Welcome to the Spring Term

Welcome back!

I hope you all had a wonderful time over the Christmas break and managed to enjoy a well earned rest.
This term, we are looking ahead to the weather getting warmer and lots of great subjects to focus on.

PE will change this term as we will be doing tag-rugby and dance, whilst our History topic returns to look at the Vikings and their impact on Britain. Our school values play an integral part in how we behave in school and our attitude towards others and our community, and we will be looking at them in more detail over the coming months.

PE days will now be on a Wednesday and Friday and as the weather is still cold, children are welcome to wear warm leggings/joggers etc when outside.

As always, if there is anything that we can help you with, please don’t hesitate to contact school. 

Miss McAteer

General Information

As a school we like to promote healthy eating, we would like to kindly remind parents that in Y5 children are welcome to bring in a healthy snack for break times. Your cooperation with this is much appreciated. 

During the school year, lots of items of clothing become lost - please label uniforms/ coats etc as this makes it much easier for us to track down any missing items and get them back to you asap. 

We will be having our second parents evenings in the Spring term, please make sure you have updated any contact information  if needed, so the relevant emails about appointments aren’t missed. Thank you for your help with this.

Communication

Please let school know if any of your contact details have changed (phone number, email, addresses) in the event we need to call home or contact you. If you need to contact school our number is 01704 225 906. The class email is 5S@stpatricks.sefton.school  (please note replies will be responded to within 48hours)

Homework

We will post spellings/ English and Maths homework every Monday on Purple Mash, please encourage your children to practise their spellings several times before completing the online task, to ensure they have a good chance of gaining a good score.  Children will be expected to complete their homework every week, as well as reading each night (approximately 20-30mins). Spellings and timestables will be tested each week.

Completing homework on time, in an organised and structured way are excellent habits to encourage, which will prepare children for the future and form a key part in consolidating their learning. Revising times tables will also help your child with key elements of Maths, please use TTrockstars to help with this.

All children should be logging at least 10minutes of TTrockstars a day, or it could be averaged out over the week. This is part of the homework set and can be accessed at home, any problems, please let me know.

If your child is finding homework a challenge please don’t hesitate to let me know.

The Y5 Spelling Overview for the year can be found at the bottom of the page - feel free to print it off and review it as needed.

Reading

At school we aim to foster a love for reading - to do this, we encourage the children to share books they have read, have a comfortable and cosy reading area and try to expand their horizons in terms of the types of books they read, by reading stories for enjoyment and pleasure. Reading aloud also helps children develop this important gateway skill, which opens up all kinds of knowledge and entertainment for them now, and in the future.

P.E.

P.E. sessions will take place every Wednesday and Friday. The children will wear their PE kits to school on that day, please make sure they also have a coat and their school cardigan and jumper. Hoodies are not part of the school uniform and children will not be allowed to wear these. Thank you for your cooperation.

Medical

A quick reminder -if your child has a medical condition that staff need to know about, please inform school as soon as possible. If your child requires an inhaler, or any other medicine, please make sure it has been returned to school, and is not out of date and that the appropriate forms have been signed.

St. Patrick’s Day 2025

At school, we always like to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day with some fun activities and remind ourselves about who St. Patrick was and why he is so important to us as a parish, school and community. Today was no different and Y5 had fun with their Buddies decorating a shamrock and learning some creative Irish dancing! We gathered to have a joint Celebration of the Word and learn about how and why St. Patrick was canonised a saint.

Wonderful World Book Day!

Wow, what an amazing day in Year 5- we celebrated World Book day with a range of activities designed to highlight the dazzling world of reading in all its glory! All the children were given the opportunity to share their favourite books with their classmates and explain why their book was brilliant. We then introduced the children to a new book all about a pioneering individual called Josephine Baker, who overcame poverty and segregation to become the world’s first black female film star. This was linked to our Catholic Social Teaching topic of Dignity in the Work place as Josephine famously danced her way from the streets of St. Louis, to the theatres of Paris.

Romare Bearden

Year 5 have been studying Romare Bearden and his famous use of collage to depict buildings in his work 'The Block'. After looking at different types and styles of buildings, mapping out their own ideas and experimenting with colour, the children created their own 'Block' using layers of collage.

Visit from Birkdale

The children were treated to a visit from Mr. Carter today, from Birkdale. Both Y5 classes took part in a problem solving session which looked at teamwork, effective communication and lateral thinking. Teams of 4 were challenged to complete the task in the fastest time, sharing the work and helping each other to solve the problem. It is fair to say that all the children loved the task and brought out a very competitive spirit! Well done to all the children for taking part in the fun.

Anti-Bullying Week/ Crazy Hair Day

This week has been a busy one at school! We have been thinking about how we are all unique and that being different to each other is a good thing, something to be cherished and celebrated - this was represented by 'Odd sock' day and we had multi-coloured socks on display to express all our different personalities.

The theme for Anti-Bullying Week 2024 was 'Choose Respect' and we explored different ways we can make good choices and show respect for not just each other, but also for ourselves and the environment. Year 5 explored the Catholic Social Teaching value of Dignity, discussing how it is a common right to be valued and respected and that people should be treated ethically.

We finished off the week in style, with the most amazing Crazy Hair Day and a lovely sharing assembly. All the money raised goes to the SVP to help those in our community.

A quick thank you to all parents - it was lovely to see and speak to so many of you this week as we met for Parents Evening. Don't hesitate to get in touch if there is anything further I can help with in the coming weeks and months.

Anglo-Saxon Day at Martin Mere!

We had an exciting day being Anglo-Saxon’s at Martin Mere. We learned how to weave effectively to create basic structures, such as pig-pens. The village needed defending against marauders and the Celts, so we had a lesson in Anglo-Saxon warfare and how to use swords, shields and axes to keep the village safe. Foraging is an important way to supplement food, so we learned how to use our eyes, and noses to collect food that we can use to eat and use when building our thatched buildings! In order to keep out of the rain, Anglo -Saxons build their building using thatch, wood and wattle and daub. We had a great day, got a little soggy, but it didn’t dampen our enjoyment!

Mission Statement Day!

Faithfully following in the footsteps of Jesus,

We serve, love and learn together,

inspiring each other to excellence.

Today in school we celebrated how we follow our school Mission Statement and try to think about the example set for us by Jesus, as we live and learn in our school community. We explored how to 'serve, love and learn together' and realised that we could inspire others through the examples we set. We enjoyed participating in a range of different activities and ended the day by sharing our ideas in the sunshine, with Year 1. 

Hello Yellow Day!

Each year we take time to reflect on our mental health, and this year we thought about resilience and how it is important to have 'Bouncebackability'.

We discussed in class how being resilient means remembering that we aren't alone, that everyone experiences different feelings at different times and it's okay not to be okay. We sometimes have to be brave and realise that might mean asking for help. Being in nature can have a positive impact on how we feel, and we took a quiet, reflecting walk around the school field, taking time to think about how we can be resilient now, and in the future.