Meet the Teachers! Miss Steel/ Miss Warrender – P5S Miss O’Driscoll – P50 Mrs. Telfer and Mr. Goringe will be the other adults working in Primary 5 this year.

Housekeeping PE Kits (outside and inside) –T-shirt, socks, gym shoes/trainers and jumper (for winter). Could you make sure that P.E kit is in on a Monday and can be taken home on a Friday for a wash. A waterproof jacket is always handy to let us go out even in wet weather. Water bottle – filled from home to start each day. If possible an old shirt for messy art!

Topics for this year… *French Focus Fortnight *Rainforest and Show *R.M.E - Focus on developing beliefs and values * Whole school focus on Scottish History - P5 looking at 18 th century. *Research Famous Scots Person * Science : Body Systems/ Waves and sound/ Processes of the Planet *Victorians And any other topics that the children show an interest in

Crafts and Cooking Throughout the year there will be opportunities for the children to continue their cooking skills. Volunteers to help with this would be greatly appreciated. This will usually be a Wednesday. We will also try our hand with some knitting and sewing this year.

Swimming has already started for P50- thank you to those who have volunteered to help with this. P5S will start their block on the 3 rd of November and we will be looking for volunteers to help take the class. All children will also need a swimming hat. Swimming

Excursions Trips are usually linked to the learning that is going on in the class and there will be a big trip in the Summer term to Beamish which last year cost approximately £49. We may be going to Dynamic Earth as part of our topic on the rainforest and the cost will be about £4.35. In maths and Numeracy when we study money we will be visiting the museum on the mound and that will cost £1.40.

Home Learning Home Learning tasks (reading spelling, maths etc.) will be given out at the start of the week and collected in on a Friday. This will begin next week. Home Learning Wall activities usually last 3 to 6 weeks and are linked to our topics. There will be a date for our showcase on the Wall. Home learning is expected to be completed with the minimum amount of adult help, but please feel free to check how they are getting on. 30 minutes each day should be plenty of time to complete home learning.

Reading During class we will do guided reading sessions and discuss text features, use of language and develop their questioning skills. At this stage many children are reading fluently and it is their expression and understanding that should be developed. You can help at home by asking them questions about their books. We will shortly set up Bug Club so please encourage them as much as possible. Some children may also have sound bags which can be used to practise phonics at home.

Literacy P5 Aims Improved detail in sentences (adjectives, adverbs, range of connectives, openers, similes and meataphors) All sentences being properly punctuated Joined handwriting Awareness of different text features and apply to their writing Use a logical sequence when writing. Able to explain their ideas and thoughts clearly for everyone to hear Able to listen to the ideas of others and respond appropriately Begin to edit their own work and peers in order improve their writing. Continue to develop fluency when reading aloud Start to use Higher order thinking skills in their questioning.

Maths P5 Aims Maths lessons have a mental maths element to develop fluency with counting and number facts. This is often active with children using their mini- whiteboards or playing class games. We are aiming to develop the children’s ability to calculate things mentally using a variety of strategies so they aren’t solely reliant on pencil and paper methods. We will also soon begin our weekly Big Maths Beat That challenges.

Maths Over the year we will be covering all areas of maths: Please can your children regularly practise their times tables to aid all aspects of numeracy. Term1 *Revision of the four processes and place-value *2-D /3D shape and nets -area and volume *Multiples, factors and primes. Term2 Money/Finance Estimating and rounding Negative numbers Angles, symmetry and transformation. Term3 *Fractions/Percentages and Decimals. *Chance and uncertainty *Measure and estimate Term4 *Patterns and relationships *Expressions and equations *Information handling/data handling *Maths in the wider world

How to Help * Names on clothes, lunch boxes and water bottles * Make sure they are on time, it helps for a good start to the morning! * Please inform the school if you know your child is going to be absent before 9am. * Parent Helpers are needed to help support our cooking activities in class and to help us on trips * Take a few moments to look over their home learning before they bring it back and help them organise their choices for home learning. * Take a look at our termly newsletters to help you know what we are going to be covering each term. If you have any resources that you think may come in handy during our topics, then please let us know. If you have any skills or experience that you would like to share with the class to develop their learning please just contact us. If you ever have any concerns or queries please contact us via the school office.

Any questions?