Buzzard Class
Autumn 2
Welcome to Buzzard Class
My name is Miss Boycott and I am the Year 5 class teacher. I’ve been at Little Sutton School for almost as long as the school building has been in existence, so I’m ‘part of the furniture!’ Together, we’ve got a great year ahead with lots to find out and do!
In Buzzard Class, we work collaboratively to REACH our full potential.
Through learning and playing together, we will work to support our children to become:
Resilient
Engaged
Ambitious
Creative
Healthy
A Day in The Life
For a few more Tuesday mornings, Buzzards are taking part in brass lessons with our visiting tutor Ms. Barraclough.
Each Wednesday morning, swimming lessons are taking place at the Ellesmere Port Sports Village.
In our Mathematics sessions this term, we will be tackling ‘Multiplication & Division’, as well as ‘Fractions’.
In English, we will be using the book ‘The Lost `Happy Endings’ by Carol Ann Duffy & Jane Ray. This book will be used to stimulate our writing and enable us to compose traditional tales with a focus on describing characters, as well as developing alternative endings.
For ‘Guided Reading’ sessions, our focus is a book called ‘Hansel and Gretel’ by Neil Gaiman. We will use this book to Evaluate authors’ language choice, including figurative language, to Identify and discuss themes and conventions, as well as summarise main ideas.
Our R.E. topic this term is ‘How is Muslim faith demonstrated through family life?’ As part of this topic, we will be learning about the importance of family in Islam and how identity and belonging is taught at home, as well as in the wider community.
We have an area of History to investigate this term too, as we will be investigating what life was like in Tudor England.
Our Science learning will be within the area of ‘Materials: Properties & Changes’. Areas of knowledge covered will include – investigating the hardness and conductivity of a range of materials. We will look at how these properties are linked to the materials’ uses.
There’s so much that we’ll be getting up to this term – too much to record! Remember to keep track of all our learning by checking in on our Twitter / X feed each week.
Expectations
Reading: This year we aim to ‘Strive for Five’ and read with an adult every day at home, as well as at school. We’ve gone back to paper reading journals this year, to record all our reading in. Please make sure that journals are either signed, or written in five times a week. They should also be in school every day for me to check. Remember to concentrate on reading with expression and understanding. Use punctuation to help and check the meaning of new words.
Times Tables: To help with learning times -tables, ‘TTRockstar’ games should be played at least five times a week.
Spellings: Each week, children should practise spelling 5 words from the year 5/6 common word list.
Homework: We are concentrating on ‘the basics’. Fill in the stars on the homework sheet to show how often homework is being completed.
Personal Belongings
- Reading books should be brought into school every day as we have our ‘Accelerated Reader’ practice time each morning.
- E. kits should be in school all week and should consist of a plain white t-shirt, black coloured shorts, or jogging bottoms and black pumps. Trainers can be worn for outdoor activities.
- Bags should be as small as possible, in order to fit easily in the coat-peg spaces provided.
Get in Touch
Please don’t hesitate to email if you have any questions at all. You can contact me using
diana.boycott@littlesutton.cheshire.sch.uk
Follow us on Twitter / X to keep up to date with our weekly learning!
Our handle is @LittleSuttonCoE
A Day in the Life
Below is our timetable for this half term:
In partnership with White Rose Maths, here at Little Sutton C of E we follow Power Maths, a whole-class mastery programme that fits alongside our Schemes. Power Maths is designed to spark curiosity and excitement and help you nurture confidence in maths.
Power Maths KS2 is recommended by the DfE, having met the NCETM’s criteria for high-quality textbooks, and have been judged as “fully delivering a mastery approach”.
Discover
Every lesson starts with a Discover task to get children to solve a problem that aims to generate curiosity. During the Discover section children may use manipulatives to help them understand the maths and explain their method.
Share
The next stage encourages children to Share the methods they have tried to solve the problem in Discover.
Think Together
We only learn when we are thinking! In this section Power Maths takes the approach “I do, we do, you do”, as children apply the knowledge they have just learned in a series of problems that continue to encourage thinking throughout
Practice
Children are then ready for some independent Practice.
Reflect
The final Reflect question helps the children evaluate whether they have understood the key concept and small step that they have been trying to master in the lesson.
Pathways to Write is a proven methodology built around units of work which develop vocabulary, reading and writing skills through the mastery approach. The units are linked to high-quality texts to ensure engaging and purposeful English lessons. Effective teaching strategies to challenge greater depth writers are included within each unit of work.
Within each unit, there are new age-related skills for children to work on and master through a variety of activities and writing opportunities. By limiting the number of skills the units contain, children can really hone their writing techniques, providing excellent, focussed assessment opportunities for teachers.
At regular intervals, there are suggestions for extending greater depth writers within the context of the lesson.
Pathways to Read is a brand-new programme designed to equip pupils with key skills to move them through the reading process towards becoming competent and fluent readers.
Pathways to Read ensures engaging and purposeful reading lessons.
The units are used thematically alongside our Pathways to Write to encourage a whole school curriculum approach with the opportunity for topics to link across all year groups. Both programmes compliment one another.
Pathways to Spell is an innovative and engaging programme to fascinate pupils about words. It is a research-based series of lessons following a Review, Explain, Practise, Apply and Reflect model. Through this programme, we aim to develop a school of spellers who use a series of strategies in lessons and in their independent writing. Unlike other spelling programmes, there is a cycle of review objectives covering the whole curriculum to ensure gaps in learning are constantly revisited.
Student-driven. Teacher-guided.
Accelerated Reader puts students in the driver’s seat. You guide students, while engaging quizzes and activities help hone students’ reading skills with authentic practice—encouraging growth.
Guide
Personalised goals help students stay focused on the factors that matter most for reading growth—and help you monitor their progress and provide feedback to keep learners on track.
Enga
ge
Individual reading recommendations use students’ interests and reading levels to suggest “just-right” titles—or students can self-select from over 200,000 choices!
Practice
“Just reading” transforms into high-quality reading practice that fuels growth: Reading quizzes monitor comprehension, while literacy skills and vocabulary quizzes extend student learning and build skills mastery.
Grow
Detailed reports provide insights into students’ progress. Paired with Renaissance Star Reading®, track students’ mastery of focus skills aligned to state-specific learning standards.
What is Kagan Cooperative learning?
Kagan cooperative Learning is a teaching strategy in which small teams of students (usually teams of 4) work together towards a learning goal. They may also be working with partners or the whole class. Each member of a team is responsible not only for learning what is taught but also for helping teammates learn, thus trying to create an atmosphere of achievement. Students work through the task until all group members successfully understand and complete it.
What does the research say?
Hattie (2009) found cooperative vs individualistic learning to have an effect size of 0.59 (An effect size above 0.4 is above average for educational research). He did however advise that it is most powerful when students have acquired sufficient background knowledge to be involved in discussion and learning with peers. He also found it was most useful when learning concepts, verbal problem-solving, spatial problem-solving, retention and memory. Effects increase with age.
Why Do We Use Kagan’s model of cooperative learning?
• To provide a structured approach to cooperative learning
• It gives teacher content free set structures, which have a series of steps, to use
• Develop children’s social skills such as turn taking, listening to others and sharing information
• It is backed by research which is in line with our principle that we base what we are doing on what has been proven to work
• Use of the structures will help to increase the amount of time pupils spend on task
