Welcome to Year 5 Class Page! 

*Scroll down for weekly updates*

I feel very lucky to be teaching such an amazing class for two years in a row! Let's make Year 5 even more fun, memorable and successful as Year 4 was!

Please visit this page as the year progresses for updates, and to find out a little more about what we have been learning about in class.

Communication, both to celebrate the good things and tackle any problems or concerns, plays a principal role in ensuring the very best education for your child. Parents/guardians, please do not hesitate to contact me on the school number, or via email:

darryl.roycroft@stf.barwick-in-elmet.leeds.sch.uk

Alternatively, feel free to arrange a meeting- or simply pop in for a brief chat.

Many thanks,

Mr Roycroft

19.7.19

I can't quite believe I am typing this, but today marks the end of a two year journey with all of you wonderful children. You have worked incredibly hard to better yourselves throughout Year 4 and 5, and you made every day enjoyable for me. Thank you so much to parents for letting us borrow your children for so much of the time- I have no doubt that their next year will be even more successful than the last.

Over the summer, please continue to do bits of writing here and there- diary entries of fun days out, random short stories, even just writing shopping lists to keep your handwriting looking great! Continue to practise your times tables- there will be lots of fun new initiatives starting in September to help brush up on any that have been forgotten over the summer. Check out fun games on Mymaths- these can be selected by topic. Also check out other websites such as Topmarks, Studyzone etc... there is so much out there to keep you ticking over! And don't forget to keep up with reading every day- newspapers, books, posters- anything with words on!

And one final request...enjoy yourselves! You will only have one summer as a ten year old- make this one count! I will miss you all so much next year and can't wait to catch up with you all on the playground.

Fist bumps and high fives all round,

Mr Roycroft

21.6.19

Well done to Year 5 on spectacular sportsmanship and behaviour on Sports Day, and a special well done to all children in Lotherton house! 

This week the children finally had a chance to set out the initial choreography for their part in this year's KS2 Production: Mary Poppins. We are playing the role of busy bankers- we are currently perfecting our facial expressions and stage movements!

Those who haven't bought tickets yet, please see Miss Taylor in Year 2 or Mrs Berry in the office to secure a ticket for the performance- it will be a spectacle to behold!

17.5.19

This week has been all about history in Year 5. Whilst the Year sixes quietly worked their way through SATs, we were right next door, quietly working our way through a variety of slightly more exciting activities! We have explored Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Gods and Goddesses, and finalised some super exciting exhibits for our class museum. For those that are lucky enough to attend, be prepared to be mummified!

10.5.19

This week, we have delved deeper into the world of Ancient Egypt, looking at newspaper sources from the discovery of King Tutankhamun's tomb in the Valley of the Kings. We are going to have a go at mummification ourselves, to see which of us would make a good embalmer!

In art, we are are making Ancient Egyptian masks with Mr Smith, and we are all very much looking forward to getting our hands dirty!

Parents/ grandparents, family and friends- please come join us in our class museum on the last day of term (Friday 24th May 2019!)

22.4.19

This week, the children have delved deeper into the world of Ancient Egypt. Mr Smith has launched some exciting fictional writing with an Ancient Egyptian theme, as well as kicking off a fab unit of art in which the children will explore ancient masks from the era. Be sure to come visit our class museum at the end of the half term (Friday 24th May) where you might be lucky enough to see some masks on display! 

Many thanks to the parents who came to watch our residential video this morning- it perfectly captured a truly unforgettable trip. A huge thank you to everyone involved for making it happen.

18.4.19

Welcome back everybody! It was lovely to hear about the fun you all had over the holidays. We start this Summer term off with a bang as we dive straight into the awe and wonder of Ancient Egypt! The children are going to love this topic- I can't wait to see some of the amazing writing that is produced from it.

Here's to an amazing Summer term everybody!

w/c 25.3.19

Congratulations to all for making it to the end of a very enjoyable half term!

We spent some time this week reflecting on our amazing time at residential- so much fun memories all around! Families are welcome to attend the grand premiere in Year 5 class where some pictures and videos of our trip will be enjoyed.

Rest well over the holidays everybody- keep on reading, pick up a pencil and write, practice your maths fluency and we will hit the ground running when you get back. Most of all, enjoy spending precious time with your family.

See you all soon!

W/C 11/3/15

The much-anticipated residential trip is only 3 sleeps away! Get plenty of sleep this weekend- you'll need it!

Reminder: A recommended ‘kit list’ for the trip includes:

•   At least two pairs of tracksuit bottoms/ walking trousers
•   Multiple T-shirts
•   Underpants and socks (plenty!)
•   A waterproof jacket or coat
•   A woolly hat/ gloves
•   Sunglasses (wishful thinking)
•   PE kit/ exercise clothes (for morning yoga/ meditation/ exercise)
•   Warm jumpers/ fleeces
•   Large plastic bag for dirty clothes
•   Bath towel and toiletries (no spray deodorants)
•   Pyjamas
•   Indoor shoes (slippers/ plimsolls)
•   Outdoor trainers
•   Outdoor walking boots (these will be fine in place of wellies)

Some additional points to note:

• Mobile phones/ iPads are not permitted on the trip
• Expensive items are brought at own risk
• Expect some clothes to get dirty/ sandy!
• Snacks can be brought and labelled, but not kept in rooms (treats permitted)
• Jewellery/ cosmetics should not be brought
• Spending money is permitted but not required
  • One trip to sweet/gift shop, and one trip to amusements has been arranged (£5? No more than £10)
  • Money will be kept in labelled envelopes- feel free to send to Mrs Berry in advance
• Digital cameras not permitted but disposable cameras are optional. Plenty of photos will be taken!
• Sun lotion can be packed but is unlikely to be needed
• Cuddly toy welcome
• Toiletries include toothpaste, toothbrush, towel, soap/flannel, shampoo/conditioner, moisturiser
• A residential notebook/ diary would be a nice keepsake
• Backpacks will be required for day trips (to carry lunches, pencils and pads)
• Packs of tissues would be helpful
• Please bring a labelled water bottle (for lunch)
• School will be in charge of inhalers as usual. If you anticipate any further medications being required, e.g. Piriton, please add information/consent to the medical form (attached)
• A selection of books for reading (not too many!)
• Consider bringing a watch, especially for mornings.
• Get your child to help pack, so they know where everything is.
• Please name all items of clothing to avoid confusion
• Consider packing full outfits in bags, labelled per day, based on the itinerary provided.
• Old clothes are advisable and you know your child best, so send the quantity you feel your child will need.
• Keep checking the weather forecast in advance

w/c 4/3/19

Roll up, roll up! The amazing Dracula Spook-tacular is in town! 

Congratulations to Year 5 on a thoroughly enjoyable fundraiser yesterday afternoon. The children loved taking part in all of the fun and freaky activities they had prepared. A huge amount of money was raised- over £350! A massive thank you to all parents and children involved in making this success- the children are incredibly grateful of your support towards their residential.

Check out some photos of the event below!

1.3.19

Welcome back everybody! By the sound of things, most of us had a lovely half term holiday in (sunny) February! 

This week, we used our skills in ARMS and COGS to edit and redraft our initial 500 word compositions from the last week of the previous half term. We focused on uplevelling the verbs that we used, and including adverbs for extra detail. The top five stories will be selected over the weekend to be judged by Miss Taylor!

In maths, we have explored unknowns in equations, and used our skills in inverse operation to unpick how to find the unknown, and balance the equation! It sounds complicated, but when you have maths brains as good as the ones in Sycamore class, it's a doddle! Ask your child to tell you all about it, or show you an example!

15.2.19

This week, we finally got the chance to sit down and put pen to paper with our creative 500 words stories. Given the short half-term, we only got to do our first drafts, so it will be great to reflect on our stories after a nice break and polish them, ready for entry into the competition.

In maths, we have been polishing various aspects of arithmetic. We got the chance to apply these in a maths board game. Well done to the children for the creative themes, and to those who worked hard through their arithmetic so that they could have a go at playing each others' games!

Keep up the great work Year 5- another half term completed. Roll on the next one!

4.1.19

This week in maths, we have used the bar model to demonstrate what 'really' happens when you multiply fractions. The bar model helped us to understand why multiplying whole numbers by fractions makes them smaller, and why multiplying fractions by fractions usually results in a smaller fraction. Check out some examples below!

In English this week, with the 500 Words competition approaching, we unpicked the judgment criteria that the markers will be looking out for in our stories. We analysed some of the winning stories and identified what made them so good, based on the following judgement criteria:

• Originality
• Plot
• Characterisation
• Language
• Enjoyment

We explored a wide variety of stories- some happy; some sad; some rib-ticklingly funny! Ask the children which was their favourite!

28.1.19

This week in maths, we have learned about the wonders of algebra. We began by exploring the idea that symbols can represent numbers, then led into the more traditional numbers replaced by letters. We drew upon lots of prior knowledge, including times tables, fractions of quantities, square/ cube numbers and much more!

In English, we have created a whole new set of cheat sheets to support us with our writing. They now contain 16 boxes in total- covering Year 5 criteria as well as criteria from previous year groups. The children were as excited as ever to show their creative flair with the gel pens, and the cheat sheets are nearly ready to go! Prepare to be blown away by our next independent writes.... 500 word competition watch out!

21.1.19

It's just as well that there is a maths focus in school at the moment, because there has been a real buzz around maths in Year 5. What could be causing it? Battle of the Bands of course!

A huge congratulations to Year 5 for knocking Year 6 off their (very high) pedestal to become champions! A special well done to So Bonds, Holly Emerle and Travis Pacetti for being the top three contributors- you answered nearly 40,000 questions between the three of you!
 

In English, we have powered through several more chapters of our class novel, War Horse. We are very excited to finish it and start our next class book: 'Skellig' by David Almond. For those that haven't read it, check out the blurb below.

14/1/19

Congratulations to everybody on such a hard-working week. The children wrote some amazing informal letters, through the eyes of Joey the horse following our War Horse theme. Clearly, the children have listened well through all of our guided reading sessions and the 

In maths, we have worked in pairs to solve a wide variety of Year 5 reasoning problems. The children are focusing on approaching problems that are confusing to begin with, and that involve more than one step.

On Thursday, we kicked off our fluency practice with TT Rockstars Day 2019 (check out the photos on the page link above). The children made such an effort with their costumes: there was such a buzz around school! Battle of the Bands has been launched, as has the Golden Guitar award. Come join us on Friday's achievement assembly to see which class are the first to win!

7/1/19

Welcome back everybody, and a Happy New Year to you all! 

This week kicked off in its usual exciting fashion with a challenge from the mysterious 'Maths Man'. Each class had to work together to solve clues which were sent to teachers by email at random points throughout the day. Luckily, all the children correctly solved their clues to reveal their reward: a whole day of maths through art with every other teacher in the school! Check out some of the pictures below.

As well as the maths art day and the exciting clue hunt on the first day back, the pupils got to team up with children from other year groups, to take part in a quiz against other mixed-year teams! Not to mention an afternoon of fun on Friday, embracing the outdoors for some real world maths.

We have more exciting maths-related fun in store next week- keep an eye on the newsletter for more!

w/c 10.12.18

This week, we had a fun-filled afternoon of DT, during which we worked in teams to create our very own rubber band-powered vehicles, based on our designs from last week. We wrote a detailed set of instructions before getting stuck in to the construction and decoration of our cars. Check out some pictures and videos below!

Year 5 enjoyed a very engaging visit from West Yorkshire Police, where we had some very fruitful discussion around discrimination. The visitors were blown away by how articulate and engaged the children were throughout the whole talk.

Year 5 also enjoyed a very entertaining pantomime on road safety from Leeds City Council- I'm sure this will help us all to be extra cautious on the roads this winter. 

And so the time finally arrives next week to finish up a very busy and fun-filled term. Let's all remember to get plenty of rest, eat lots of delicious food and spare a thought for those less fortunate than us this holiday. A very merry Christmas and a Happy New Year! 

w/c 3/12/18

What a fantastic week of story writing in Year 5! 

We focused exclusively on plot, exploring the author’s clever use of links between start and finish, as well as exploring the effect of a clever twist ending on the reader.

We then use a planning format to generate a plan for our own short story with a twist.

We went on analyse two different short stories and identify the clever twist at the end of each one. We then took our highlighters and explored a range of text, sentence and word level features to generate a personal criteria checklist. Some of our criteria included:

• Write in paragraphs
• Range of punctuation: “” , ? ! ‘ () – ; :
• Balance between narrative and dialogue (speech)
• Powerful verbs and adverbs
• Similes
• Fronted Adverbial e.g. Moments later,
• Adverbial phrase after speech
• At least one modal verb e.g. ought, might
• Range of openers

In maths, we have been using the bar model to represent a variety of reasoning-style questions. This has really helped us to unpick questions that confuse us to begin with. Roll on next week for some Christmas-themed maths problems!

w/c 26.11.18

This week in English, we have really stretched our brains by summarising the introduction to or class novel, War Horse, drawing out the key events. We then rewrote the first few chapters from the perspective of a different character. The novel is written through the eyes of Joey, a horse who is bought on a whim by a rather grumpy farmer. We chose to rewrite the introduction in our own words, through the eyes of Albert's father. This required precise characterisation so that we could retell similar events but in a very different, contrasting mood. This helped us to empathise with a character that we had previously regarded as a little mean and short-tempered.

In maths, we have looked at square and cubed numbers, identifying all the square and cubed numbers up to 100, then applying our multiplication skills to work out what the cube of larger numbers would be!

16.11.18

As we near the end of a busy week, the children have been excited to start a brand new book, which they will be analysing in depth on a Thursday and Friday with Mr Smith. In maths, we have been developing our fluency skills and unpicking a range of problems to solve, including the difficult skill of reasoning.

We were delighted to give parents a snapshot of Reading VIPERS and maths in year 5- Tuesday's reading session involved applying our VIPERS skills to a  film called 'Beyond the lines': an emotional short which provoked a lot of deep thinking from the children. Our maths challenge involved helping Mr Hough with a problem set to him by Mr Roycroft... can you solve it??? (scroll down for the solution)...

Mr Hough has been asked to plant 10 new trees to make a stylish orchard in the corner of the field.

Mr Roycroft has given him the challenge of creating five rows, with four trees in each row.

How can he arrange them to meet these criteria?

9.11.18

A warm welcome back to everybody after what sounded like an eventful half term holiday! Our week kicked off with a fizz and a pop as the children enjoyed a friction masterclass from a visiting scientist! I know many of the children in Year 5 are keen to partake in the after school science club offered by the company. This half term's theme is 'Let's be Curious'- where children in Year 5 will be exploring the field of Scientific Enquiry.

In maths, we have been brushing up on our arithmetic skills, to give us all the necessary tools to fluently answer the reasoning questions we will face next week. We have also recapped on the concept of division, using concrete apparatus to represent division calculations. Check out some photos below!

19.10.18

This week, we have been exploring how to use commas in greater depth. We identified commas used for specific purposes, including:

• items in a list
• fronted adverbials
• commas for parenthesis
• subordinate clause
• to clarify meaning

We then planned and wrote Newspaper Reports on the Gunpowder Plot.

In maths, we have been using the bar model to solve addition and subtraction sums, including extremely challenging ones (see below!) This is an extremely helpful tool for parents to use with children to help unpick what steps to take to solve a problem. Ask your child to show you how to use a bar model!

WC 12.10.18

This week in English, we have explored the world of Year 5 Grammar, Punctuation and Vocabulary. We have looked into how commas can be used in a variety of ways (lists, after a fronted adverbial/ subordinate clause, to clarify meaning etc). We also explored nouns in great detail, editing and redrafting texts along the way. We played around with collective nouns, and learned some very entertaining facts about names of groups (dating back to Medieval times).

In maths, we have worked on fluency, reasoning and problem solving within the topic of addition and subtraction. We have continued to hone our skills in mentally adding/ subtracting with increasingly large numbers. Ask us for a quick method to add or subtract numbers such as 28, 198, or even 960!

W/C 1/10/18

This week in maths, we have explored mental addition and subtraction in increasingly large numbers. We found patterns as the numbers got larger, and we realised that once we have grasped the basics, much larger numbers are less scary than we thought!

In English, we have been writing up the final drafts of our Gunpowder Plot information texts. We have learned to edit and improve our work using ARMS and COGS, just as we did last year. I have been absolutely blown away by the amount of pride every child has taken in their work...I sense great things to come!

W/C 24.9.18

This week, we have become experts on the infamous Gunpowder Plot (or as I repeatedly mispronounced it: The Gunplowder Pot ).

The children were extremely enthusiastic about taking a trip back in time, just as they always were last year. We helped to understand the characters better by partaking in an activity called 'Moving Archetypes', in which we walked around the room interacting with each other in the role of various individuals from the story. We then used our notes to write up a fact file so that other people can become experts like us.

In maths, we have explored complicated fractions and decimals- with a focus on the concept of thousandths. We explored thousandths in concrete/ pictorial representation, before completing number sequences and complicated problems involving thousandths in fraction and decimal form.

w/c  17.9.18

This week has seen a deeper exploration of poetry as a follow on from last week. We began by recapping on our list poems from last week, then looked at a completely different approach: shape poetry. The children analysed a wide range of shape poems from different authors, including ones done by other children. We then had a go at some shape poems of our own...check out our English books to be blown away by the children's creativity!

In maths, we have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 and 10000. Maths is going to look a little different on Fridays in Year 5, as we will all be boarding the 'Maths Express'. Watch this space for more information!

w/c 10.9.18

This week, we have explored the use of drama to depict a range of complex emotions. We used body language and facial expression to show blatant emotion, then explored the use of subtle clues to show the same emotions in a less obvious way. We explored a range of emotions including regret, jealousy and pride. After becoming equipped with a deep understanding of each emotion, we created pictures of our chosen emotions using watercolours. We used a range of things to represent the idea of each emotion, including landscapes/ objects/ weather/ colour patterns… anything other than humans!

We moved on to exploring the use of these emotions in a poem about New Years Resolutions. We discussed the various emotions we may feel throughout Year 5 and composed a similar poem of our very own.

In maths, we really hit the ground running by looking at place value up to one million and beyond! The children were all very excited by the prospect of one day seeing numbers this size in their bank accounts. Here's to hoping!

3/9/18

This week, we hit the ground running with some baseline assessments to help us track our progress throughout the year. We pulled out our very best writing, watercolour painting and maths to help put the finishing touches to our brand new classroom displays. On top of our normal timetabled activities, we took part in some challenging team building games, including a card-stacking task which truly got our hearts racing. The only catch: before we were allowed to use a card, we had to figure out something the whole group shared in common!