What a busy week it has been so far! We've had lots of exciting and interesting lessons.

In PSHE, we have been focusing on how to reach our goals. As part of this, we had a fun activity where we made jam sandwiches. The process wasn’t as simple as just putting jam between two slices of bread – we had to think about the 'stepping stones' to success, breaking down the task into smaller, manageable steps. This helped us understand how we can achieve our goals, whether they're big or small.

In Maths, we are continuing our work on place value. This week, we've been using bead strings and rekenreks to explore the concepts of tens and ones. We focused particularly on the numbers between 10 and 20, practicing how to represent these numbers using the tools. This hands-on approach has really helped us understand how the value of digits changes depending on their place in a number.

In English, we have been thinking about whales and how we can learn more about them. We’ve come up with some great questions that we’d like to ask Greenpeace. We’ve also been exploring what we would like to know about whales, which has sparked some very interesting discussions.

Finally, in PE, we have been practicing our balancing skills. Everyone had a turn walking along a bench to see how well we could maintain our balance. It was both fun and challenging, and we all improved as the lesson went on. 

Maths

This half term we will be focusing on multiplication and division and fractions. If your children would like some extra practise/activities to do at home please see the links below.

Multiplication & Division (we will be covering all these topics at school so any extra practise at home will be very beneficial) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zqbg87h 

Fractions (we will be covering all these topics at school so any extra practise at home will be very beneficial) - https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/z3rbg82

Topmarks Daily 10 (mental maths quiz) - https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10

Times Table Rock Stars - https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school/student

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Fun in the snow!

This week in our PE lesson the children LOVED this invasion game called Pirate's treasure. The aim of the game is for the islanders to steal the treasure which is in a box behind the pirates. The pirates could freeze the islanders to stop them from stealing the treasure and fellow islanders could crawl under them to unfreeze them.

I think we had to play this at least 6 times they enjoyed it so much!

Science

This half term we have been looking at everything to do with life cycles in our science lessons. We started off by exploring the human life cycle by naming and describing the 5 major stages. 

Then we moved onto learning about the life cycles of different animals such as a butterfly, chicken and a frog. We found out that these animals go through metamorphosis in their life cycles! The children then worked in groups to make a butterfly's life cycle out of play dough. 

English

This half term in our English lessons we were learning to write a story based on the famous children's text, Where the Wild Things are. The children absolutely loved this story and their creativity was unmatched! They made changes to the original story by changing the characters and what they did to make it their own. It was great to see the children using their imagination!

Geography

This half term we have been exploring our local area in our geography lessons. The children started off by learning about aerial photographs and we used Google Earth regularly to view St Cleer from above. The children were intrigued by Google Earth and we did spend some time exploring other places too.

We then started to understand what maps were and how they are use. The children got to use resources from all around the classroom to make messy maps of the room whilst working in groups.

Elf Day 2024!

Thank you for all your generous donations towards the Alzheimer's Society. The children looked fantastic and really got stuck in with all the activities! They also had a mysterious video from Mistletoe the Elf who was be very cheeky with the school photocopier!

Information for a new half term

Spring 1 in 5/6H

It has been an icy start back to the new term but the children have settled back into their learning with enthusiasm.

CURRICULUM

Our topics for this half term can be found in the overview that I have attached below. In addition to this you will find this half term’s Key Instant Recall Facts (KIRFs) to practice with your child. I have also included the Year 5 and Year 6 recommended reads and statutory spelling lists.

PE

Our PE day has had to change to a THURSDAY – please remember that children should come into school in full PE kit.

CLASS BLOG

We will endeavour to regularly update this blog to give you a flavour of what we have covered in class, and also pass on any important information. To help us with this, please make sure that all permissions are up to date on Arbor so that we can share images as soon as possible.

SUPPORTING LEARNING AT HOME

In Upper Key Stage 2, it is important to support the children’s learning at home as much as possible. A reminder that our home learning expectations are:

Daily Reading (15 minutes) – recorded reading record to contribute to a Reading Karate reward

Times-tables and KIRF practice (20 minutes weekly) using TTRS and the KIRF sheets below

Spellings (20 minutes weekly)

Online learning – set on Atom Prime (logins will be stuck into children’s reading record)

As always, if you have any questions or concerns please do get in touch.

All the very best, Mr H and the Year 5/6 team

Welcome to Spring 1 2025 - we have loved welcoming everyone back this week. We weren't quite expecting the snow and ice that have challenged our transport routes this week but well done to all for travelling safely and working with us to keep everything going! We were treated to a beautiful blanket of white and a stunning view of the moors this morning so it was all worth it. Here's to a healthy and successful term again at St Cleer. 

Welcome back, we hope you had a wonderful holiday and are ready for an action packed Spring 1!
I've attached the plan below so you can all see the coverage for the term.
More updates and pictures will be added as we go through the term!
Mrs Alberts and Mrs Nute

Happy New Year and welcome back to the Spring Term; What a snowy start!

Year 3/4A have started their unit on Multiplication and Division in Math, talking about efficiency in methods and practising recall of related facts as well.
With the Year 4 MTC approaching in June, we've stepped up our daily activities and challenged ourselves to improve our scores each week, aiming for 25/25.

Please find attached your KIRFS and Timetable for the Spring Term. We're looking forward to our Ukulele lessons starting next Friday.

Well done everyone for a really successful Autumn term! Jam-packed with learning, trips and adventures. It was lovely to celebrate our values champions in assembly today and we were surprised by a musical rendition to ring in the Christmas break. Thank you again to mole Valley Farmers for our lovely Christmas tree. Have a peaceful Christmas and see you in 2025 for the Spring term.

WOW! What an amazing term we have had in 5/6MG!

Thank you to all of those who were able to join us for our class assembly last half term and our parent afternoon this half term. It has been wonderful to see the pupils sharing their work and excitement for learning with all of you. This half term the pupils have developing their dance skills in PE, advancing their descriptive writing in English, overcoming their fear of fractions in Maths, creating portraits in Art and learning about natural resources in Geography - it's been a busy term and the pupils have displayed their determination 

We hope you all have a wonderful Christmas and enjoy the school holidays. We're looking forward to seeing you again on Tuesday 7th January.

Best wishes and a Happy New Year,

The 5/6MG Team 

As always, it was lovely to spend time with the community together in St Cleer church. Thank you to Mrs Harris for leading the singing for us. The 12 days of Christmas and the beautiful singing from our choir were definite highlights. Thank you to the student leaders and team captains for sharing their Christmas reflections and to you - our parents, family and friends - for making it a special time together.

Incredible artists

We have really enjoyed getting stuck into our Art topic this half term about portraits.  Focusing on Lucien Freud (a celebrated portrait artist) we have enjoyed evaluating his famous portraits and trying to develop our own artistic styles.

We have considered Freud's use of colours and tried to develop different skin tones as well as working on our sketching skills.

We have challenged ourselves to move out of our comfort zones and use different styles and techniques than we usually would.  We are very please with the results so far!

R/1 have been very busy the last few weeks, we have been preparing for our Nativity, dressing up for Elf Day, learning about why we celebrate Christmas and why it is important to Christians, learning about 2D and 3D shapes, innovating the story of Where the Wild Things Are and drawing wonderful pictures linked to Picasso!
We have just finished learning about shape and finished with a shape hunt around the school grounds.
Yesterday we walked around the village looking for Human and Physical features, we have been learning about our local area in our Learning Adventure!!
This afternoon we will demonstrating our singing skills in Church!

Thank you to year 3 and year 4 who contributed a tree this year to the Christmas tree festival at St Cleer church. We are looking forward to seeing it up close when we visit the church for our Christmas celebration on Friday. 

I thoroughly enjoyed our 3km round trip run to Trevethy Quoit and back today with running club. Thank you so much to our parent volunteers who make this lunchtime run possible. I am looking forward to some more adventures with the team in Spring term! Keep running!

If anyone sees Twinkle anywhere please let her know I am looking for her! This photo was found in my office. Can you believe that she had the nerve to kick back and relax - with her feet on my desk?! I will be firm but fair, I promise; but something has to be done about this. All information or help appreciated! Well done all for a fabulous Elf day in support of Alzheimer's UK! 

Well done to our 6 year 5 and 6 pupils who represented the school so well at the Bridge Schools' interschools football tournament on Thursday. They showed all of our values and encouraged each other right to the end finishing with a well-deserved win in the final game. Well done to you all for  really going for it and working as a team so well!