Woodside Junior School Year 5 September 2015

Welcome to Woodside  Your Year 5 Teachers are:  Mrs. Drake, Mrs. Adey, Mrs. Maslen and Mrs. Gocher  Learning Support - Miss. Jeffrey, Mrs. Randles and Mrs. Davies  Mr. Ahmed - trainee teacher  Mrs. Fox – Key Stage Leader  Head Teacher- Mrs. Milner  Deputy Head – Mrs. Maslen

Timetable - Edison MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday Whole school assembly Guided reading Maths min Break English extended write English Writing journals PSHE / P4C TopicRE – 1.15 Lunch 1.15 – 1.25 x tables 1.25 – 1.40 Library Art/DT Singing assembly UKS2 PE Science DHT/teacher assembly Achievement assembly 1.45 PE (basketball) Computing / Topic French 2.30 Learning skills 3.15 End of day 2.50 Golden time End of day

Timetable - Bell MondayTuesdayWednesdayThursdayFriday Whole school assembly Guided reading Maths min Break English extended write English French PSHE / P4C RETopic – 1.15 Lunch 1.15 – 1.25 x tables 1.25 – 1.40 Library / Science Singing assembly UKS2 / Swimming PE (basketball) DHT/teacher assembly Achievement assembly 1.45 Computing / TopicWriting journal End of day 2.50 Golden time End of day

Our routine Gate open 8.35am Children may come into school from 8.40am School starts: 8.50am Children who arrive late to school must report to the office. Break: am (fruit snack) Lunch : pm Home time: 3.15pm - children may leave school on their own. Any Questions?

Termly letter  You should have all received a termly letter.  This included details of our topics and important information.  We have spare copies for those of you who may have missed out

Establishing Positive Routines Together Daily reading and times tables Regular homework (learning Log and Active Learn Maths) Organisation (PE kit, school bag, named uniform, snack and bottle and letters going home) Communication with teachers (e.g. home school book) Appointments to be made through the office There will be a parents evening during the Autumn term

Spelling  Spelling does matter.  With the advances in technology, spelling as a part of many people’s language skills, is often neglected.  Correct spelling is vital in formal writing – a job application can be rejected if there are misspelt words.  Spelling is significant because it is one factor in learning how to read. How we pronounce words will depend on how the letters are arranged. If we teach wrong spelling to children, they will be confused as to what the correct pronunciation of a word is. For consistency in the pronunciation and enunciation of a word, correct spelling is a must.  Spelling remains the most relentlessly tested of all the literacy skills, but it is the least taught.  Sending a list of words home on Monday to be tested on Friday is not teaching. Nor is getting children to write their spelling words out 10 times.  Looking, covering, writing and checking does not teach spelling.  The only children who benefit from spelling tests are those who do well - and the benefit is to their self-esteem rather than their spelling ability. They were already good spellers.

The children who don’t benefit from spelling tests are those who are poor at spelling. They struggled with spelling before the test, and they still struggle after the test. Testing is not teaching. What should spelling teaching look like? Children should know the meanings of the words they spell. If spelling words are simply strings of letters to be learnt by heart with no meaning attached and no investigation of how those words are constructed - children are performing a task equivalent to learning ten random seven-digit PINs each week. English is an alphabetic language - letters to write words. It is not a phonetic language: there is no simple match between sounds and letters (26 letters but approximately 44 sounds). Sounds - phonics - are important in learning to spell, they are insufficient. Morphemes are the meaningful parts of words. For example, “jumped” has two morphemes - “jump” and “ed”. “Jump” is easily recognised as meaningful, but “ed” is also meaningful because it tells us that the jump happened in the past. Young spellers who are relying on the phonics only typically spell “jumped” as “jumt”. Children will need opportunities to investigate and understand the patterns in words as well as thinking about word meaning.

There will be a weekly focus on spelling patterns –children will have opportunities to apply their spelling skills throughout the week. Children will be tested ½ termly in order to measure progress. A list of expected words is given to parents.

Woodside Code of Conduct

Any Questions?