Birds of the Morning Class (Year 5)
Teacher: Mr Dorgan | Teaching assistant: Mrs Witts (M, T, W) and Mrs Pieterse (Th, Fr)
Our Year 5 children are taught in Birds of the Morning Class. The class teacher is Mr Dorgan.
Birds of the Morning are large white birds that fly from the sun and present fire-berries to a retired Star named Ramandu. You can read about Birds of the Morning in the book, 'The Voyage of the Dawn Treader'.
What we do in class:
Maths
The class will continue work on methods of calculation and using and applying this knowledge to real life problems. As well as this, we will be doing work on shape and space, using measures, decimals and fractions. We will continue the focus on improving mental calculations and this happens every day within the maths lessons.
The school website has links to maths websites such as Mathletics which can be used to support your child’s learning. Weekly tasks will be set for homework on this site.
Literacy
The Year 5 literacy scheme this term will focus on word, sentence and text level work. Our focus for most of the term will be writing pieces from a wide range of genres that will link with our topic. I am particularly keen to highlight our on-going use of the VCOP principles—Vocabulary, Conjunctions, Openers and Punctuation - to help improve the children’s work and encourage them to develop their personal writing style.
Topic
How the Normans changed History
The Battle of Hastings is one of the most important and well known battles in English history. It took place on 14 October 1066 and was the start of the Norman Conquest of England. The battle was between two rivals for the English throne: William, from Normandy in northern France, and an Anglo-Saxon called Harold. After beating King Harold's army in battle, William the Conqueror marched on to London. He was crowned King William I of England on Christmas day 1066. English language and culture were changed forever and King William's descendants have ruled ever since.
William landed on the south coast of England with about 10,000 men. He came face to face with Harold's army just outside Hastings a few days later. Harold had lined his army up at the top of Senlac Hill, which he hoped would be easy to defend. The Norman army used archers and cavalry (horses) but Harold's army used their shields to make a wall to protect themselves. The battle went on for a long time and both sides had chances to win, until William pretended to retreat. Harold's army chased them but it was a trick; William and his soldiers turned back to fight. During the fighting King Harold was killed. William had won.
We can't wait to find out how the Normans changed our country.
What the children say:
"We learn lots of new things."
"We do challenging maths."
"The teachers and TAs are helpful."
"Everybody is nice and fun.
"I believe in myself."