with a familiar, repetitive backing.

Your child will have 2 P.E lessons each week. Please see the uniform timetable below for the days where PE kit or Forest School kit will be needed. This half term we will be playing hockey and learning the dance for our Christmas production!

 Mondays- Each Monday, your child will be given 10 spellings to learn over the course of the week. They will complete a spelling test each Friday, and, if they receive a mark of 10/10,  they will get Dojo points. They will have opportunities to learn their spellings each morning in class, however, extra practice at home is essential.

FAMILY MATHS CHALLENGE: Every week there is a new challenge to complete in the Family Maths Challenge Booklets. Each challenge will earn a star on the reward wheel. If children help their siblings or other family members with their homework, they can receive an extra star for that too! It's a great opportunity to get involved with your child's Maths learning. 

Every day- Your child should read as often as possible when not in school and this should be logged in Reading Records. 

Other useful links:

Please see below links to useful websites for your child to use when they are at home. I will be adding to the list throughout the course of the year so please make sure you check for updated links.

Oxford Owl - Linked to our phonics Read, Write Inc programme https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/reading/free-ebooks/   

Story Nory - A range of stories by classic authors as well as poems musicals and fairytales. https://www.storynory.com/archives/classic-authors 

Story Berries- Read along with audio clips. https://www.storyberries.com

Monkey Pen-  Free downloadable children’s books in PDF format. https://monkeypen.com/pages/free-childrens-books

Free Children’s Stories-  https://www.freechildrenstories.com

Keeping Safe Online-  www.esafety.gov.au/kids 

Topmarks- A great way for children to practise many of their maths skills https://www.topmarks.co.uk/Search.aspx?Subject=16&AgeGroup=3

Newsround is a very good outlet for your child to watch each day to gain a wider understanding of what is happening not only in our country, but the rest of the world. We will be watching newsround every afternoon in class.