Years 5 & 6

A Child’s War

We are very excited to welcome you all back for the start of another great year and we hope you had a fantastic summer break. Our first topic this year is ‘A Child’s War’, where we will focus our learning around the events of the Second World War.

In History, the children will learn about the causes and significance of the Blitz as well as the different roles that men and women had during the time. As part of the topic, we will take a trip to Bletchley Park to hear all about the impact the people who worked there had on the war efforts.

In Science, the children will be revising how fossils are created and learning about how these provide information about the living things they came from. They will also be learning about life cycles of different living things and what micro-organisms are.

In DT, the children will learn about the seasonality of food and what was available to people during World War Two. The children will have the opportunity make two different savoury dishes from different countries involved in the conflict.

This term, as part of our PE lessons, the Year 6 children will have the opportunity to go swimming. Stingrays will be swimming this half term and more information will follow.

Here are some things you might want to do at home:

• Make a scrapbook of Second World War images and write captions for each one. Consider how the people in the photographs may be feeling.
• Make do and mend! Can you revamp some of your old clothes to make new clothes? Maybe you could ‘upcycle’ some unwanted household items and make them useful in a whole new way! Bring them into school to show your classmates and share your ideas.
• Find out what happened in your local area during the War. Were any children evacuated or did your local area host evacuees?
• Record your own wartime radio broadcast. If possible, use an audio editing package to add sound effects, such as air raid sirens or overhead aircraft.
• Dig for Victory! Find out about the types of vegetables people were encouraged to grow during the War and have a go at growing or cooking some!

Homework

We will be setting homework the week beginning 13^th September. The expectations are:

• In Year 5 and 6, maths homework is set every Thursday and is due in the following Tuesday.
• Spellings are set on a weekly basis and will cover National Curriculum spelling rules as well as the common exception words for the key stage.
• Children are expected to read a minimum of five times per week and this is to be recorded in their planners (Year 6) or reading records.
• Throughout the year, additional spelling, punctuation and grammar homework may also be set to support the learning taking place at school.