Writing: Persuasive letters
This week, we’ve starting looking at our next piece of writing. We are going to be writing a persuasive letter. To persuade means to cause someone to do something through reasoning and argument.
We’re going to persuade the Minister for the Environment for the UK, Steve Reed, to tackle climate change more effectively. In our persuasion letters, we’ll have to make him aware of the devastating effects climate change is having around the world and what he can do to combat these effects!
Once we’ve written our letters, we’ll go and post them and await a response!
So far, we have looked at good examples and identified features.
In today’s lesson, we picked out phrases that we can use in our own writing.
Help at home: Have a discussion about how climate change is affecting our world. Is there anything we can personally do to stop it?
Yorkshire Air Ambulance
This year, our Junior Leadership Team democratically selected Yorkshire Air Ambulance as our new school charity to support.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance is an independent charity providing a lifesaving rapid response emergency service to 5 million people across the whole of Yorkshire. Money raised keeps both of their air ambulance helicopters maintained and in the air.
This week, we welcomed representatives from Yorkshire Air Ambulance for an assembly to hear first hand about the excellent work they do and how our donations will help the charity.
Did you know it costs £21,000 per day to keep the Yorkshire Air Ambulance running.
It’s great to hear the children have already got ideas of how we can raise money for YAA. They are encouraged to put these ideas into our class Living and learning boxes for the Junior Leadership Team to consider.
Living and Learning: Being Safe
We took part in the NSPCC Speak out Stay Safe online assembly.
During the assembly, it highlighted children’s rights and gave the clear message of ‘Speak out, Stay safe’. The children were confident at identifying who their own trusted adults are and felt comfortable that they could ask for help.
We also heard about Childline – ask your child to show you the way to remember the number.
To follow up this learning, we welcomed staff from NSPCC to deliver a ‘Speak Out Stay Safe’ workshop. They were very impressed with the children’s learning and understanding.
Help at home: Discuss who your child would speak to if they needed help and/or visit the Childline website, which has age-appropriate advice for primary school children on topics such as bullying. It also has games and other interactive tools.
Maths: Fractions, fractions and more fractions…
For quite a long time now, Year 5 have been learning about fractions. We have identified, added, subtracted, converted and even multiplied! Our fractions learning is coming to an end soon but before it does, this is what we have been looking at this week.
Subtracting fractions with different denominators:
Subtracting fractions from a mixed number:
Subtracting fractions from a mixed number when we break the whole:
Help at home: Can your child talk through the worked examples above? Try to use the words numerator, denominator, mixed number, proper fraction and improper fraction.
Active travel and safety around the school gate
Spring term after-school clubs
We’ve had a great first week to our after-school clubs. There are some places available on the following clubs if your child would like to join. Please refer to the letter below to show the relevant year groups.
Living and Learning: Drug education
For the past two weeks, we have been focussing on drug education. We defined a drug as ‘a substance that changes the way the body or mind works.’
Year 5 looked at what might influence a person to use drugs. They were asked to discuss what would most influence whether a person would use the drug. This is a group’s answer ranked with the most likely influence at the top.
They were then asked to rank what is mostly likely to influence someone not to use the drug. This was another group’s answer.
As this was group work, the children used their oracy skills of actively listening to others and respond respectfully as we know that people can have different opinions.
Knowing people can be influenced, we looked at the 3 different ways someone can respond to the pressure.
The children were given scenarios to read and asked to identify who or what the character is being influenced by and whether they are feeling pressure, including peer pressure (pressure from those around them). Then, consider the different ways the character could respond:
∙What would be an example of a passive response? For example, joining in with the group to feel included
∙What would be an example of an aggressive response? For example, shouting “no” and being rude to others
∙What would be an example of an assertive response? For example, saying a calm, firm but polite “no thanks”
Help at home: Read the scenario and discuss what would the 3 ways to respond be.
We are chemists!
In our next unit of science, we are chemists. Chemistry is the study of the properties of substances and the changes they go through.
In this week’s lesson, Year 5 answered the question ‘Which materials are electrical conductors and electrical insulators?’. Our enquiry type was identifying, classifying and grouping. To test this, the children created an open circuit. This allowed each material to be placed into it. If the material was an electrical conductor, the bulb would lit up as the electricity could pass through the material. If the material was an electrical insulator, the bulb would not lit up.
Next week, we are planning an experiment that looks at thermal insulators and conductors.
Help at home: Discuss this unit’s key vocabulary. Can you use these words in a sentence?
Science: Zoom with a scientist!
This morning, Year 5 had a zoom with a scientist. They discussed all things space and satellites.
He showed us a picture of every satellite currently orbiting around the earth! There are now satellites which are only 5cm x 5cm x 5cm big.
We learnt that satellites help us in our everyday lives. For example, they are used to monitor the weather, guide us using GPS and give us more information about other planets.
The children were able to ask him some questions about space. They asked some brilliant ones:
- Is there only one international space centre?
- How do you breathe in space?
- Why is space dark?
- Why is space cold?
He also told us some very interesting facts:
- Space smells like metal.
- The light from the sun takes 8 minutes to reach to Earth.
- Due to the size of Jupiter, when it orbits the sun, it actually makes the sun wobble.
Help at home: What fact did your child find the most interesting?
Reading: Retrieval
This week’s reading learning focussed on our new class novel: The Nowhere Emporium by Ross MacKenzie.
Year 5 read the first chapter of the book and used evidence from the text to draw and label what they thought the inside of the shop looked like.
Help at home: Summarise what has happened in the book so far. Who is the main character? What has happened to them? What does the shop look like?