Team 5 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Team 5

The adults who help us in Team 5 are:

Miss Johnson - Class Teacher

Mr Latham - Teaching Assistant

Miss Hopkins - Teaching Assistant

To keep up to date with the latest news and work from Team 5 follow us on Twitter @PrimaryKingsway, @KingswayYear5 and on Class Dojo.

Reading

Reading is essential to all curriculum areas and we spend time focusing on reading every day. We use VIPERs from the Literacy Shed which are comprehensions. In our comprehension, we focus on understanding of vocabulary, retrieving information, summarising, giving evidence and inferring. Some children also have access to our phonics lessons, Read Write Inc, and our computer-based literacy programme IDL.

Children also experience the joy of reading through a whole class novel. The class novel is a time to come together around a powerful, relevant text that engages the children and promotes discussion. In Team 5, we read a range of exciting texts.

Reading at home is essential. All children have a stage reading book and a reading for pleasure book. The children should read 3 times a week at home and note it in their reading records. The reading records will be checked on a Friday. 

Writing

Our writing lessons follow Pathways to Write, which is a programme of study designed to empower children to become confident and successful writers. The units of work centre on engaging, vocabulary-rich texts, with a wealth of both fiction and non-fiction writing opportunities. 

Spelling

In Team 5, we have spelling lessons on a Thursday and Friday. Each week, we will learn a new spelling rule, which we are able to practise in class or online using Spelling Shed.  Pupils are able to access this at home as well as in school and during lunchtime club if they would like to. Spellings go home on a Friday for pupils to learn in preparation to be tested on.

Mathematics

Mathematics lessons follow White Rose Maths, which aims to develop children’s mathematical fluency and their deep, long-term and adaptable understanding of maths. The children can then use this knowledge and understanding to solve a range of maths problems. White Rose Maths adopts a concrete – pictorial – abstract method that enables all children to access learning and lessons are differentiated so that all children achieve.

To supplement maths lessons, we also dedicate time each week to revisit skills previously taught through Flashback Four activities, we complete these three times per week  We have also built fluency into our maths lessons where we dedicate time to rehearsing skills previously taught to improve fluency, accuracy and speed. 

It's important that children are continually practising their times tables in Team 5. We have some time dedicated to practising these each week but the more your child can practice at home, the better!  We use a range of activities to learn our tables but also encourage the children to use TTRS at school and at home too.

The Wider Curriculum

In Team 5, children are taught a broad and balanced curriculum that includes all of the National Curriculum subjects. Over the course of the year, different subjects are prioritised at different times to ensure coverage and maximum attainment in all areas. The curriculum is exciting, dynamic and has been designed to build upon the children’s prior knowledge. 

Autumn 1:

In our first half term, we will be studying Queen of the Falls. It is about Annie Edison Taylor, a lady who travelled over Niagra Falls in a barrel. The outcome of the writing we will produce will be a recount diary. During this topic, children will be immersed in rich vocabulary.  In maths, we are learning about place value and how to add and subtract large numbers with up to 5 places.  In Science, we are learning about properties of materials. We will investigate different materials and how scientific processes such as heating can affect these materials. Our main topic this half term is Dynamic Dynasties - it’s a history topic based on the Shang Dynasty.  In Jigsaw, we are looking at “Being me in my world”, looking at citizenship and our roles and responsibilities.  In computing, we will be looking at E-safety and systems and programmes.  In RE, we are studying the religion of Judaism.

Autumn 2:

In English this half term, we are reading the Lost Happy Endings by Carole Ann Duffy. The outcome from this topic is writing our own fairy tale. During this topic, we will be learning writing skills such as using inverted commas to show speech, writing figurative language sentences which include similes and personification, and using expanded noun phrases. 

In maths, we are learning to use multiplication and division skills by learning square and cube numbers. We are also learning about fractions - we will learn how to convert mixed numbers to improper fractions, adding fractions, and how to work out equivalent fractions.

In Science, we are learning about Earth and Space. We will learn about how day and night happen, and learn the names of the planets in our solar system.

Our topic this half term covers art - where we will be learning to mix paints and create landscape pictures using tints and shades. It also covers geography, where we will be studying maps.