Year 5/6 Term 1 Overview

Year 5/6 Term One   

Welcome back to the 2022 school year! It has been an exciting start to the year, with everyone glad to be back learning in person! It’s been fantastic to see the students already challenging their thinking and working collaboratively with one another. 

Rhett Masters and Emma Pattison are our 5/6 classroom teachers this year.  Our senior teaching team is supported by Julie Carroll and Ruby Schneider this year as the Learning Support Officers for our learning area. 

Food

The Year 5/6 students eat a fruit/vegetable snack each morning around 10am. Children are reminded that they are not allowed to share food from their lunchboxes at school.

Please do not put sweet treats in their lunchboxes as we encourage healthy eating and use small containers instead of plastic wrappings. Thanks for your support with this.

Religious Education

In Religious Education, this learning will be closely aligned with a focus on the Catholic Social Teaching - Preferential Option for the Poor. In this unit, students will explore themes such as fair share of the Earth’s resources and associated social injustices as a result.  We will also have a focus on the season of Lent, including the Project Compassion stories and the ways we can make a difference to those less fortunate than ourselves. 

Inquiry

Our first term unit of learning will have an Economics focus. Students will focus on the difference between needs and wants and understand the role they play as consumers. This will lead to a project focused around the following key questions:

• Why do I have to make choices as a consumer?
• Why are there trade-offs associated with making decisions?
• Why do businesses exist and how do they provide me with goods and services?
• What factors influence my choices and what are the possible effects of my consumer and financial choices?
• What enterprising behaviours and capabilities do I have?
• Why do people work? 

English

This term, the senior students will develop their reading comprehension, speaking and listening and writing skills through our weekly literacy rotations. Our literacy rotations will be guided by our recent comprehension assessment and students will be exposed to a variety of text types, word study activities (vocabulary, spelling, punctuation and grammar) and online activities including Behind the News  and Reading Eggs, as part of this learning. In teacher focus groups, students will discuss ideas and share their opinions relating to various topics and texts, as we address specific comprehension needs for each student's learning. 

This term in Writing the Year 5/6 students will be focusing on creating persuasive texts. This will include using strong persuasive strategies in their writing to convince the reader, such as, expert knowledge, facts and statistics, appeal to emotions, personal experience and sense of urgency.  

Mathematics 

The following curriculum will be taught this term: 

Whole numbers: Place Value 

• Students will identify and describe factors and multiples of whole numbers to solve problems. 
• They will use estimation and other efficient strategies, including the use of digital technologies, to solve problems.

Addition and Subtraction: 

• Students will use efficient mental and written strategies to solve addition and subtraction problems involving four and five digit numbers. 
• Students will use estimation to check the reasonableness of their answers. 

Statistics and Probability: Data 

• Students will pose questions and collect categorical or numerical data by observation or survey. 
• They will construct displays with and without the use of digital technologies and describe and interpret different data sets in context. 

Social Emotional Learning

This term in SEL our whole school focus is on Self Awareness. For Year 5/6 students this will include exploring the links between their emotions and behaviour. 

Students will learn to recognise and name different emotions in themselves and others, identifying the body language and facial expressions often displayed when you are feeling a certain way. They will name positive and negative emotions and discuss how these can have different effects on us. 

Home Learning

Home learning will once again be given to students in the 5/6 area on a fortnightly basis beginning in week 4 of this term.  Students will be required to complete all compulsory activities and 3 of the free choice activities, continuing the same structure they are familiar with. We see home learning as a terrific opportunity for students to develop and improve in their organisation and time management skills and greatly appreciate family support with this. 

Weekly Timetable

Specialist classes of Performing Arts and Visual Arts will be on Friday mornings in 2022. Students should have left their art smock at school at the end of last year - please return if taken home. Students will participate in Chinese language studies on a Wednesday. Students will need to wear their sport uniform on Wednesdays and Fridays for PE and Sport lessons respectively. 

Please note in your calendars: 

Meet and Greet  - Thursday 11 February

Twilight Sports   - Monday 7 March                          

Year Six Camp     - Monday 28 February - Wednesday 2 March

All other school dates will be on the Skool Bag app and in the school newsletter.

Communication

Effective communication between family and school is an important factor in a student’s learning. Please make contact with us if you have any questions, comments or concerns.  

We will endeavour to respond to emails within 24 hours, during weekdays.

rmasters@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au  

epattison@sjmitcham.catholic.edu.au

Please make sure that you have the Skoolbag App, as many school notices and reminders will be sent via the App. 

https://skoolbag.com.au/web/?schoolid=22726

Many thanks,

Emma Pattison and Rhett Masters