Grade 5
Grade 5 Term 4 Curriculum News 2020
General Comment
This Term Newsletter will provide you with information about your children’s upcoming teaching and learning experiences in the new term. These newsletters are provided to all parents across the school, so that everyone is aware of the great things happening at our school, even if you don’t have a child in this level. Of course, you may choose to read only those Newsletters affecting your children. There is also plenty of additional information provided via Compass throughout the school year, so please make a point of touching base regularly.
When we think of the character traits and qualities we hope to instil in our young learners, a few come to mind – persistence, resilience and kindness. Over the past two terms, our Grade 5 learners have demonstrated their ability to rise above the ongoing pressures of isolation and remote learning and adapt in ways we’ve never seen before. Their commitment to completing online learning tasks, responding to feedback and pushing themselves to improve has been inspiring. We observed many writing skills develop as students experimented with characterisation, description, language features and improved punctuation. We celebrated a range of authors and their texts and analysed the structure and impact of many narratives. Results in maths were overwhelming, with many students achieving growth well above expectation! Despite the physical space between teachers and students, we can all reflect on remote learning as being the best possible experience given the challenges we faced. Teachers ought to be commended on their ongoing commitment to developing high quality learning tasks. Students ought to be congratulated on their engagement levels each and every day.
As Term 4 begins, we will inevitably hit the ground running. Literacy and numeracy assessments will begin immediately, allowing teachers to gain a greater insight into the individual needs of every child. Our teaching and learning program will continue to be rich, ensuring student learning is targeted. The term is going to busy, but incredibly exciting. We are hopeful that the ‘downward trend’ continues and we will be able to finish the year on-site, surrounded by friends and peers.
The Grade 5 teachers would like to thank all families for their incredible support and flexibility throughout this difficult time. We look forward to working together for the remainder of the year to ensure all children succeed!
Numeracy
In Term 4, students will have an opportunity to extend their learning about location, transformation and angles, including symmetry, grid references and mapping. We will continue to teach a range of problem solving skills throughout the term and provide opportunities for students to practise and apply many multiplication, division, addition and subtraction strategies in various open and closed settings.
Literacy
Students will continue to participate in sustained independent reading throughout Term 4. They will have ownership over the texts they choose to read and will establish and review reading goals through teacher-student conferences and peer discussions. We hope to see many students inspired by the texts they read and use these to develop their own identities as authors. Our writing sessions will continue to centre on the Writing Workshop model, where students will be explicitly taught skills associated with seeding new ideas, drafting texts, revising, editing and publishing. The ‘Author’s Chair’ will be one of the many ways we continue to showcase and celebrate student learning during our literacy sessions.
Inquiry
The Inquiry theme, ‘Our Place in the World’, will continue into Term 4. Students will investigate and research many Asian countries and strengthen their knowledge of the associated cultures, rituals and celebrations.