Meet the team:
Mrs Khawaja (Class Teacher Wednesday-Friday)
Mrs Gair (Class Teacher Monday and Tuesday)
Mrs Grimley (Teaching Assistant AM only)
Welcome to Sycamore Class (Years 5 and 6) – sometimes known as Upper Key Stage 2. We like to work hard and play hard, learning lots of exciting things and having fun whilst doing it!
Our English and Maths lessons are taught in accordance with the National Curriculum. In English, we teach all elements of writing through our topic. We explore a range of fiction and non-fiction texts and ensure books are chosen which captivate and engage the children. Some of our class reads have included ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ by Michelle Magorian, ‘Floodland’ by Marcus Sedgwick and ‘Who Let The Gods Out?’ by Maz Evans. Through these texts, the children learn how to write in the style of certain authors and a range of different literary techniques to include and improve their writing. We teach spelling four times a week using the Spelling Shed scheme, which ensure full coverage of the spelling rules children in Upper Key Stage 2 are required to learn and revise in preparation for SATS. Specific grammar lessons ensure that the children are able to incorporate all of the necessary features in their writing, to be formally assessed at the end of their primary school journey.
In Maths, we follow the White Rose scheme and very successfully merge the Year 5 and 6 curriculum together so that all children are appropriately supported and challenged. We like to keep our mental maths ticking over every day, with the children practising a range of mental strategies to keep them in tiptop shape for SATS!
Geography and History are taught through our termly topics, which are: World War Two, Rivers, Rainforests, Ancient Greeks, Extreme Earth and Stratford-Upon-Avon. The children enjoy learning through a range of learning styles and where possible, a trip or visit is planned to enhance their understanding and enjoyment of the topic.
In the afternoons, children also learn about various elements of Science, Art and Design, Computing, Music, French and PE. In the latter, one session per week is taught by a specialist sports coach and the other by the class teacher. Sycamore Class are also given the opportunity to participate in Bikeability, the Sports Hall Challenge and area athletics.
As a Church of England school, we partake in weekly class worship, as well as worshipping collectively as a school, and our RE lessons are supported by the Warwickshire Agreed Syllabus and the Understanding Christianity programme of study. In PSHE, we use the Jigsaw scheme weekly and the Taking Care Project once a term to look at Protective Behaviours, learning our bodies’ early warning signs of feeling unsafe and how to deal with this.
After all our hard work, the children participate in three days of outward bound learning at the Pioneer Centre, where they learn archery, abseiling and rafting skills. We love to see their confidence blossom on this residential trip, which greatly helps with transition to secondary schools. Wootton feeds into many schools, which often sees the children go their separate ways, so to commemorate their time here, we put on the much-loved (tear-inducing!!) leavers’ play at the end of the Summer term.
Phew! That’s quite a lot to fit into school life isn’t it?! But we strive to ensure that all children enjoy an active and engaging curriculum where they will enjoy developing new skills and knowledge.
Thank you for visiting our class page – we hope you enjoyed learning about life in Sycamore!
