Oak Tree Class Blog
Oak Tree Class Blog
Week 3, ending 20 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Warning - it's a long one!!
Reader: Enid
Special Mention: Charlie
A special well done to these pupils!
Another super week in Year 5, full of excellent attitudes and superb work! Pop music has greeted the children each music – Lady Gaga and Ed Sheeran by far the most popular artists!
In English lessons, the children have composed two or three paragraphs based on an image of evacuees that they had been given. In this task, they have spent lots of time reminding each other about the key spelling and grammar features they learned in Y4, thus enabling me to move their learning on to the more tricky aspects of Y5 writing skills. At the start of each year in Y5, we spend quite a lot of time learning how to write neatly and legibly with a pen. Transferring neat handwriting skills from pencil to pen can be a real issue for lots of children, but gradually every child will have the chance to write with pen in all English and Humanities lessons in Year 5. (It is sometimes a good idea to ask Santa to bring a nice, blue handwriting pen (not biro!) at Christmas…)
Our ukulele lessons have continued with gusto! I am really looking forward to seeing the children’s skills and confidence grow in this area of our curriculum.
We had an extra PE-type lesson this week – as well as our usual two sessions on Tag Rugby, the children have enjoyed the opportunity to explore and develop scooter riding skills. It is hoped that a second session will happen later on in the year, where the children will learn what it means to scoot safely on the roads. We shall let you know when/if this will happen (possibly the summer term?)
Our WW2 trip is now only a week and a half away. Please make sure you have given consent for this visit via ParentPay by the end of next week at the latest or your child will be unable to come on the visit. If you are having difficulties finding this on ParentPay or in paying for the trip, please contact the office to give verbal/written consent via them instead.
Please also see the information below that was communicated to parents in the Summer term about our upcoming trips to the Worth Valley Railway as part of our WWII topic.
Our educational visit is taking place next week! We are all very excited about it. Please ensure that your child’s permission slip has definitely been signed on ParentPay. Here is a reminder of what information we sent out.
The date for the trip is Wednesday 25th September 2024. This is for all children in Oak (Y5), Ash (Y5/6) and Maple (Y6).
Children do not need to arrive at school early for this visit, and we will be back for the end of the school day.
We encourage all children to come dressed as evacuees to make the visit as authentic as possible. Please be assured that there is no need for costumes to be expensive or bought especially for the occasion. School uniforms and clothes that the children already have can easily be worn for the day with slight adaptations. There are a few sample ideas/suggestions below.
Boys: Dark trousers or shorts (no jeans), white shirt with a collar. If available, a flat cap would be great and a cardigan/jumper/tank top or jacket with black or brown shoes (school shoes are ideal!).
Girls: Simple pinafore style dress or school skirt and a white blouse. Cardigans/tank tops or jackets can also be worn. Long socks or tights and brown or black shoes (school schools are again ideal!). If available, a beret would be great and hair in plaits or tied back with a ribbon or headband.
We will be making evacuee labels to wear on the trip in school in September, so you do not need to provide one for your child as part of their costume.
(Please scroll down for some pictures of costume ideas!)
Please note the children will require a packed lunch for the day. If your child is in receipt of Free School Meals and you would like a packed lunch providing, please inform the school office as soon as possible.
Have a great weekend – possibly the last of the good weather….?
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Autumn 1 Week 2, ending 13 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Joseph
Special Mention: Dima
Well done to these pupils!
This week has been a really happy week and the children have settled extremely well. I am impressed with how mature the children have been since moving up to Y5 – this bodes well for a successful year. Well done, Oak Tree Class! It was also lovely to meet so many of you at our ‘Meet the Teacher’ event on Wednesday.
The music genre the children have been listening to each morning has been R & B this week. Arianna Grande (with John Legend) was definitely the preferred track, I think.
In Maths this week, we have been developing our knowledge and skills in Place Value, learning how to recognise numbers up to 1,000,000. In English, we have been writing a piece of narrative, where we have described images of Ww2 evacuees, which builds nicely on from our class novel, Goodnight, Mr Tom. The vocabulary in this book can be quite challenging at times, due to it being set in the era of the outbreak of WW2, but we are having lots of interesting discussions about these words!
In our topic session, we placed the WW2 event on a timeline, linked to other key periods the children have already studied at RPPS. This skill of chronology is so important in primary school education.
Just to remind you, we plan to go on our school visit to Worth Valley on Wednesday 25 September. Hopefully, you have filled out the permission form and you are having discussions about what an evacuee might wear! A reminder that the children will require a packed lunch too. (This does not have to be WW2 styled, though!)
As well as the weekly spellings to find and practise, for homework this week the children are being given the opportunity to stand as our school council rep again. If they wish to be considered, they need to create a poster, explaining WHY they think they should be Oak Tree Class’s rep. They can explain what kind of person they are and how they think they would be good at the role. Any parental support would be gratefully appreciated, I am sure.
Posters and spellings need to be in on Wednesday, as normal. Also, please continue to read regularly (five times) with your child each week. Reading is at the crux of all our learning.
I hope you all have a lovely weekend,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Autumn Term: week 1 - ending 6 September
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Azhar
Special Mention: Kourtney
A super well done to these children, especially!
Welcome to Year 5! It has been a very enjoyable week in Oak Tree Class; I look forward to getting to know your child (and all of you!) over the coming academic year.
As well as a few of ‘Getting to know you’ activities, we have spent some time recapping the writing and grammar skills learned in y4 and also revisited place value, addition and subtraction, as reminders for our work in the coming weeks.
We haven’t yet started our Autumn Term topic, World War II, but I know the children are really excited about it. (If you happen to have anything in your attics/lofts/storage boxes which might help to boost the children’s experience of World War II, (old photos, medals, other memorabilia) then I would love to hear about it! You can email me at oak@ruffordparkprimary.org.uk)
Our PE days, as it already states on the website, are Mondays and Thursdays and in Y5, we continue to send homework out on Fridays and expect its return the following Wednesday.
Each week, in Oak Tree Class, the children will hear a different genre of music as they enter the classroom in the mornings. This week it has been the turn of SKA. They have loved tapping their feet along to Madness and the Mighty, Mighty Boss Tones among others this week! I hope the children will talk about these themes over the year.
The children have settled superbly this week, I feel – this is a delightful group to be working with! But should you have any issues, please do not hesitate to contact me – either by email or by stopping by at the end of the day. (Mornings are always very busy, so this possibly isn’t the best chance to chat – after school is better.)
I hope you have a lovely weekend!
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 7, ending 19 July
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Violet
Special Mention: Isabel
A super week for these children!
Psychedelic music has greeted the children each morning as they’ve come in to school – most seem quite bemused by this genre!
We have finally finished our maths work – phew! So no homework this weekend!
And our Ancient Greek myth has been completely retold. I have been so proud of this final publication of work and am going to send it up to their new class teacher, so they can see what your child is capable of by the end of Y5.
We took part in quite an exciting STEM workshop on Wednesday afternoon – we listened to a scientist explain about her work, which was using powerful telescopes to look into space (particularly at exo-planets). All by the power of Zoom! Oak Tree Class was very excited when they got a name check and several of their insightful questions were answered by Sofia, too. That’s two STEM workshops we have participated in this year and I really hope it’s opened up this area even more for the children. They have certainly revelled in the most recent science topic – Earth and Space.
Only two more school days to go. But don’t forget we have our ‘Uke Gig’ on Monday morning. Coffee will be served from 8.50, so do just pop into the hall after school drop off and we look forward to having you as our audience.
Have a great weekend,
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos
Week 7, ending 12 July
Mrs Amos (a.amos) on: Oak Tree Class Blog
Reader: Henry S
Special Mention: Ezmae
A special well done to these children!
Each morning, the children have come into class listening to Grime music – all radio edits, I can assure you! Stormzy seemed to get the best reaction of the week.
Work continues, as normal – we still need to get our Greek myths finished and do some more maths before Y5 ends! Hoping to have some fun next week...maybe our final Oak Tree’s Got Talent show??
In art, the children used chalk pastels and created images of shells, as part of our unit entitled The Seaside – the results were stunning! In science, we have completed work on Earth and Space - hopefully many of the class can recall all eight names of the planets in our solar system by now.
As well as practising hard for our ukulele gig (next Monday, 22 July, at 9.15am!) the most important event this week has definitely been visiting our new teachers and classrooms for Y6. I am pleased to report that both Y6 teachers said that the children were superbly behaved – which made me very proud to hear!
Please continue to read with your child until the end of term - I have really tried to cultivate a 'reading for pleasure' ethos in Oak Tree Class this year, so I hope it is not such a hard work to encourage them to read at home, too!
Have a lovely weekend – just 7 more ‘get ups’ to go!!
Yours,
Mrs Adrienne Amos