Year Five
Dear Year Five Families,
We'd like to extend our thanks and appreciation to you all for supporting your children as the term continues. As we near the end of the term with a fortnight left, we encourage our students to maintain focus and keep up the effort.
Literacy
In Literacy, Year Five students are delving into how authors use perspective and voice to shape meaning. Using the mentor text Can I Be Your Dog?, students are exploring the differences between first- and third-person narration and considering how this impacts the reader’s connection to characters and events. They are also developing their fluency and expression through Reader’s Theatre, learning how tone and intonation bring characters to life.
Book Clubs are continuing, giving students the chance to practise their skills as confident communicators—summarising, questioning, predicting, and clarifying as they read and discuss texts in groups. Alongside this, our writing program is focused on persuasive devices. Students are learning how techniques such as rhetorical questions, emotive language, repetition, and the “rule of three” can strengthen their writing. They are experimenting with applying these in a variety of speech forms, inspired by famous speeches, TED Talks, and even jingles, while also practising correct tense use in grammar activities.
Unit of Inquiry
We have now begun our new inquiry unit under the transdisciplinary theme “How We Organise Ourselves.” The central idea for this unit is: Consumer choices may be influenced by a range of factors.
Students are investigating what drives people to make certain choices when purchasing goods or services. They are learning how advertising and marketing strategies—such as emotional appeal, humour, and celebrity endorsements—shape decision-making. By analysing real-world case studies and advertisements, students are beginning to identify how factors like price, brand, quality, peer influence, and ethics interact when consumers make choices. This unit will give students the opportunity to reflect on their own decision-making and think critically about the messages they see in everyday media.
Mathematics
In Mathematics, our focus has shifted from fractions and decimals to measurement and geometry concepts. Students have been developing their understanding of key measurement language and units, learning when to apply terms such as length, mass, capacity, perimeter, area, and volume. They are applying this knowledge through hands-on investigations and problem-solving tasks.
Students are learning to calculate the perimeter of regular and composite shapes, using strategies such as addition and multiplication. From there, they are exploring the concept of area, beginning with regular rectangles and squares before moving into composite and irregular shapes. By breaking shapes into smaller, manageable parts and applying formulas, students are building confidence in tackling more complex measurement problems. These activities also encourage them to estimate, reason, and justify their answers, strengthening both accuracy and critical thinking.
General Reminders
The use of MacBooks at school are to be for school approved purposes ONLY. VPN's are strictly forbidden and students are required to follow the Saltwater College ICT User Agreement that both Students and Parents have signed.
Please ensure MacBooks are fully charged each day.
Homework should be completed and returned each fortnight on Google Classroom.
Students are expected to read every night
Arrive on time to maximise learning – classrooms open at 8:20 a.m. and learning begins at 8:30 a.m.
Upcoming events
We have three upcoming events for our Year level
Dreamcity Incursion- connecting to UOI 6, this incursion is filled with VR, sports science and electrical engineering. This is available for approval and payment on Xuno now and is due in Week 9.
Beach program- our Year 5 swimming program will occur at the end of Term 4 and is available for payment on Xuno now. Please see dates under the 'Important Dates' section of the newsletter
Life Ed Incursion will also happen at the end of Term 4. More information will be communicated shortly.
As we head towards the end of Term, we’re excited to keep building on the learning, experiences, and opportunities that have made this such a memorable time for our Year Five Students!
Warm regards,
The Year Five Team