Week Beginning 9th February 2009

Hi everyone and welcome to the last week of the half term.

First of all we would like to thank everyone for supporting out book fair last week, it was a great success and we were so pleased with the amount of Year 5 and 6 children who entered into the spirit of book week and got dressed up on Friday. You all looked fantastic, well done.
We would also like to thank Miss Knight for organising the week.

This week on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday we will be holding out parent consultations. You will have received your time slot by now. The appointment times are 10 minutes long and we do try to stick to these times. If you feel you need longer then pleased arrange another convenient time with your child's teacher.

There will be a mass held in the school hall at 9.15am on Friday, on the theme of Communion. This is to tie in with our current Here I Am theme and will be led by staff and children from Key Stage 2. All primary schools in the Parish are following the program and each term, a mass will be held on school, on the theme of the Here I Am topic. You are warmly invited to attend, but please remember that space is at a premium in the school hall. If you have prams or buggies, then please feel free to leave them in the infant area if needed.

On Friday afternoon Mr Slavin has arranged a football match with Penketh South Primary School which will take place on the school field at 2pm. The children already know whether they are in the team or not. We would like to thank Mr Slavin for giving up his time to arrange football training each week and also for arranging the game. We would also like to thank Mr Phocou and other parents who have been involved in helping with the football.

Assessment and Review Week

As you know the last week of each half term is assessment and review week. We will be reviewing and assessing all the objectives that the children have covered in this half term which will help to inform our planning next half term.

Literacy

The children have really enjoyed making their electronic books for reception and year 1. We may need to put some finishing touches to them at the beginning of the week but then we will be ready to share them with the younger members of our school. The children cannot wait to do this and we really feel that we have some budding authors and illustrators in the making.

We also be completing an assessed piece of writing this week which we will mark and give the children targets for the next half term.

Maths

Mrs Morgan's and Mr Barker's groups completed a past paper last week. The children will be getting their results this week and we will spend some time working on the subject they found difficult.

Miss Wright's and Mr Slavin's groups will be looking at subtraction next Monday and Tuesday. We will look quickly at counting on and move to column subtraction using the exchange method for subtracting 2 and 3 digit numbers.
On Wednesday, Thursday and Friday we are going to give the children the Y5 paper they took last term to see what progress they have made. The children will complete the paper and then we will go over the answers with them.

Here are some websites to help with subtraction:-

Subtraction Web Sites
Easyhttp://ngfl.northumberland.gov.uk/maths/big%20sums/big20sums%20subtract.html
Medium/Hardhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/numbers/wholenumbers/addsubtract/mental/flash11.shtml http://www.amblesideprimary.com/ambleweb/mentalmaths/subtractiontest.htmlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/maths/tests/subtraction.shtml
Challenging Puzzles/Gameshttp://nrich.maths.org/public/index.php

Science

We now have a program on the big laptops which helps us assess the children's learning in each area of the science curriculum.
The children complete a short test on the computer and we can then go into their results and see what they have and haven't understood.
This week they will complete the test on our topic 'more about dissolving' and we will then address an areas that need revisiting.

Topic

Last week the children began to make power points on an area they were concerned about in the environment. This week we will be finishing the power points and then sharing them with the rest of the class.
A lot of thought and research has gone into these presentations and we can't wait to see the results.

That's all for this half term. We hope to see you at the parent consultation meetings and wish you a very happy and restful half term.

Year 5/6 Team.