30 September 2016
‘able’ or ‘ible’
We’ve been focusing on learning how to spell words that contain the ‘able’ and ‘ible’ suffix. Children should practise spelling these words in preparation for a test on Friday 07 September.
| identifiable |
| valuable |
| disposable |
| possible |
| legible |
| terrible |
| enviable |
| forgivable |
| edible |
| reversible |
30 September 2016
This week’s second homework is Talk Time.
I can discuss ways to make a fresh start.
Children should discuss the idea of making a fresh start and suggest ways to make one. Children should write notes to remind themselves of the conversation when we discuss this in class. Also, the person they discuss this with at home should sign their homework book.
30 September 2016
This week’s Mathletics homework should be completed by Thursday 06 October.
Children have been assigned two tasks to complete:
Estimate sums
Estimation: add and subtract
Once again, if you experience any problems logging on to Mathletics please come and see me. If the problem cannot be resolved, children will be given time on a Wednesday lunchtime to complete the activities.
Staying safe in sport (and other clubs)
It’s important that you check that any sports club or activity that your child attends has your child’s safety as its priority. Even if the club seems professional, there are four key questions that you should ask to make sure that they have all the necessary safeguarding measures in place:
1. Can I see your safeguarding policy?
A good organisation or club should have up-to-date safeguarding procedures in place and be happy to show you copies.
2. Who is your Welfare Officer?
The club should have a designated Welfare Officer who is responsible for dealing with any safeguarding concerns that may arise.
3. Do you follow safer recruitment procedures?
Every organisation providing sporting activities to young people must ensure they have the correct recruitment processes in place which includes interviews, references and have undertaken the appropriate police checks for their volunteers and staff.
4. How do you promote the welfare of children and young people?
The club should be able to demonstrate how they actively promote safeguarding. This includes listening and responding to the views of children and young people.
Don’t be afraid to question. A good and professional organisation will already have procedures in place and will welcome the chance to demonstrate that they are providing a safe environment for your child. Download this leaflet for further guidance on safeguarding in sports.
Improving your child’s reading skills
The Department for Education recently released measures showing how children have progressed from Key Stage 1 to Key Stage 2. Expected progress is zero, with anything above that being better than expected and negative numbers showing less than expected progress. Overall, we’re happy that Moortown’s progress remains better than many schools. In Writing and in Maths, the progress measure is 1.4 and 2.0 – this is really quite secure progress.
In Reading this year, progress was also positive, but by less than Writing and Maths: 0.3 – a little above the expected level. We’d like it to be higher. We think the Reading test was extremely hard this year – something widely reported and commented on in the media and social media. It also raises the importance of reading and discussing what is being read at home. Some of our children struggled for three main reasons:
Some children struggled to read the whole text. This flags up how important regular reading at home is to build up fluency.
Others struggled with how difficult the texts were to read. One was an extract from a newspaper, whose intended audience is adults, not 11 year olds! This flags up the importance of encouraging your child to read often, and to read a variety of texts, from fiction to non-fiction, comics to newspapers (but always prioritise reading for pleasure – far more important than a snapshot of reading skills that is the SATs test).
Third, the actual test questions were tough. They testing children’s knowledge of quite tricky words and ability to infer ‘impressions’, a word used more than once in the test. Teachers always encourage parents and carers to be listening to their child read and talking about what is being read, even when a child is quite a fluent reader.
For your awareness, here are a couple of questions from the test, about warthogs and dodos:
“…milled around in bewilderment” (page 8) Explain what this description suggests about the baby warthogs.
What does “rehabilitate the image of the dodo” mean? Tick one. a) restore a painting of the dodo b) rebuild the reputation of the dodo c) repair a model of the dodo d) review accounts of the dodo
Some of the words and phrases used in the texts included ancestors, impressions, inscription, ‘parted company’, ‘offered themselves up’, oasis and parched – not impossibly hard to work out, but perhaps a step up from what your child might be reading at home.
(It’s not all about a Year 6 test, though! Previous news posts have noted that research shows children who read lots develop into adults with greater social and emotional skills.)
Local press
Our new multi-use games area (MUGA) featured in the Yorkshire Evening Post this week.
Eden Camp
Year 5 and 6 had an amazing day learning all about WW2 at Eden Camp today.
We learnt loads of new things and had a blast going back in time. We saw weapons, planes, medals, submarines and even experienced what it was like to be involved in the blitz!
Ask your child about their day and quiz them about all their learning. I wonder what their favourite parts of the day were?
Also, on behalf of all the staff, may I thank Mrs Gibbins and Mrs Sykes for volunteering to come along with us today – we wouldn’t have had enough adults to make the trip possible without parental help. Sure you had fun, too!
Scoot the Route
We’ve had a great response to the Scoot the Route scooter promotion this week with lots of names in the draw for one of our five prizes tomorrow. There is one more chance tomorrow.
We’d love to see the children continue to use their scooters, alongside walking and biking to school, to prevent congestion, improve safety and have a happy, healthy and active start to the day!
30 September 2016
The homework this week is Talk Time and will be discussed on Thursday 06 October.
I understand how someone else feels.
For this homework, children should discuss this statement with others at home.
They should consider:
- What are the different emotions someone might feel? How many can you name? When/why might someone feel that way?
- How would you know how someone else is feeling? What does their face look like? What does their body look like?
- What could you do if you see someone showing certain emotions? For example, loneliness, anger, confusion or worry.
In our SEAL lesson this week, we considered how someone else might feel through the book, Beegu.
Children should be prepared to share their ideas.
Spelling!
As always, we continue to place a huge emphasis on spelling in Year 5. We are currently focusing on words ending in ‘able‘ and ‘ible‘ – which are suffixes.
Spelling is a vital part of a writer’s toolkit; wivout acurate speling, reeders can strugle too make cents of hour ideas. Often, people accept that they are simply ‘a bad speller’. This is not the case as spelling can be improved like any skill in life.
It would be great if you could help at home by continuing to focus on helping your child learn their spellings well. In addition, discuss spelling as often as you can. When your child sees a new word ask them what spelling rule they can identify (or is the word an exception to the rule?).
Check out our spelling display in the picture below. Even better, discuss it with your child and answer the questions/fill in the blanks.
