Parents Evening 

You can book these directly with me via email Katy.Cripps@barleyclose.org.uk 

I am doing any afternoon/early even time that week, via Zoom. Just let me know when is good for you and I will book you a slot. 

Thanks Miss Cripps. 

Spellings

For Thursday 

10 spellings - invention, division, permission, action, decision, politician, occasion, admission, competition, musician. 

6 spellings - division, action, competition, musician, decision, permission

Other - with, people, because, who, been, which

Week ending 16th October 

A great but busy week in school and the tiredness of getting back into school after the shutdown is starting to show. Please try and encourage some self care for the children with early nights, healthy food and lots of down time. We still have next week to go and with all the talk of Covid circuit breakers etc it adds to our anxiety and stress levels so all take some time to look after yourselves. 

This week in maths we covered Telling the Time - this is a skill lots of the children or not secure on. They need to be able to use a clock face and tell the time to the minute. If your child isn't sure then please use MyMaths to help fill this gap and practise at home as much as you can. A great half term activity is to make a time table of your days and use a clock face to work out timings. You can extend by adding in durations (how long does something take) and 24 hour clocks. 

In English we are looking at relative pronouns to add a relative clause. The pronouns are who, which, whom, whose, that and they could be used in a sentence such as Peter, who lived in a library, was searching for a special book. This one is based on our class book How to Live Forever. 

Next week we are going to try to take it gently, remember Friday is an inset day so no school for you guys. 

Rest well this weekend and see you on Monday 

Miss Cripps.

Thank you for all my get well soons and a fab welcome back after a week of a really nasty cold. 

It was really lovely to see all the children again and they were so pleased to see me, it was really nice to come back to. I missed them all too and we have had a busy but fun week so far. 

Sorry - I didn't up date the page while I was off then it has been so busy for the past two days I have kept not getting to it. Very sorry if you have been looking for the spellings for this week. 

Some children have the full 10, some have up to and including deflate and some have the 5 spellings. 

Wednesdays

We have an extra health and fitness session on Wednesdays so please can the children wear their PE kit on Wednesdays as well for the next few weeks. Thanks 

Spellings for Friday

Spellings x 5 

Great Week! 

We had a great week in Elephants this week. 

So much great learning going on, we are moving forward all the time. The children are building lots of excellent learning behaviours and really getting stuck into any tasks! 

This week we have covered Addition and Subtraction in maths, including word problems and two step word problems. If the children need any practise check out My Maths. 

In writing we wrote a diary entry, with subordinating conjunctions  to make clauses. 

They really are a lovely class and we are having lots of fun as well as working hard. 

Miss Cripps

PS Please remember that we need to keep the class room ventilated due to Covid guidance. So it will be colder as time goes on, lots of layers such as base layers or thermals might be needed to keep us all going! 

PPS Please feel free to email me with questions, concerns, if you need anything katy.cripps@barleyclose.org.uk 

Spellings for Friday

We are looking at the year 4 pre-fixes "inter" and "anti" this week, these were missed during lockdown so we are covering now. 

Inter means between and Anti means against. 

Spellings: 

international, anticlockwise, interfere, antibiotic, interrupt, intergalactic, antidote, intervene, antihistamine, intertwine. 

5 spellings/Y2 level

because, great, break, again, who

We are practising in class but please practise at home as well for our test on Friday. Thank you! 

Great Week

We had a good week in Elephants last week, we are really getting stuck into our learning and you can already see progress in the children's books. We are a great herd!! 

Our only "problem" seems to be play times, can you all please have a chat about playing without touching each other, we have covered this in school but we still have lots of children who are getting far too close and in far too much contact with each other. Games like tag are fine but that is about it to be honest. We are aware that it can be dull and we have got Mr Quirk on a Thursday to teach us some playground games and help us to work over this issue. Thank you. 

A reminder to check last weeks post about homework as we are starting to check on Reading from this week. 

This week coming in Maths we are working on addition and subtraction, extra practise is available on MyMaths if the children need a reminder of what to do but they have been on fire in maths this week! 

English we are looking at writing a short Diary Entry about the our book The Promise from the view of the main character. We are starting to use clauses and subordinating conjunctions, again if you google you will find lots of examples to help. 

I am sure we will have another brilliant week in Elephants, please email any problems or concerns. It is really hard to talk with social distancing at the door. 

Enjoy the weekend. 

Miss Cripps

Spellings for test on Friday 18th 

10 spellings

address, different, eight, favourite, heard, minute, remember, separate, through, weight

5 spellings 

because, every, there, friend, here, should

Spellings, reading, times tables and homework expectations

We have some changes to these systems to reflect the Covid guidelines and also some have changed to bring us in line with other schools local. So below is an outline for you: 

Spellings

These cannot come home so each week they will be on the webpage (here) and in the window of the classroom. The children stick them into their spelling book and have some time to practise in class but you still need to practise at home. We will have a spelling test on a Friday. 

Reading

We have a new reading scheme in school and each child will have a book from the scheme. These have to stay in school and we will make time in class for reading. They look like a great range of books and I am sure everyone will find something to enjoy. We will mark this in the yellow reading records which also need to stay in school. 

At home we have Reading Eggs (Year 5 need to use the Reading Eggspress part of the system) 

This is an online system with books and then questions to show our understanding of what we have read. Children gain points and then can buy things for their characters. There are a huge range of books on offer, classics, non fiction so your child can follow their interests. 

We ask that children read four times a week, or 45 minutes in total over the week.

We will can check this on the Reading Eggs system and so this is the way will we monitor this and then add children who have completed this target to our reading wall of fame. 

If you are reading at home not with reading eggs, please email me to let me know so I can still add your child's achievement to the wall. katy.cripps@barleyclose.org.uk 

Maths

Children should play on Times Tables Rockstars, as much as possible. Every day for 5 to 10 minutes is great. Times tables really under pin our maths in Year 5 and 6 so this is a really good way to get that instant recall. We should know all our tables from 1 to 12. We will do Times Tables Rockstars (TTRS) in class as well in the form of a paper test. 

MyMaths is also available, I will add blocks for each week to match what we are doing in class so the children can practise or show off their skills at home. 

Our homework systems at Barley Close are really simple and easy. It can be a struggle to fit it in to our home lives and the children may not want to do it. Try to make it part of your routine at home and start as you mean to go on. The children really benefit from reading and times tables rock stars and these take about 15 minutes a day. Let me know if you have issues with any of the systems. 

First Full Week! 

We had a great first full week in school, Elephant Class is going to have an amazing year. 

We have completed lots of actual school type work with lots of smiles and we have really enjoyed. 

We are all really tired though, it is busy. So please make sure your amazing children get plenty of rest this weekend, they deserve it! 

We took time this week to get into our routines, so we did have some mindful session and a self care afternoon. We were just to tired for any more learning to go in, so we took care of ourselves and did some colouring, word searches, mazes, maths puzzles etc and just made sure we were okay so we could tackle the next day with success. It is also great for me and the other adults in class to chat to the children and get to know them all a bit better. We won't be doing this all year but we will take time at the moment if we need to, as we need to build back up after the lockdown. Please make sure you do the same at home, to take care of all of you as well. We talked very maturely about this idea of "self care" in class and understand how important it is to our well being to pause and to look after us. 

We really did have a lovely week and I can't wait for more to follow, 

Miss Cripps

Great start to 2020 - 2021

We have made a great start to the new school year in Elephants. Even with all the changes and the past few months we are well on our way to be settled into school life again. 

We have kept it all very simple this week and will start to move forwards in little steps to make sure we are all feeling positive. 

Today packs came home, these were packed by the children and you can choose if you want to leave for 48/72 hours for germs depending on your household. In the pack is a quick letter and then the log ins to the online systems we have. These will be our main form of homework, but please don't think there is a rush to start these, its a lot of change coming back to school and we don't need to rush and get overwhelmed. We will talk more about this as the term goes on. 

PE is a Monday and a Friday. At the moment it might be a sport or it might be fun games, as you can imagine we are finding our feet with the PE equipment and how it needs to be cleaned etc. Sorry for this slight delay. 

We have had a positive start to the year and give those children a huge hug to say well done, they have been amazing and dealt with all the changes and new systems really well. 

I am sure it is a sign of an amazing time together in Elephant Class. 

Please do email me about any issues or concerns, it is really hard to socially distance and talk about issues at the door and so please email if needed. My email is Katy.Cripps@barleyclose.org.uk 

Have a great weekend and see you on Monday, 

Miss Cripps 

Welcome to Year 5

We hope you are enjoying the summer holidays! 

Miss Cripps, Mrs Hyde and Mrs Popel are really looking forward to getting back into school routines, we have missed Team Barley Close so much during lockdown. We have been into school and we can now say the classrooms are looking ready (if a bit different) for welcoming our new Year 5's back in September. 

If you are starting to get bored, remember it never hurts to do some reading or a bit of maths work to keep your brain active. There are so many free games for maths, spelling apps and reading is everywhere! Please don't worry about being "rusty" with any school work, we are all in the same situation so we will ease back in and soon get ourselves back up to speed. 

We can't wait to see you in September and we are all looking forward to our school year together. Year 5 is the best! 

Miss Cripps, Mrs Hyde and Mrs Popel 

Year 5 Elephants and Rhino teachers.