Welcome to Year 5, Dragonflies Class. The teacher is Mr McKaigg and Teaching Assistant is Miss Shearer. We are a class of children and adults who work really hard but have fun as well. Here we are sharing information about our class and how we organise each week.

Timetable

When the children come in at 8.45 am they complete their Early Bird Maths questions, complete any editing required and then read quietly before the register.

At 9:00 am, we teach handwriting or spelling, learning the rules and conventions of spelling in different groups according to each child’s needs.

English follows at 9.30, often based around a good quality story or linked to our topic area.

After break, we start our Maths lesson with children working at their own level both independently, in groups and with adult teaching and support.

We then run our Guided Reading session from 11.35 to 12.00. This is a class session, with Teacher/TA support given.

RE is taught on a Friday morning as it is a core subject in Church of England Schools.

Foundation subjects including Humanities (History/Geography), Science, Music, PSHE, Art and Design and Technology are taught in the afternoons across the week.

PE

PE this term will be Swimming on a Monday (after the first week back) and Field games on a Thursday.

For Swimming please ensure they bring a swimming costume and towel with a spare change on clothes to school. Googles are also allowed if you would like.

For PE on Thursday, please could you wear appropriate PE kit to school.

Homework

All children in Dragonflies, regardless of their ability, are expected to read for at least 25 minutes each day to increase their reading skills, vocabulary and knowledge of how stories work. Their reading records, signed by an adult at home, are handed in each Thursday. Children are then entered into the Reading raffle if they have read at least 4 times a week, so please do encourage your child to bring their record in.

They are also set 1 piece of SPAG (spelling, punctuation and grammar) homework and sessions on Times Table Rockstars, along with a list of spellings to learn. Homework is set on a Friday and to be handed in by the following Friday, giving plenty of time for it to be completed.

There are occasionally other homework tasks that children are asked to complete eg. for Topic work. We expect all homework tasks to be completed by children as this is really good preparation for the increased volume of homework that children will receive in Year 6 and in Secondary School.

If homework is not handed in on Friday morning, the children will spend a lunchtime completing the work. If there are issues surrounding homework or children don't have a quiet space to work at home, we can support them at school but we do need to know about this.

We have an open door policy – please come and speak to any of the Year 5 staff if you have any questions or worries.