Lent Reading Challenge Update📚

I’m delighted with the children’s response to the reading challenge so far, we’ve really got off to a great start! Each day this week, we’ve had children coming in having read their book and have requested to move on to their next book. This is amazing Year 5, keep it up! Please continue to encourage your child to read their chosen book to enable them to enjoy our book club at the end of term.

Well done to those who have already completed some of the books!🤩👏🏻

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) - Charles Emanuel

Writing Award - Corben

Maths Award - Henry

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun to explore William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This week we have begun to explore the different ‘worlds’ of the play and have begun to look at some of the main characters.

In maths the children have been working on finding cube numbers and have been using the inverse operation to solve some problems.

In RE we read how Jesus described a true disciple, using Scripture from the Bible. The children then designed their own membership card for the “True disciple club” with the required rules to follow. The children then looked again at the life of Saint Damien and had to find evidence to show that he qualified to be a true disciple of Christ.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Hayley Marie, Lilly C and Mia. Their liturgy was on the theme of The Transfiguration based on the reading from Mark 9: 2-10, which is a beautiful one to read and reflect on during Lent. In it we see Peter, James and John experience something incredible, which deepens their understanding of who Jesus really is. Their lives are changed and they experience a new beginning!

“Then a cloud appeared and covered them, and a voice came from the cloud: “This is my Son, whom I love. Listen to him!” Mark 7

In Science the children have compared the lifecycle of a reptile and a bird. The children have then looked at and labelled the parts of an unfertilised egg.

In geography the children are working with Mrs Mannix and have begun looking at their new topic on latitude and longitude.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is rounders.

In computing the children have continued to explore using a micro-bit to execute code.

Thursday 7th March World Book Day Children can come into school dressed as their favourite book characters and will need to bring in their favourite book to share and enjoy. Please note: There is no need to go out and buy anything new for the day, it’s more important to bring in a favourite book and enjoy it.

Friday 15th March Dress up for Brian House Children can come in to school in something bright, something comfy, something stripy, whatever you want to wear and remember a contribution to our charity.

Thursday 21st March School trip - Year 4 & 5 visit to the Royal Shakespeare Theatre in Stratford-Upon-Avon. Please see the letter that has come home today. A copy is attached here in case you haven’t received it. RSC visit letter.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey, Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans

"Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth" Matthew 5 : 5

Welcome back to a new half term! I hope everyone enjoyed their week at home despite the very wet weather. Thank you so much to everyone who was able to take their plant pot home and look after it last week - some of them are now beginning to flower and we are keeping the Edina trust updated with our results.

Although Ash Wednesday was during half term, on Monday we started this new half term by marking the start of Lent and receiving the ashes in church. Lent is a season of reflection and preparation before the celebrations of Easter. By observing the 40 days of Lent, or 46 if we count Sundays, we replicate Jesus Christ's sacrifice and withdrawal into the desert for 40 days. It is a time to refocus on Jesus as we look ahead to his death on the Cross at Easter and rejoice over his miraculous return. It is a time for reflecting on what we could do differently or maybe what we could do more of or less of during this time. The children have made their Lenten promises, linked to one of the Beatitudes, which are eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew . Please ask your child to share with you what their Lenten promise (linked to the Beatitude "Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the Earth" ) is and encourage them to keep this promise over Lent.

We have also decided to make some whole class promises too…

Year 5 will be collecting donations towards the end of Lent and it would be lovely if each one of us could donate just one item of clothing that is no longer needed. I will let you know when the children can bring their contribution in nearer to the end of this half term. We hope that you will be able to support us in this.

Lent Reading Challenge

We have also decided as a class to take on a class reading challenge for Lent. By the end of term, we - Year 5, Mrs McVey, Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans- will read one of three books (chosen by the children). In the last week before we break up, we will celebrate our reading achievement by sharing our thoughts on the book with a book club party. Please encourage your child to read their chosen book to enable them to enjoy our book club at the end of term. You never know, some children might even go the extra mile and end up reading all three (Now there’s a challenge!).

Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Elsie

Writing Award - Hallie

Maths Award - James

Well done to the children who took part in Schools Alive before half term and to Harriet for gaining her Bronze award music medal.

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun to explore William Shakespeare’s play A Midsummer Night’s Dream. This week we have begun to explore the different ‘worlds’ of the play and have begun to look at some of the main characters.

In maths the children have been working on finding cube numbers and have been using the inverse operation to solve some problems.

In RE we have started looking at the Beatitudes, eight blessings recounted by Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew. We also spent time making our Lenten promises.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Alexander and Henry. Their liturgy was on the theme of Lent based on the reading from Mark 1: 12-15 which describes Jesus’ temptation in the desert. The boys read prayers which helped the children to reflect on the ways they are tempted in similar ways to Jesus and how Jesus wants to help them to resist temptation and become more like the people God has created them to be.

“The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!” Mark 1:15

In Science the children have been comparing the life cycles of insects and amphibians.

In geography the children are working with Mrs Mannix and have begun looking at their new topic on latitude and longitude.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

In computing the children have been recognising coding structures and have used the micro-bit to create a polling program.

Thursday 7th March World Book Day Children can come into school dressed as their favourite book characters and will need to bring in their favourite book to share and enjoy.

Friday 15th March Dress up for Brian House Children can come in to school in something bright, something comfy, something stripy, whatever you want to wear and remember a contribution to our charity.

Thursday 21st March School trip - Look out for a letter coming home next week about an exciting trip we have planned…

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey, Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans

“Love is always patient and kind..." 1 Corinthians 13:4-7

Can you believe it that we’re already half way through Year 5? I know I can’t! Time is flying and we’ve done so much already. The children are working hard and achieving so much. Well done Year 5 for all your hard work and I hope you all enjoy your well deserved half term holiday! 😊

Edina plant project

Thank you for looking after your bulbs over the holidays! We are part of a science investigation led by the Edina project. Your child’s pot contains a daffodil bulb on one side (indicated by the letter d) and a crocus bulb (indicated by the letter c). Alongside temperature and rainfall that we have been measuring each day, when one of the bulbs flowers, we need to record the date it flowered and the height from the soil. The pot needs to be placed outside in the garden and checked on each day to see if it has flowered. Please do not water it.

If your flowers bloom, please record it and bring the information back to school when you return so we can upload it to the national database.

Daffodil       Date flowered ___________________ Height (mm) ________

Crocus        Date flowered ___________________ Height (mm) ________

Please bring your pot back after half term as the investigation will carry on for a few months.

If you weren’t able to take your pot over the holidays, please don’t worry - I will take all remaining pots home with me.

Thank you for your support in this.

St Bede’s trip

We all had a great time at St Bede’s on Wednesday, the Lion King performance was great - so many talented young people. Year 5 really enjoyed the performance and they behaved so well. Thank you for contributing to the cost of the coach, your support is very much appreciated. After half term, I will be writing to you of details of another exciting trip that we are planning, which will take place in March!

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Alexander

Writing Award - Dominic

Maths Award - Lily T

Our Reading champions

Well done to our reading champions this half term, who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. Don’t forget to keep up with your reading regularly and get your diaries signed. We will update bookmarks after half term.

When the children read regularly, we give them extra points for reading and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. Well done to Lily T, who is our golden ticket winner for this half term.

Bedrock Competition!

Well done to all of Year 5 who achieved 160 points or more on Bedrock over this last half term. I wish you all luck for the Bedrock prize draw, which will be drawn on 18th February! A big congratulations goes to our class Bedrock Champion, Hallie,  and well done to all the other children on our TOP 5 scoreboard!

Here is our TOP 5 winners on the scoreboard :

1 Hallie 419 points ⭐️Bedrock Champion ⭐️

2 Kurt 298 points

3 Gabriel 257 points

4 Layla 158 points

5 Lily T 155 points

Our learning this week…

In English the children have been planning and writing their own first person narrative setting.

In maths the children have been using factors to solve problems and been working on square numbers.

In RE we have learnt about how Jesus described a true disciple. We then looked at 1 Corinthians 13, where St Paul explains what Jesus meant by love. We read about the inspirational Saint, Saint Damien, and the children thought of examples of how he lived out this teaching.

“Love is always patient and kind; it is never jealous; love is never boastful or conceited; it is never rude or selfish; it does not take offence, and is not resentful. Love takes no pleasure in other people’s sins but delights in the truth; it is always ready to excuse, to trust, to hope, and to endure whatever comes.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-7)

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Darcy, Elsie, Emelia and James. Their liturgy was on the theme of Let Us Pray based on the reading from Mark 1: 29-39 . In the reading Jesus was invited to Simon and Andrew’s house. The children challenged the class to practise inviting Jesus to come to us in prayer, take us by the hand and help us. The children then wrote their own prayers.

“Everyone is looking for you!” Mark 1:37

In Science the children have been learning about the life cycles of mammals - placental, monotreme and marsupial mammals.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

In computing the children have used the micro-bit as a polling program to record people’s feelings about a topic.

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

On Tuesday we celebrated Safer Internet day, which takes place every year with thousands of people across the UK working together to champion youth voice and engage in conversations about how we can all work together to make the internet a great and safe place. This year’s theme was ‘Inspiring change? Making a difference, managing influence and navigating change online’.

For more information, click on the link Safer Internet Day for parents/carers

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Monkey - This free online safety guide examines the video chat service Monkey, highlighting several risks and suggesting ways to minimise them.

We hope you find this guide informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Hope you all have a lovely half term!

Mrs McVey, Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans

"Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." Mark 18: 21-22

Yesterday, we went to church for a class mass. Thank you to our readers, who all read beautifully. Father Frank talked to the children throughout the mass, explaining each part to them and explained the meaning of the Gospel reading. He had challenged the children before we went to church to think about what reconciliation means. The reading came from Mark and was about the importance of forgiving those who wrong us in order to reconcile with them and with God.

“Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?" Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.” Mark 18:21-22

Trip to St Bede’s High School - 7th February

Reminder that Year 5 will be going to St Bede’s High school to watch a matinee performance of their school production of 'The Lion King' on Wednesday 7th February. We will be travelling by coach to watch the performance, which starts at 1.30pm, and will return to school after the show finishes at about 3pm. (Please note that arrival at school will depend on traffic so we may be a little delayed beyond 3.15pm.) As we hold general consent, we do not need to send out permission forms. There is no charge for the performance but we are we are asking for a travel contribution of £3.00 per child for the cost of the coach, which can be paid through Parent Pay as soon as possible. Thank you for your support.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) - Rosie

Writing Award - Emelia

Maths Award - Mia

Our learning this week…

In English the children have continued to focus on an illustration from the book FArTHER and have used personification to describe it and have created their own personification poem . They’ve also been identifying the language features of a narrative setting in readiness to plan and write their own..

In maths the children have continued to find factors of numbers and have been identifying prime numbers.

In RE we have begun our unit on inspirational people. We have been thinking about what an inspirational person is and the qualities that they have. The children have thought about someone who they believe is an inspiration and have described why.

This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Lily T, Olivia W, Rosanna and Zahra. Their liturgy was on the theme of Listen to His Voice Today based on the reading from Mark 1: 21-28 “Jesus Drives Out an Impure Spirit”. The girls asked the class to reflect on the teaching and to think about how to respond to Jesus when we hear His voice. The children were all asked to write their own prayer to thank Jesus for always being there and to ask for help to follow His teachings. The girls have made a lovely book to hold all the prayers, which will be displayed on our worship display.

“I know who you are - the Holy One of God!” Mark 1:24

In HRSE the children have learnt that emotions change as they grow up (including hormonal effects). They have deepened their understanding of the range and intensity of their feelings and we have discussed how feelings are not good guides for action. The children have also recognised that openness with trusted parents/carers/teachers when worried ,helps with healthy emotional well-being.

In Science the children have thought about the process of asexual reproduction in plants. The children have investigated bulbs, runners, tubers and cuttings. We also planted a spider plant each, which had been growing off runners in our classroom and from one that I had at home. To do our bit for the planet, we have reused the milk cartons to grow our plant in - we can thank Emelia for that fabulous idea! The children will be coming home with their spider plant next week and they will be asked to look after it. We’d love to be updated with photos over the coming months to see how they are getting on!

In geography the children are working with Mrs Mannix and have begun looking at their new topic on latitude and longitude.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

In computing the children have used the micro-bit to work out how an animation is created before programming their own.

Bedrock Competition!

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from the start of January till the 18th February. We’ll also have our own competition in class - the member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end of this half term. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 232 points

2 Gabriel 205 points

3 Kurt 159 points

4 Layla 135 points

5 Elsie. 84 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

What Parents and Carers Need to Know about Persuasive Design Online - This free online safety guide provides insight on persuasive design – highlighting its potential effect on behaviour and providing some tips to minimise its impact.

We hope you find this guide informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey, Mrs McCooey and Miss Evans

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” Mark 1:14-20

Swimming next week…

Next week the focus of the swimming is life saving skills. For this lesson, the children will need to bring with them a pair of pyjama style long trousers/ leggings and long sleeved pyjama style top/t-shirt. (NO jeans, NO onesies and NO fur /fluffy items are allowed as these will weigh heavy in the pool. They will need to wear their usual swimming costume/trunks underneath as they will remove the items of clothing during the lesson.

Trip to St Bede’s High School - 7th February

Year 5 have been invited to St Bede’s High school to watch a matinee performance of their school production of 'The Lion King' on Wednesday 7th February. We will be travelling by coach to watch the performance, which starts at 1.30pm, and will return to school after the show finishes at about 3pm. (Please note that arrival at school will depend on traffic so we may be a little delayed beyond 3.15pm.) As we hold general consent, we do not need to send out permission forms. There is no charge for the performance but we are we are asking for a travel contribution of £3.00 per child for the cost of the coach, which can be paid through Parent Pay as soon as possible. Thank you for your support.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Lilly C

Writing Award - Charles Emanuel

Maths Award - Hallie

Our learning this week…

In English the children have been focusing on an illustration from the book FArTHER and have used alliteration to describe it. The children then used these to create an alliteration poem of the chosen illustration. They’ve also been exploring unfamiliar words from a setting narrative which they will use as a model for their own writing in the coming weeks.

In maths the children have begun working on multiplication and have been looking at multiples and factors of numbers.

In our RE lesson this week the children got into groups to plan a liturgy each, which they will lead during the rest of Ordinary time up to half term and then each week of Lent leading up to Easter. This week’s prayer and liturgy was planned and led by Corben, Dominic, Peter and Tommy. Their worship was on the theme of Called to Follow. This week we heard about how Jesus called up his ten disciples to follow him and share the Good News. The boys challenged the class to think about how they could follow in Jesus’ footsteps this week.

“Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” Mark 1:14-20

In HRSE the children have deepened their understanding of the range and intensity of their feelings and that ‘feelings’ are not good guides for action. They have also learnt that some behaviour is wrong, unacceptable, unhealthy or risky .

In Science the children have dissected a flower to label the parts of a flowering plant and have described the process of pollination.

In geography the children are working with Mrs Mannix and have begun looking at their new topic on latitude and longitude.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

In computing the children have had fun this week learning about a device called a Micro:bit. They explored the blocks within the code editor to create a simple animation.

Today some children also continued to work on their sculptures inspired by the work of Alberto Guacometti. They used modroc to cover their wooden frame, which they made last week, and once each child has completed theirs over the next few weeks, they’ll be painted bronze and we’ll put them on display.

Bedrock Competition!

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from the start of January till the 18th February. We’ll also have our own competition in class - the member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end of this half term. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 156 points

2 Layla 107 points

3 Gabriel 112 points

4 Lily T 46 points

5 Dominic & Isaac 45 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Smartphone Safety Tips for Young People This information guide has tips to help young smartphone owners stay safe while enjoying using their device.

We hope you find this guide informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Hope you all have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Our week...

What a joy to wake up to snow on Tuesday! The children had a great time playing in the snow at break time…

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Darcy

Writing Award - Lola Mae

Maths Award - Olivia W

Our learning this week…

In English we have created mood palettes to describe different illustrations from the book, FArTHER, and the children have investigated the meaning of unfamiliar words from the story.

In maths the children have been interpreting and drawing line graphs.

In RE we have been making links between the commandments and our lives.

In HRSE the children learned to recognise that images in the media do not always reflect reality and can affect how people feel about themselves. They also learned thankfulness builds resilience against feelings of envy, inadequacy etc, and against pressure from peers or the media

In Science the children have recapped and demonstrated their learning on Forces and we have begun our new Science topic and have looked at labelling parts of a flowering plant and the process of pollination.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

In art the children have begun to make their sculptures, from the drawings they did last week (see their drawings below) inspired by Alberto Giacometti.

Our Year 5 prayer and liturgy this week was led by Olivia and Oscar. Their worship was on the theme of Being faithful and loyal.

“Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

Matthew 24

Bedrock Competition!

Bedrock have launched a new prize draw competition for this half term with some fantastic prizes to win. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock by 18th February. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. However, please do not complete more than one lesson per day to ensure vocabulary retention. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, like last half term we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end of this half term. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Layla 79 points

2 Hallie 70 points

3 Kurt 29 points

4 Oscar 27 points

5 Dominic 26 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Smartphone Safety Tips for Young People This information guide has tips to help young smartphone owners stay safe while enjoying using their device.

We hope you find this guide informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Hope you all have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Epiphany "We saw his star in the East and have come to worship him." Matthew 2:2

Welcome back and a very happy new year! We hope you all had a lovely Christmas and wish you all a great new year.

Yesterday we celebrated Epiphany by going to church for whole school mass. Epiphany is celebrated 12 days after Christmas on the 6th January and is the time when Christians remember the Wise Men who visited Jesus in Bethlehem after his birth.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) - Harriet

Writing Award - Zahra

Maths Award - Gabriel

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun to explore the story FArTHER, which we will use to support our development of writing a first-person setting narrative. This week the children have considered different pieces of evidence from the text to write a prediction and in small groups they have made mood palettes to describe different illustrations from the book.

In Maths this week the children have extracted information from tables and two-way tables to solve a range of problems involving four operations.

The focus of our work in RE has been on the Ten Commandments and why God gave us them. The children reflected on their importance and the difference they make to our lives.

In Science we have explored gears, levers and pulleys and have investigated how these mechanisms can allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.

In art the children have begun to look at the 3D work of Alberto Giacometti and have had a go at drawing figures inspired by his sculptures.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is gymnastics.

Our Year 5 prayer and liturgy this week was led by Hallie and Layla. Their worship was on the theme of Using your gifts from God. The girls reminded the class that the Bible encourages Christians to be “faithful stewards” of our God-given gifts. Using your talents for God can help you share God’s love.

“Yet each person has a special gift from God, of one kind or another." 1 Corinthians 7:7 

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

Top Tips for Managing Screen Time - This guide provides some practical tips for helping to reduce your family’s screen time and promote healthier use of their devices.

What Children & Young People Need to Know about Free Speech vs Hate Speech - This free information guide has tips to help combat hate speech online, while still respecting people’s right to free speech.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Hope you all have a lovely weekend.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Happy Christmas!

Fourth Sunday of Advent

This Sunday will mark the fourth week of Advent. We light the final purple candle to mark the final week of prayer and penance as we wait for the birth of our Saviour. The 4th Sunday of Advent symbolises Peace with the “Angel’s Candle” reminding us of the message of the angels: “Peace on Earth, Good Will Toward Men.”

Our Year 5 prayer and liturgy this week was led by Emilia, Tommy and Zahra. Their theme was Our Wonderful World and they challenged the class to thank God for the wonderful world we live.

“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good. And the evening and the morning were the sixth day. “ (Genesis 1:31 )

To keep our world beautiful and good, they reminded the children of keeping their Advent promises, which are linked to Jesus’ commandment, “Love one another as I have loved you.”

‘Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” ‘

Great Team Work!

Space Rocket challenge…

Year 5 have worked hard in their teams to complete the Space Rocket challenge. Many of our groups managed to earn enough points to collect prizes, which also included having popcorn with a Christmas film this morning. Well done to the winning team, Lunar Foxes B, who will receive their prize in January.

The children earned points for their team by making good choices, completing homework, being great role models around school and for daily reading and getting their diaries signed. Well done Hallie and Lola Mae!

Our Lunar buggies work…

As part of our DT work, the children were challenged to make moon buggies to end our term - I am really pleased with how hard they worked, working in their teams supporting each other and with good cooperation and collaboration. Well done Year 5! Have a look at what they did…

Our Achievements

Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Ronnie

Writing Award - Tommy

Maths Award - Emilia

Our Reading champions

Well done to our reading champions this half term, who all completed bookmarks for reading regularly at home. Let’s see if next half term we can see more reading champions. Don’t forget to keep up with your reading regularly and get your diaries signed.

When the children read regularly, we give them extra points for reading and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. Well done to Teddy, who is our golden ticket winner for this half term.

Bedrock Competition

Well done to all of Year 5 who achieved 160 points or more on Bedrock over this last half term. I wish you all luck for the Bedrock prize draw, which will be drawn on 24th December! A big congratulations goes to our class Bedrock Champion, Hallie,  and well done to all the other children on our TOP 5 scoreboard!

Here is our TOP 5 winners on the scoreboard:

1 Hallie 787 points 🎄⭐️Bedrock Champion ⭐️🎄

2 Kurt 639 points

3 Layla 358 points

4 Gabriel 287 points

5 Isaac 214 points

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Top Tips for Setting up Parental Controls on New Devices - This guide provides some valuable advice on setting up new devices so that children can use them safely.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Thank you to those families who were able to join us for our KS2 Advent carol service today, we hope you enjoyed it. We wish you all a wonderful happy and Holy Christmas 🎄and we hope you all stay safe and well and have a great start to the New Year. See you all in the new year!

A reminder of Our Lady’s Church Christmas masses can be found at the following link Christmas card Father Chris has said that the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass is a favourite amongst families and they would be very happy if children wished to attend dressed as characters from the Nativity.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Third Sunday of Advent

The 3rd week of Advent is all about Joy! The Sunday which marks the first day of this third week is also known as ‘Gaudete Sunday’ which means Rejoice!

We focus on the theme of Joy because we are starting to realise how close we are to Christmas day and Jesus’ coming and so we really are beginning to become excited. The priest will wear pink vestments on this Sunday so that we can see that the celebration is more joyful and encourages us to continue preparing for the coming of Jesus.

Christmas Masses

Father Chris has sent a Christmas card from all the priests containing the mass times for over the Christmas period for The Parish of Guardian Angels, Blackpool Incorporating: St John Vianney, St Cuthbert & Our Lady of the Assumption. Father Chris has said that the Christmas Eve Vigil Mass is a favourite amongst families and they would be very happy if children wished to attend dressed as characters from the Nativity. Christmas card

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Olivia S

Writing Award - Zahra

Maths Award - Kurt

Space Rocket challenge

Year 5 are continuing to work in teams to complete the Space Rocket challenge. Many of our groups have already earned over 60 points and won 3 prizes for their team by making good choices, completing homework, being great role models around school and for daily reading and getting their diaries signed. The chart shows the team points earned up till Thursday evening. Please ask your child about their team’s points and encourage them to earn as many points as they can over the next week. Prizes are awarded for all teams when they have reached 20, 40, 60 and 80 points and a prize will also be won by the first team(s) to reach 100 points. Good luck Rocket teams!

Our learning this week…

In English the children have been working really hard. They have been learning to write more complex sentences using subordinate clauses and relative clauses. The children have also planned out their writing of a formal lunar landing report and have begun their big write.

In maths the children have been solving problems using both formal and mental strategies for addition and subtraction.

In RE we have been learning about the exodus of the Israelites led by Moses. The children considered the actions of Moses and how his beliefs were expressed in his actions.

In Design and Technology the children worked on one of three challenges in preparation for a group project next week. Take a look at the work they did…

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

In swimming this term, the children have been working hard and have made some great progress. To celebrate the children’s achievements, the children were treated to a funs session of water polo and then they got to play with different floats and swim rings. Well done Year 5! Swimming will resume on Tuesday 9th January.

Our Year 5 prayer and liturgy this week was led by Henry and Isaac. Their theme was Follow in Jesus’ footsteps. The boys reminded the class of their Advent promises and how we should all follow in Jesus’ example.

‘Then Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” ‘

Bedrock Competition!

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 160 or more points in total using Bedrock from 30th October till the 24th December.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 612 points

2 Kurt 554 points

3 Layla 325 points

4 Gabriel 242 points

5 Isaac 188 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Dates for your diary…

Wednesday 20th December - Christmas meal & Christmas jumper day Children are invited to wear their own clothes for the day, and this can include Christmas jumpers, dresses or accessories if they would like - but please don't buy anything especially. We would like to support Save The Children with the Christmas jumper day, and will add a voluntary contribution of £1 to Parentpay for donations to this charity nearer the time.

Thursday 21st December at 2.15pm - KS2 Advent Service in Church.

Parents are invited to celebrate the KS2 Advent Service with us over at Our Lady’s Church. We will be singing some Christmas carols as we tell the story of the Nativity. We’d love to see you there if you can make it.

Hope you all have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Second Sunday of Advent

This Sunday marks the second Sunday of Advent. The second Sunday of Advent symbolises Faith with the “Bethlehem Candle” reminding us of Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem. There is comfort to be found when we pause to read, pray, and reflect over the course of the Advent season...a time when believers eagerly anticipate the celebration of Christ’s birth. The second Sunday of Advent gives us the opportunity to prepare our hearts in faithful waiting, celebrate the birth of Jesus, and ready ourselves for his second coming. It's a beautiful chance to reflect on the ways prophecy has been fulfilled and to ponder what the future (promised to us through prophecies) will bring.

This afternoon we had a lovely Advent prayer and reflection led by Father who came to talk to the children about how we can pray and talk to God. He showed the children different ways they can pray such as through music and smell using incense,. He said when we burn incense, it is a sign our prayers are going up to Heaven. Father also talked about the different prayers that we can say to God: thanks, please and sorry. The children were given a piece of paper and wrote either a thank you prayer or a ‘please’ prayer and then put it in a container, which Father will take over to church to burn in a special container to send our prayers to Heaven. Each of the children also received a chocolate coin wrapped in foil which represented a person who we needed to say sorry to. The children took off the foil and said a sorry prayer and then screwed up the foil to throw away the sin. Father reminded us that in Matthew it says, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) - Lola Mae

Writing Award - Oscar

Maths Award - Layla

Our learning this week…

In English we have been identifying the language features of a formal report and have been writing sentences using modal verbs.

In maths the children have been using mental strategies for addition and subtraction.

In RE we have learnt about the Covenant that God made with Abraham. We considered what Abraham had to do to keep the covenant and what helped Abraham overcome the challenges

In Science the children have investigated the effects of water resistance.

In Spanish the children have been learning to respond to the question, ¿Tienes hermanos? (Do you have brothers or sisters?).

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

In DT the children have begun to think of vehicles and were challenged to make a moving chassis.

Our Year 5 prayer and liturgy this week was led by Darcy and Lily. Their worship was on the theme of Let your light shine! The girls reminded the class of how they can let their own lights shine this advent by living out their advent promise and Jesus’ commandment, “Love one another as I have loved thee.”

“Then Jesus said, If you are good, you will be like a candle that shines brightly for everyone to see.“ Matthew

Bedrock Competition!

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 160 or more points in total using Bedrock from 30th October till the 24th December.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Kurt 435 points

2 Hallie 415 points

3 Layla 260 points

4 Isaac 164 points

5 Elsie 143 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Disney+ This guide examines the hugely popular streaming service Disney+ for potential risks, giving advice on how to avoid them.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Dates for your diary…

Wednesday 20th December Christmas meal & Christmas jumper day Children are invited to wear their own clothes for the day, and this can include Christmas jumpers, dresses or accessories if they would like - but please don't buy anything especially. We would like to support Save The Children with the Christmas jumper day, and will add a voluntary contribution of £1 to Parentpay for donations to this charity nearer the time.

Thursday 21st December at 2.15pm - KS2 Advent Service in Church.

Parents are invited to celebrate the KS2 Advent Service with us over at Our Lady’s Church. We will be singing some Christmas carols as we tell the story of the Nativity. We’d love to see you there if you can make it.

Hope you all have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

"Advent is a journey towards "Bethlehem. May we let ourselves be drawn by the light of God made man." Pope Francis

This Sunday will mark the first Sunday in Advent, which symbolises Hope with the “Prophet’s Candle” reminding us that Jesus is coming. In Year 5 we have been learning about Advent and have thought about the special Advent promises they want to make to prepare themselves for the Nativity of Christ at Christmas. Advent is a time to consider how we can be of service to others and so all of their promises are linked to Jesus’ Commandment “Love one another as I have loved you.” . We have put these on display to remind us of our promises. Please ask your child to share their promise with you.

Over the next few weeks, until we break for Christmas, I have introduced a challenge to the class to encourage the children to work together in harmony over the advent season. The children are working as part of a team, chosen by them, to earn points for making the right choices, following our school values of CARE, LEARN and RESPECT, and for reading and completing their homework. The teams have got off to a good start and I would appreciate it if you could encourage your child to do their best for themselves and their team. Good luck Year 5!

Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Oscar

Writing Award - Elsie

Maths Award - Teddy

Our learning this week…

In English we have read through a good example of a formal report and have summarised each paragraph and have identified the text structure.

In maths the children have been using rounding to estimate and check the answer to subtractions and additions.

In RE we have considered why God chose Noah, what our part in the covenant is and what the symbol God gave us to show his promise to never flood the world again.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by James and Ronnie. Their worship was on the theme of Forgiveness and they shared one of Jesus’ most famous parables The Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11-32). The boys reminded Year 5 of how the Father is like God - always ready to forgive - and how the Sons’ are like us.

“For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ “ Luke 15:24

Bedrock Competition!

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 160 or more points in total using Bedrock from 30th October till the 24th December.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Kurt 435 points

2 Hallie 330 points

3 Isaac 142 points

4 Elsie 126 points

5 Dominic 111 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Dates for your diary…

8th December Coffee afternoon in the church hall . This is a follow up from the successful SEND afternoon and will focus on deciding what professional parents would like to hear from and areas that they need support in.  Mrs Ormerod will speak about how to navigate the FYI directory and how APDR/ graduated response works in school. There will also be members of the Blackpool parent forum in attendance. They will also look at support around the cost of living. 

Wednesday 20th December Christmas meal & Christmas jumper day Children are invited to wear their own clothes for the day, and this can include Christmas jumpers, dresses or accessories if they would like - but please don't buy anything especially. We would like to support Save The Children with the Christmas jumper day, and will add a voluntary contribution of £1 to Parentpay for donations to this charity nearer the time.

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Our week...

This week we were delighted to welcome Father Frank in to our class. During this time, Year 5 asked Father religious questions related to our learning that they had been wondering about. The questions the children asked were so thoughtful and it was a wonderful opportunity for all of us to deepen our religious understanding and faith.  I was so pleased with how engaged the children were and we have let Father Frank know that we will continue to write down our difficult questions and invite him to come back next term.  Thank you Father!      

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Dominic

Writing Award - Lily T

Maths Award - Connie

Our learning this week…

In English we have worked to understand the difference between formal and informal language and we have been using our vehicle text to write in role.

In maths the children have been using the written column method to add and subtract whole numbers with more than 4 digits.

In RE we have begun to look at what covenants are and have begun to look at the covenant that God made with Noah and all his descendants (us).

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by Teddy and Gabriel. Their worship was on the theme of Taking care of animals. They spoke about how animals enrich the world and give us so much pleasure. They also reminded Year 5 how when God created the world, he called on humans to be good stewards of the Earth and look after all of God’s creatures. Teddy and Gabriel asked the children to think about how they could show care towards animals just as Saint Francis showed us.

“If you are a good shepherd you must really look after your sheep.” Ezekiel

Bedrock Competition!

Bedrock have launched a new prize draw competition for this half term with some fantastic prizes to win. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 160 or more points in total using Bedrock from the 30th October to 24th December. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. However, please do not complete more than one lesson per day to ensure vocabulary retention. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, like last half term we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end of this half term. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Kurt 370 points

2 Hallie 201 points

3 Elsie 116 points

4 Isaac 113 points

5 Dominic 85 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

Smart TVs As these internet-enabled entertainment systems rapidly become standard, find out how to guide children in using such devices safely.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Dates for your diary…

29th November School nurse visit . The drop in is for any parent who might have an issue they wish to discuss, no appointment is necessary and they will be in the hall from 9am to 10am. 

8th December Coffee afternoon in the church hall . This is a follow up from the successful SEND afternoon and will focus on deciding what professional parents would like to hear from and areas that they need support in.  Mrs Ormerod will speak about how to navigate the FYI directory and how APDR/ graduated response works in school. There will also be members of the Blackpool parent forum in attendance. They will also look at support around the cost of living. 

Wednesday 20th December Christmas meal & Christmas jumper day Children are invited to wear their own clothes for the day, and this can include Christmas jumpers, dresses or accessories if they would like - but please don't buy anything especially. We would like to support Save The Children with the Christmas jumper day, and will add a voluntary contribution of £1 to Parentpay for donations to this charity nearer the time.

Free opportunity for children - Parks Tennis

This runs every Saturday 10am-11am at Stanley Park. These sessions are free to play and all equipment is provided so a great opportunity for families to give tennis a go! Parks Tennis flyer

Have a great weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Jeff Kinney visits Our Lady's!

Yesterday was so exciting… we had a visit from the world-renowned author and cartoonist, Jeff Kinney. Jeff Kinney is the writer of the bestselling “Diary of a Wimpy Kid” series - a favourite of many of the children. This had all been made possible as part of our work to re-launch our library space in conjunction with the National Literacy Trust. Jeff came in and hosted The No Brainer Show , which was game show-style and several of the children, and some teachers, were invited to join Jeff at the front to play the games and a chance to win his new Diary of a Wimpy Kid book No Brainer. Have a look at all the fun we had…

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) -

Writing Award -

Maths Award -

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun a new unit of writing. This week the children have worked in small groups to create a radio transcript of a moon landing and have explored new vocabulary from our vehicle text.

In maths the children have been using the written column method to add whole numbers with more than 4 digits.

In RE, the children have been looking at the life of Saint Francis and have been thinking about how it could shape the way they treat the world and everything in it.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In Spanish we have consolidated the nouns and definite articles/determiners for members of the family in Spanish and to learn how to use the possessive adjective ’my’ in Spanish with increasing accuracy and understanding.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by Lilly and Corben. Their worship was on the theme of Peace. They reminded Year 5 that the Bible commands us to seek peace and says that peacemakers are blessed. Well done Lilly and Corben!

“Peace I leave with you:my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” John 14:27

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

microtransactions – those in-app or in-game purchases which can tempt young users into regular online spending.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Enjoy your weekend everyone!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

Lest we forget...

"Lest we forget" Remembrance day

Tomorrow at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month, it marks the signing of the Armistice – an agreement to end the First World War. This week Year 5 have spent time thinking about all those people in the armed forces who have sacrificed so much to protect their country and we made our own poppies and wrote a prayer of remembrance. This morning we joined the whole school in a remembrance assembly, led by Year 6, to hold one minutes silence as a sign of respect.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (RESPECT) - Gabriel

Writing Award - Peter

Maths Award - Charles Emanuel

Our learning this week…

In English the children have been writing their own exploration narratives and I’ve been really impressed with the work they’ve done so far. It’s been lovely to see the careful vocabulary choices they have made and the descriptions they have included to give clear pictures to the reader. I look forward to reading the finished versions. 😊

In maths the children have learnt about negative numbers and their relationship with positive numbers and have counted forwards and backwards in steps of 10, 100, 1,000 and 10,000 to identify number sequences.

In RE, the children have been looking at the life of Saint Francis and have been thinking about the things that he did that made him a good steward of creation.

The focus of our science lessons this half term is Forces. This week they have investigated gravity and the influence gravity has on the universe. They have also explored the life and work of Isaac Newton.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by Mia and Rosie. Their worship was on the theme of Faith and making time for God. They reminded Year 5 that when we make time for God, and even if we don’t know what to say, the Holy Spirit will help us. Well done Mia and Rosie!

“Keep my soul in peace before you, O Lord.” Psalm 130

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guide gives helpful advice about…

microtransactions – those in-app or in-game purchases which can tempt young users into regular online spending.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Saints are not "supermen" who are "born perfect," but rather are ordinary people who followed God "with all their heart." Pope Francis

To begin our new half term, the whole school went to mass to celebrate the feast of All Saints. All Saints’ Day is celebrated every year on 1st November; it is a holy day in the Catholic Church, celebrating the saints of the church as well as those saints who have not yet been recognised. The 1st of November also marked Our Lady’s School’s 70th birthday, so it was a lovely start to this half term. During mass, Father Frank talked about how the word ‘Saint’ means holy and told the children that to be a saint is to treat others as we would treat Jesus. After mass, Year 5 gave out little notes to the parishioners, that they had decorated,  to spread kindness and shine their lights. The parishioners were then invited into school for tea, coffee and biscuits to celebrate 70 years of Our Lady’s school. On display were photographs of times gone by and amongst the parishioners were past pupils and teachers. Happy Birthday Our Lady’s school! 🥳 🥳 🥳

Now our bulbs have all been planted for the Spring Bulbs project for the Edina Trust, Year 5 will be monitoring their growth and each day two children will go out to record the temperature and the rainfall to be uploaded to the Edina Trust’s website.

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Hallie

Writing Award - Alexander

Maths Award - Tommy

Our learning this week…

In English the children have continued to plan their own exploration narratives

In maths we’ve continued to work with numbers up to 1,000,000, comparing and ordering them and rounding them to the nearest 10, 100, 1000 and 10,000.

In RE, the children have used the stories of creation in Genesis to identify what they tells us about God, the World and humans.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In Computing the children have completed an activity comparing how different Mars Rovers collect and transmit data and how the size of random-access memory (RAM) affects the processing of data (CPU).

In PE the children are working with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is invasion games: Rugby.

In PSHE we have begun a resilience programme called Bounce Forward. Bounce Forward, written by Lancashire Mind and Headstart, is a universal resilience programme, which has been designed to increase wellbeing and resilience in children across Blackpool. Bounce Forward will give the children the opportunity to improve and build up their resilience strategies and skills, in a practical and fun way. This week the focus was sharing information about themselves and thinking about what resilience is.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by Alexander and Kurt. Their worship was on the theme of Reconciliation and Peace. They reminded everyone of the importance of making things right with their friends when upset has been caused. Well done Alexander and Kurt!

15 “If your brother or sister[ sins, go and point out their fault, just between the two of you. If they listen to you, you have won them over.” Matthew 18: 15-20

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

The social media site X, highlighting the major changes since its rebrand from Twitter and the related online safety risks.

Five Nights at Freddy’s: a suspense-filled horror game which has nevertheless attracted a relatively young fan-base.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Great start back Year 5, well done!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Even a small act of kindness can make a big difference!

I can’t believe we’re already at half term, the last seven weeks seems to have flown by! The children have been working hard over this half term and it’s been lovely getting to know them. They’ve particularly enjoyed their new leadership responsibilities this year and are really rising to the challenge of supporting their Reception Buddies in assemblies and being fantastic play leaders to our KS1 children at lunch times. Well done Year 5, you’ve shown what great role models you can be to our younger children in school.

Today we had our Harvest festival and we came together as a whole school to celebrate this. Thank you for your generous contributions to our Harvest collection, it’s' very much appreciated. The tins of food (over 400 tins) will be going to a local food bank for people within the community, which I’m sure you’ll agree is a worthy cause. Thank you for your generous support!

This afternoon the children were very excited to have a visit from a therapy dog. The dog came in to visit all the children in a special assembly and after half term, he’ll be working with children in Year 2.

The 'Spring Bulbs for Schools' project with the Edina Trust

This morning Year 5 planted their bulbs, daffodils and crocuses, in their own pot and placed them in one of our school garden areas. Over the next five and a half months the children will be watching over their bulbs to see when they first flower and to collect rainfall and temperature data daily to send off to the Edina Trust. Schools all over the UK are taking part and our data will be collated with theirs to contribute to finding out the effects of climate change. Take a look at our photos…

Our award winners:

Golden Award (CARE) - Grace

Writing Award - Corben

Maths Award - Hayley Marie

Reading champion

When the children read regularly, we give them extra points for reading and then we do a draw at the end of each half term. Well done to Harriet, who is our golden ticket winner for this half term…

Bedrock Competition

Well done to all of Year 5 who achieved 140 points or more on Bedrock over this last half term. I have been delighted with the effort that many of the class have gone to, to do above and beyond the expected homework! I wish you all luck for the Bedrock prize draw! A big congratulations goes to our Bedrock Champion, Hallie, and well done to all the other children on our TOP 5 scoreboard. Well done! 👏🏻

1 Hallie 770 points ⭐️Bedrock Champion ⭐️

2 Isaac 608 points

3 Kurt 574 points

4 Gabriel 566 points

5 Elsie 281 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

Our learning this week…

In English we have begun planning our own exploration narrative ready to start our narrative when we come back. I’m really looking forward to reading these as the class have shared some lovely ideas.

In maths they’ve been continuing to develop their understanding of numbers up to 1,000,000, estimating and accurately identifying where numbers to 1,000,000 would lie on a number line and comparing and ordering numbers.

In RE, Year 5 have continued to explore consequences that the story of the Fall has had for humans.

In science we have been learning about all the other planets and how they move relative to the sun.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In Computing the children have been exploring how the Mars Rover collects and transmits data and how the size of random-access memory (RAM) affects the processing of data (CPU).

In Spanish we have continued to learn how to say the various nouns for family members.

Art - the children used chalks to create Space pictures.

In PE the children continue to work with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is leadership.

Our Year 5 worship this week was led by Elsie and Grace. Their worship was on the theme of Harvest and they asked the children to give thanks for our harvest and the food we have and reminded the class to bring in tins to contribute to our school harvest collection for the local food bank. Well done Elsie and Grace !

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

EA Sports FC 24 This is the spiritual successor to FIFA which is likely to be a similarly spectacular hit among young football fans.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Well done for a great first half term Year 5, we hope you all have a lovely well deserved rest with your families. Enjoy!

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Our week...

This week we have been participating in the NSPCC’s Speak out. Stay safe. Programme. Speak out. Stay safe. is a programme for children aged 5-11 which aims to help children understand abuse in all its forms and to recognise the signs of abuse. Children are taught to speak out if they are worried, either to a safe adult or Childline.

This child friendly programme is aligned with the curriculum and consists of an age appropriate virtual assembly, which the children watched this week, and next week a NSPCC volunteer will lead a face to face workshop with Year 5. The content is delivered in an engaging and interactive way with the help of the NSPCC mascot Buddy. If you would like to know more about the Speak out. Stay safe. programme visit www.nspcc.org.uk/speakout.

Real-life science project

Year 5 are going to be involved in a special project with the Edina Trust called The 'Spring Bulbs for Schools' project which gives pupils the opportunity to be part of a real science investigation where they will contribute to the final result. This is a live experiment where there are no known outcomes and no "right" answers. We will be planting daffodil and crocus bulbs next week and then from now until March, the children will be recording the rainfall and temperature each school day.

Over the course of this project we will be taking photographs of the children and would like to share some of these photos (from time to time) with the Edina Trust. Therefore we are seeking  your permission to share your child’s image with the Trust through X (formerly Twitter) and their websites and social media. If you are happy for your child’s image to be part of class photos throughout the project then please email me at year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk with your child’s name and for ease just copy and paste the following,

 “I consent to my child’s image being shared with The Edina Trust as part of The 'Spring Bulbs for Schools' project.”

Thank you!

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Lily T

Writing Award - Olivia W

Maths Award - Lilly C

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from now till the 22nd October.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Hallie 511 points

2 Kurt 457 points

3 Isaac 404 points

4 Gabriel 354 points

5 Elsie 265 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

Our learning this week…

In English the children have developed their understanding of parenthesis indicated by commas, dashes or brackets. They have also been exploring the features of a narrative text in preparation for our own writing.

In maths we’ve been continuing to work with Roman numerals and the children have been developing their understanding of place value up to the 100,000s, learning to read and write numbers accurately. They have been counting in steps of 100,000, 10,000, 1,000, 100, 10 and 1.

In RE, Year 5 have explored the story of the Fall and the consequences that it has had for humans.

In science we have been learning about the movement of the moon around the Earth and the phases of the moon.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In Computing the children identified the computer architecture of the Mars Rover

In Spanish we have revised the vocabulary previously taught on presenting ourselves and have begun to learn how to say the various nouns for family members.

Art - the children enlarged their work inspired by the work of Hundertwasser.

In PE the children continue to work with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is leadership.

Our Year 5 led worship this week was led by Lola Mae and Connie. Their worship was on the theme of Friendship and they asked the children to think who had been a good friend to them and what they had done. Well done Connie and Lola Mae!

Everyone is welcome in the people of God! Reading from Luke 14:16-21

Homework

A reminder that a summary of this week’s homework can be found on the Year 5 homework page. Please make sure homework is completed by the end of Tuesday ready for spelling and times table tests.

A reminder about our RE challenge: To email two photos which I will print out to put on display in school and I might also display these here on our blog. One photograph should be of something Year 5 consider beautiful in this world and another photograph of something which is ruining the beauty of our world. For example, they might have a photograph taken with a sunset and the other photograph might be of rubbish on the beach. Year 5, it would be great if we can have lots of different ideas on display so please try to think of your own ideas. Please email photos as jpegs, if possible, to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk as soon as possible. Thank you to those of you who have already sent in photos. Thanks for your support.

Thank you to those children who have already sent their photos in, we have started putting them on display in school…

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters.

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

Among Us: a futuristic murder mystery that’s found an enthusiastic audience of young gamers.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

Black History Month Competition

Blackpool FC Community Trust in partnership with Blackpool FC would like to invite you to take part in their Black History Month competition. For Black History Month this year they are asking pupils to produce a newspaper front cover on an Inspirational Black Person. KS2 should use this Front Cover as well as a supporting fact sheet should you need some prompts.

Pupils are invited to submit a piece on an inspirational black person from any field that has inspired them in any way. This competition is to celebrate and honour the achievements of black people such as Martin Luther King, Bob Marley, Rosa Parks or even those closer to home such as teachers and family members. Once judged the work will be returned back to school.

The competition winner will receive a Blackpool FC kit and BFC goody bag as well as a BFC player visit for your school, to receive their prize.

To enter this competition, please complete the Tangerine Times newspaper front page on someone you think is inspirational and why.

Include a picture and stats to justify why your subject is so inspirational.

The text itself can be either factual or emotive, but it must say why this person is inspirational to you and others.

The competition will run through October.

Competition entries should be returned to school by Thursday 26th October. Winners of the competition will be announced by Blackpool FC Community Trust and Blackpool FC on Tuesday 31st October.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

We’ve had a good week Year 5. Hope you have a lovely weekend with your families.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

"If he sins against you seven times in the day, and turns to you seven times, saying, 'repent,' you must forgive him." — Luke 17:4

Yesterday, Year 5 had our first class mass for this school year and we were so proud of how respectful and reverent the children were. Well done to our readers, who read so beautifully and clearly.

Yesterday’s mass was all about forgiveness and Father talked to the children about what Jesus taught us about having mercy - forgiveness and compassion. He told the children that when someone does something unkind to us and they say sorry, then we should forgive. He told the children that this is really hard to do but it’s the right thing to do. Forgiveness doesn't necessarily mean that the person is not guilty of whatever they did to upset us. Forgiveness doesn't mean forgetting. Rather, forgiveness means letting go of the pain the incident is causing us. We forgive to give ourselves peace of mind, and in hopes that one day someone will return the favour if we ever offend them.

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from now till the 22nd October.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Kurt 299 points

2 Gabriel 294 points

3 Hallie 280 points

4 Isaac 205 points

5 Elsie 195 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

Our award winners:

Golden Award (LEARN) - Olivia W

Writing Award - Isaac

Maths Award - Grace

Our learning this week…

In English the children have written some really descriptive contrast poems about the Earth and the moon using their words and phrases from last week. The children have also been learning about modal verbs and have been using these in sentences.

In maths we’ve been comparing, ordering and rounding numbers to 100,000 and been writing numbers to 10,000 in Roman numerals.

In RE the focus has been explaining the link between Scientific truths and theological truths .

In science we have been learning about the movement of the Earth around the sun.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

In Computing the children have been learning that due to the vast distance from Mars to Earth, information collected by Mars Rover has to travel as ‘data’ and be translated into binary code. The children then played a game to practice calculating binary numbers.

In Spanish we have revised the vocabulary previously taught on presenting ourselves and have begun to learn how to say the various nouns for family members.

In PE the children continue to work with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is leadership.

Our Year 5 led worship this week was led by Peter and Olivia. Their worship was on the theme of Thanks and they encouraged the children to think about what they are thankful for. Well done Peter and Olivia!

Homework 

A reminder that a summary of this week’s homework can be found on the Year 5 homework page. Please make sure homework is completed by the end of Tuesday ready for spelling and times table tests. 

A reminder about our RE challenge: To email two photos which I will print out to put on display in school and I might also display these here on our blog. One photograph should be of something Year 5 consider beautiful in this world and another photograph of something which is ruining the beauty of our world. For example, they might have a photograph taken with a sunset and the other photograph might be of rubbish on the beach. Year 5, it would be great if we can have lots of different ideas on display so please try to think of your own ideas. Please email photos as jpegs, if possible, to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk as soon as possible. Thank you to those of you who have already sent in photos. Thanks for your support.

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

Among Us: a futuristic murder mystery that’s found an enthusiastic audience of young gamers.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

Black History Month Competition

Blackpool FC Community Trust in partnership with Blackpool FC would like to invite you to take part in their Black History Month competition. For Black History Month this year they are asking pupils to produce a newspaper front cover on an Inspirational Black Person. KS2 should use this Front Cover as well as a supporting fact sheet should you need some prompts.

Pupils are invited to submit a piece on an inspirational black person from any field that has inspired them in any way. This competition is to celebrate and honour the achievements of black people such as Martin Luther King, Bob Marley, Rosa Parks or even those closer to home such as teachers and family members. Once judged the work will be returned back to school.

The competition winner will receive a Blackpool FC kit and BFC goody bag as well as a BFC player visit for your school, to receive their prize.

• To enter this competition, please complete the Tangerine Times newspaper front page on someone you think is inspirational and why.

• Include a picture and stats to justify why your subject is so inspirational.

• The text itself can be either factual or emotive, but it must say why this person is inspirational to you and others. 

The competition will run through October.

Competition entries should be returned to school by Thursday 26th October. Winners of the competition will be announced by Blackpool FC Community Trust and Blackpool FC on Tuesday 31st October.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Well done Year 5, have a lovely weekend with your families.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

"God saw all that he had made, and it was very good" Genesis

Year 5 have had another lovely week and have continued to work hard. The focus of our RE work so far has been Creation and we have talked a lot about how God gave us this beautiful world to live in and unfortunately we (humans) haven’t done a great job of looking after it.

Over the next few weeks we will explore this further and to support this work, I am going to set Year 5 a challenge to complete at home (with your help please 🙏) and then we will be sharing our work and our response to it, to the rest of the school in the coming weeks. I’ve not yet had the chance to talk about it with them but I thought to let you know so that you can get started.

The challenge: To email two photos which I will print out to put on display in school and I might also display these here on our blog. One photograph should be of something Year 5 consider beautiful in this world and another photograph of something which is ruining the beauty of our world. For example, they might have a photograph taken with a sunset and the other photograph might be of rubbish on the beach. Year 5, it would be great if we can have lots of different ideas on display so please try to think of your own ideas. Please email photos as jpegs, if possible, to year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk as soon as possible. Thanks for your support.

Reading

In class we have been talking about the importance of reading and I’m really pleased that so many children are reading daily. As Doctor Seuss says, “The more that you read, the more things you will know. The more that you learn, the more places you’ll go.” Please can I ask that parents continue to encourage your child to read at home and sign their reading diary. More recently, we have noticed that some children are already not reading as regularly as they should and some children are not bringing their reading diaries to school everyday. This is such a shame and it really is having an impact on their quiz scores in school and the progress they are making. The children should be reading for at least 20 minutes a day at home. To improve this, we will continue to check reading diaries weekly and in addition to the house points they receive, every time they read they will also earn golden tickets. At the end of this half term, we will count up the golden tickets and a winner will be drawn. Get reading Year 5! 📚

Bedrock Competition

Don’t forget Bedrock’s new competition to be in with a chance of winning some great prizes. You just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from now till the 22nd October.

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Gabriel 207 points

2 Kurt 171 points

3 Hallie 143 points

4 Elsie 139 points

5 Zahra 128 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Emilia

Writing Award - Olivia S

Maths Award - Elsie

Our learning this week…

In English the children have explored new vocabulary and have thought of ways to describe the Earth and the moon in preparation for writing a contrast poem.

In maths we’ve been working with number lines to 100,000 and identified numbers that are between two points (for example multiples of 10,000), using mathematical language to describe the position. The children have also compared and ordered numbers to 100,000 using what they know about place value

In RE the focus has been explaining the link between Scientific truths and theological truths .

In science we have been learning about the movement of the Earth around the sun.

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

Our Computing topic this half term is all about the Mars Rover and this week the children have learnt about the automated motor vehicle and have  explored how and why the Mars Rover transfers data. To get an idea of the distance that the Mars Rover had to travel, the children also researched the distance to Mars based on the length of other objects, such as the length of a double decker bus.

Art work from last week…

In PE the children continue to work with PE specialist Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is leadership.

Our Year 5 led worship this week was led by Dominic and Harriet this week. Their worship was on the theme of Courage and they challenged the children to be strong and courageous when things get tough and reminded us that God is with us wherever we go. Well done Dominic and Harriet!

“Here is what I am commanding you to do. Be strong and brave. Do not be afraid. Do not lose hope. I am the Lord your God. I will be with you wherever you go.” (Joshua 1:9)

Homework 

A reminder that a summary of this week’s homework can be found on the Year 5 homework page. Please make sure homework is completed by the end of Tuesday ready for spelling and times table tests. 

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

• Live streaming - This free online safety guide profiles live streaming – a hugely popular activity among young people that’s certainly not without hazards.

• Setting boundaries around gaming - This looks at the benefits of setting boundaries around video gaming to help young people learn healthy online habits.

• WhatsApp - This is an updated examination of WhatsApp – the globally popular messaging platform which contains both old and new hazards for young users.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Well done Year 5, have a great weekend.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.

Be the kind of leader that you would follow.

The children are now settling into Year 5 and are starting to get the hang of the routines and their new responsibilities. They have really embraced their role as buddies to Reception and on Tuesday they accompanied them to church to support them in our first whole school mass. We have talked a lot about being good role models and good leaders so we were delighted with how they rose to the challenge of being good role models and how they supported their buddies throughout the mass. This is really wonderful to see and we’re also pleased with how they are supporting them and KS1 at lunch times through their role as play leaders. Well done Year 5!

Swimming is also going really well and Year 5 are loving it. The swimming teachers are really pleased with the work they have all done so far. This week I observed the children who are just starting out as swimmers and both their swimming teacher and I were both so impressed with the progress they have made so far and after only two lessons. Keep up the great work Year 5!

Bedrock Competition!

A big well done to everyone who has already logged on to Bedrock at home as part of the homework and I’m delighted to see that so many of you have completed more than the expected lesson for homework. As you can see below, Bedrock have launched a new prize draw competition with some fantastic prizes to win. You have all been entered into this competition and for a chance of winning, you just need to collect 20 points or more each week and earn 140 or more points in total using Bedrock from now till the 22nd October. If you go to the dashboard on your Bedrock account, you will find details of how you can collect points. Remember, you need to complete at least one Bedrock lesson for homework but to earn more points you can do more. However, please do not complete more than one lesson per day to ensure vocabulary retention. In addition to Bedrock’s competition, we will also have our own in class Bedrock competition too. The member of our class who has the most Bedrock points by the end of half term will win a prize at the end of his half term. Good luck Year 5!

Here is our TOP 5 on the scoreboard this week:

1 Gabriel 124 points

2 Hallie 92 points

3 Zahra 75 points

4 Darcy 72 points

5 Dominic 60 points

Well done to all the children who are on our leader board this week.👏🏻

Our award winners:

Golden Award - Henry

Writing Award - Darcy

Maths Award - Rosanna

Our learning this week…

In English the children have been changing writing from the present tense into the past tense. They have read an extract about Neil Armstrong’s descent onto the moon and have identified his character from it. The children have also deepened their understanding of the people involved in the lunar landings and this has provided them with an opportunity to develop word banks of verbs and adverbs for use in their writing later on.

In maths we’ve been working with numbers to 100,000, focusing on the position and value of each digit. They’ve represented numbers in different ways and broken them down, explaining the value of each part.

In RE we have compared Scientific truths to theological truths and identified the differences.

In science we have been learning about how day and night occur

In history the children are continuing to learn about the Ancient Greeks.

Our Computing topic this half term is all about the Mars Rover and this week the children have learnt about the automated motor vehicle and have  explored how and why the Mars Rover transfers data. To get an idea of the distance that the Mars Rover had to travel, the children also researched the distance to Mars based on the length of other objects, such as Big Ben, the length of a blue whale, the length of a double decker bus, and the length of a football pitch.

In Spanish this week we have been looking at the Spanish alphabet and have been introduced to some of the sounds.

In our art lesson we have begun to look at the work of Hundertwasser and have used viewfinders to select and draw a section of his images into their sketchbooks.

In PE the children are working with PE specialist called Erin from Blackpool Football Club Community Trust. The focus of their lessons this half term is leadership.

Homework 

A reminder that a summary of this week’s homework can be found on the Year 5 homework page. Please make sure homework is completed by the end of Tuesday ready for spelling and times table tests. 

At Our Lady's we like to support our parents/carers in Online Safety matters. 

Keeping children and young people safe online is one of the biggest challenges facing society today and it is all of our responsibility to ensure that children are educated to make positive, informed choices when they are online.

This month’s online safety guides give helpful advice about…

• Live streaming - This free online safety guide profiles live streaming – a hugely popular activity among young people that’s certainly not without hazards.

• Setting boundaries around gaming - This looks at the benefits of setting boundaries around video gaming to help young people learn healthy online habits.

• WhatsApp - This is an updated examination of WhatsApp – the globally popular messaging platform which contains both old and new hazards for young users.

We hope you find these guides informative and helpful in promoting the positive use of technology to make the online world a better and safer place for us all.

To read this week’s Good News Gospel reading, please follow the link to share the Gospel at home with your family. These are really child-friendly resources to share at home. Good News Gospel

Please also have a look at this Parent Newsletter linked with our weekly whole school and class worship…

TenTen Parent Newsletter

Well done Year 5, have a great weekend.

Mrs McVey and Mrs McCooey

If you need to contact me or have any questions/queries, please contact me on  year5@our-lady.blackpool.sch.uk and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. Thanks.