Welcome letter – Year 5 (2021-2022)

Dear Parents and Carers

Welcome to Year 5! Croeso i Flwyddyn 5!

I hope that you have all had an exciting and enjoyable Summer holidays and are ready for the start of another amazing year at Oystermouth where we hope life will be as normal as possible and back to the way school was pre-covid.

For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Simon Lloyd-Jones and I am starting my third year at Oystermouth as Deputy Head. My first two years here were teaching Year 1 so I am looking forward to the move up to Year 5. I will be supported in class by Miss Seacombe, Miss Whittington and Mrs Condon.

On Monday mornings I will be sending out a short letter with information about the work we are covering in class that week and to inform you of any special events or trips that are taking place. This will be sent on class dojo and will also be displayed on the class page of the school website.

Homework

Reading: It is so important the children continue to read at home as much as possible, either by themselves or to an adult. Books can be brought home from school, borrowed from the library or be your own but please encourage your child to try a variety of genres and authors. A Reading Diary will be sent home at the start of term for the children or yourselves to complete when they read. The children also have access to Reading Eggs which we will be doing in school and can be continued at home too. If your child has any difficulties logging on to Reading Eggs at home, please let me know.

Spelling: There will be one piece of spelling homework a week and this will be sent out on a Monday. It will be linked to the spelling pattern covered in class that week. We will be having an informal spelling test on a Friday. This will be completed in a very relaxed way and there will be no sharing of scores. Please can you encourage your children to learn their spelling words as it will help them when completing their independent writing and help to improve the quality of their work.

Maths: Each week there will be one piece of Maths homework which will be related to work covered in class that week. This may be a printed worksheet or an activity to complete on MyMaths. If anyone has any problems accessing MyMaths, please let me know and I can sort this out straight away.

Homework Menu: At the start of each new topic, a Homework Menu will be sent out with a list of activities for the children to complete. We encourage the children to complete at least one activity a fortnight and try to choose a variety of activities from the menu. Some of the activities will be children’s ideas from our EPIC planning. The Homework Menu for our first topic ‘What’s in our square mile? will be sent out on Monday 20th September.

Mascot: The Year 5 class Welsh mascot will be up and running within the next 2 weeks. It will be sent home every Friday with guidance included in the pack. Please encourage your child to write a short account of an activity or diary entry on the sheets provided. There are language support sheets in the pack and I am keen for the children to use the patterns that they are familiar with.

General Information

PPA: Miss Bawden will be taking my PPA sessions for the Autumn term on a Wednesday afternoon where she will be teaching PE and Art. The children can come to school in a PE kit for this session. Please can they wear a white t-shirt or as close to white as possible, black or blue joggers, trousers or shorts and trainers.

Uniform: Please ensure that school uniform is worn and that all clothing has a name on it. The children will be storing their bags and coats in the Year 5 area in the corridor.

Water: It is so important that the children keep themselves hydrated during the day in school. The children may bring in a bottle of water to keep in class. This can be refilled if they run out during the day.

KS2 Fruit Tuck shop: The KS2 Healthy Tuck Shop will resume. Fruit can be purchased for 30p every morning.

Stationery: Pupils may bring in a pencil case to keep in their trays. All the equipment the children will need is available in school but I know that many children like to bring their own things in. I will supply handwriting pens and normal pencils.

Topics: Each half term, we will be starting a new topic. The children will all be involved in planning the learning through our EPIC (Everybody Planning in Class) Planning sessions. These are so important and have been really successful over the last few years at Oystermouth. Information on our topics will be available on the Class Page of the school website.

Visits: We are hoping that school visits will still be permitted when we return to school. If allowed, we will be going out and about in the community as much as possible and there will also be additional visits linked to our class topics. Further details will be given as soon as I possibly can.

If you would like to know any more information, or have any questions or queries then please do not hesitate to get in touch with me, either by sending me a message on class dojo or by e-mail: tucker27@hwbcymru.net

Diolch yn fawr

Simon Lloyd-Jones

Deputy Head and Year 5 Class Teacher