Fox Class
Fox Class
Welcome to Fox Class! We are a mixed Year 5 and 6 class and Mr Riley is our teacher. Our teaching assistants during the week are: Mrs Coles (Mon-Wed), Mrs Taber (Thurs-Fri) and Mrs Eaton also supports in the class throughout the week.
We pride ourselves on being a caring, capable and confident class.
As we are the oldest children in the school, we are given extra responsibilities to help the other classes. The roles include: House Point Collectors, Librarians, Lunchtime Supervisors, Collective Worship Helpers and Register Monitors.
Weekly homework:
- Doodle Maths https://students.doodlelearning.com/
- Daily reading
- Spellings https://www.spellingshed.com/en-gb/
- Learning Times Tables
Topic-related homework may also be set when appropriate, which links to our learning in class.
Revise all times tables up to 12x by Christmas.
Top tips: Choose one times table to focus on at a time and get adults to test you at different times (eg in the car/ walking to school). Answer questions in random orders to ensure you know them properly eg: What's 4x8? What's 72 divided by 9?
Supporting at home:
Grammar and Punctuation Coverage
https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button - A great resource for practising times tables.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers - songs to help in learning times tables, spelling, grammar and many more!
https://www.theteachertrain.com/mc-grammar - raps to help understand grammar
Autumn Term Learning:
English
In Term 2, we will be reading ‘The Wind in the Wall’ by Sally Gardner as part of our English lessons and we will be covering the following Literacy areas:
- Poetry
- Story writing
- Information booklets
- Non-Fiction writing
Our Guided Reading book this term is ‘Street Child’ by Berlie Doherty and our class book continues to be ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ by Onjali Q. Rauf
Maths
In Term 1, we will be focusing on the four operations (Addition, Subtraction, Multiplication and Division) Fractions and revising and revisiting content from Term 1, preparing for this term's assessments.
Geography
In Geography this term, we will be exploring the following questions:
- Where and why do slums develop?
- What is life like in a slum?
- What challenges to people face living in slums?
- How can life in the slums be improved?
Science
In Science we will be looking at the Earth and Space and researching all the planets in our Solar System. We will also be looking at the Moon and the history of space exploration as well as new missions such as the Artemis 1 rocket. We will also be studying the theory of evolution, specifically looking at Darwin’s research into natural selection and survival of the fittest as well as the spectrum of light, reflection and refraction.
Computing
We use computing throughout the Teach Computing Curriculum to support learning as well as covering computer skills in themselves. We will start with discussing computing systems and programming. Throughout the year, we will discuss Internet Safety and the school’s guidelines to safe computer use.
Spanish
We are very lucky to have Senora Riddy to come in and teach Spanish on a Tuesday afternoon.
Ways in which you can support your child with their learning
Encourage them to write for pleasure. Produce some writing together. Ask them ‘How can we make this sentence better?’ Discuss the impact of words.
Share books. Talk about the characters and predict what might happen in the stories. Ask children their thoughts on a book and how it compares to other books they have read.
Have opportunities where all the family are involved in some sort of reading, for example, newspapers and magazines.
Ask them questions about their Maths homework, such as 'What strategies do you know?', 'What is the best way to solve this?'
Play times tables games
Help them learn their spellings and find other words that fit the spelling pattern with them.
Discuss news events with them at their level.
Research around our topics.
Growth Mindset
As a staff, we really believe in the importance of children developing a 'growth mindset' instead of a 'fixed mindset'. We want children to believe that their abilities are not fixed but that they can work towards the attainment of new skills. Just because they can’t solve a certain problem or achieve a specific goal right now, doesn’t mean they won’t be able to after working on it. We will be focussing on developing a growth mindset amongst all children, in all their learning.
Newsletter
Our key information comes through the weekly school newsletter. This contains a whole range of information that is useful to parents/carers
I hope that I have covered most things that you feel that you need as a parent/carer of a child in Fox Class. If you have any questions, please feel free to come and have a chat with me at the end of the day or send me a message on Class Dojo.
Finally, as a staff, we ask you to encourage your child to be as independent as possible in school. All of us are very approachable and children can come to us to explain if they have forgotten such things as their homework. We understand that we all forget things at times! We also encourage them to come and talk to us if they have any friendship problems or concerns so that we can talk about how we can solve them together.
Mr. Riley