Willow Class is home to our Year 5 and 6 children and is taught by Mr Craig Robson, with classroom support from Mrs. Emma Coverdale and Mrs. Zoe Till (Monday-Wednesday afternoons).
What we get up to in Willow Class
What a week in Willow Class looks like:
Maths
We use White Rose Maths for our scheme of learning at Summerbridge. In Willow Class, we look to build upon our existing arithmetic skills and develop our problem solving and reasoning skills with a view to being SATS and KS3 ready.
Daily arithmetic tests help us to keep our fluency skills nice and sharp as well as use of programs such as White Rose Maths Infinity and Times Table RockStars.
How can I help my child with Maths?
Your child will inevitably learn Maths in different ways from the way you did. Trying to support them at home (getting to grips with different methods) and can sometimes be problematic as a result.
The best things you can do to help your child with maths are:
- display a positive attitude towards Maths;
- support them to learn mental maths facts (such as times tables);
- show them how Maths is part of everyday life.
English
Reading
In Willow Class our focus is on building love of reading, their comprehension skills as well as further improving their technical reading ability (building on their strong foundations in Phonics; particularly by improving reading speeds). All of these will be vital life-long tools to help children make sense of the world around them and flourish.
Our class text this half-term is "Curiosity - The Story of a Mars Rover" by Markus Motum .
Every child has their own, carefully chosen school reading books which is right for their current reading level. They are encouraged to read regularly at home and to reflect on the books they have read ). They also have access to the Reading Plus online platform which helps them work on their comprehension skills and improve their reading pace at home.
Writing
Pupils learn to refine, and build upon, their existing writing skills in Willow Class; adapting their writing for a range of purposes and audiences.
Our focus piece this half-term is writing an explanatory text to NASA, advising them of the features a Mars Rover should have.
We look closely at a range of high-quality texts to inspire our high-quality writing! Pupils look in depth at the language and organisational features of different texts and text types before writing their own texts within these genres.
Pupils will recap the English grammar, punctuation and spelling skills and knowledge they have learnt previously, building new (year 5/ 6 specific content) knowledge and skills upon this prior learning.
Another key focus on the writing in Willow Class is editing. Throughout the two years they spend in Willow Class, pupils are taught a range of editing skills and given regular opportunities to edit and re-draft in depth; they are also encouraged to condut ‘mini-edits’ as they write.
Spellings
Spellings to learn are issued each Wednesday for a test on the following Wednesday morning. These are made available both as paper copies to practise at home and online using Purple Mash, where they can be accessed as a quiz.
P.E
P.E lessons are every Wednesday afternoon with Mr. Brigg.
Our two-year curriculum:
