Welcome to Year Five

In Year 5, we have a number of trips and visits available. To link with our Water Geography unit,  we visit a river to undergo some river dipping and complete our geography field skills. We will have our Roman Day to celebrate the mid-way point on our Roman learning. During the summer term, we will go to Paulton’s Park for our forces workshop to help with our science learning, where we will then get to see the forces at work – on the rollercoasters! During our Skellig unit, we will have a bird visit from Falconry UK to help with our subject knowledge of birds. This year, we are also visiting the Mayflower Theatre to see 'The Wizard of Oz' to broaden our cultural experiences. 

Homework is set on a Friday and due in the following Thursday.

The key things to help your child at home is to help set up key routines that ensure the child has increasing responsibility for getting their things ready, completing their homework and daily reading. Daily reading is fundamental to children’s progress so any support with this would be fantastic. This could be a mix of the child reading to you and you reading to them too. Times tables are also key in a child’s success to maths in Year 5 and 6, without this vital knowledge they will struggle with the everyday basics. Any support you can provide with helping you child to ensure they have high quality weekly homework (including their maths flex) would be fantastic as well. For any other top tips, please watch our ‘Year 5 Curriculum Evening’ video on this page.

Each day, your child should come equipped with their reading journal (signed daily), their reading book, a named water bottle, a named snack box with a fruit or vegetable snack for playtime, a named lunchbox (or know that they are school dinner), their homework book, a named, waterproof coat and a named sunhat and sun cream in the summer.

The deadline for applications for secondary schools is usually the 31^st October in the year that your child enters Year 6.

We do encourage you to take your children with you on your school visits and tours due it being such an important part of their life. Often these only last for half an hour so children usually only miss an hour (or less) of their school day, but this often sets them up with a positive view of starting secondary school.

For some top tips of what your child should be reading in Year 5, please see our useful documents and links (below) for a recommended reading list for Years 5 and 6.

For some top tips of what your child should be reading in Year 5, please see our useful documents and links (below) for a recommended reading list for Years 5 and 6 or have a look at the reading section of our website. Research shows daily reading as one of the highest contributors to high achievement in children. Therefore, children should be reading daily all through their school life; we encourage children to log this in their reading journals which we will check at least once a week. Once your child has read five times, they will receive a ‘High 5’ pom pom to put into their class jar. Once the jar is full, the class will celebrate by choosing an activity from the reading raffle!

It is a National Curriculum statutory requirement that children are able to swim 25m. All children are invited to swim in Year 3 for a block of lessons, if children do not pass then we ask parents in Year 5 if they have since reached this. If children are still not able to swim 25m then children are invited to attend six catch up lessons in Year 5 whilst the other children complete their PE in school. There is a small fee to pay for these swimming lessons, but if there are any problems with this, then we encourage you to get in touch at the earliest opportunity so that we can help.

In Year 5, we have our PE days on Tuesday and Wednesdays. Children should arrive at school on these days wearing their Avonwood PE kit.

In Years 5 and 6 we permit children to walk to and from school independently with prior parent and school consent. To request this, please complete the form (which you can find from the office) and pass this back to the front office once completed. Please await written confirmation this may go ahead before commencing this.

In Year 5, we spend our time getting children ready for the pace of Year 6 and Secondary School, so this feels like less of a shock for them. One thing that really helps with this is confident and fluent times table and arithmetic skills (e.g. knowing number bonds to 10, 20 and 100 fluently and being able to add single-digit numbers in their head quickly). Additionally, it would be beneficial for children to practise their Year 5 and 6 statutory spelling words which can be found below.

We do not do anything specific to assist with 11+ practice at school. All preparation for this should be done at home, however, teachers are happy to discuss which areas of learning your child may benefit from focusing on.