Welcome to P5!

As a Rights Respecting School, we have been enjoying starting our year creating by our Class Charter. We have picked 4 articles that we feel are important to follow in our classroom. They are Article 15: The right to have friends, Article 28: The right to learn, Article 31: The right to play and Article 19: The right to stay safe.

In literacy we develop our reading skills through shared reading sessions that work alongside our thematic plans. One of favourite shared reading books is called ‘Plastic Pollution’. The children enjoy guided sessions on Bug Club and we use Accelerated Reader too. We have enjoyed writing an explanation about why the water cycle is important.

We enjoy challenging ourselves daily in numeracy too! We look at Place Value and developing our mental maths strategies. We enjoy playing interactive games that help with our learning and learning about 2D and 3D shape. Each child has a Chromebook to support their learning digitally.

Our thematic unit for this term is ‘The Blue Planet’. We enjoy learning about water in this topic. We look at the water cycle and why it is so important. We also learn about our oceans and continents of the world. We discuss the continuous problem of sea pollution and how we can prevent it.

Our ‘Roots of Empathy’ programme with our specially trained Roots of Empathy teacher Mrs Stewart begins in term 1. At the heart of the programme are a neighbourhood infant and parent who visit the classroom every three weeks over the school year. Children observe the baby’s development and label the baby’s feelings. This “emotional literacy” taught in the programme lays the foundation for safer and more caring classrooms, where children are the “Changers”.

We enjoy a Fire Safety talk from the Northern Ireland Fire Service this term and they explain to us home to stay safe in our homes and what to do in the case of an emergency.  We like to keep safe online and iSmart talk to us about keeping safe online at school and at home.

In term 2, our thematic unit is Ancient Egypt. In this theme we learn about the Ancient Egyptian Civilization. We will study mummies, pyramids, pharaohs, the River Nile, food, farming, and homes. In science we get to mummify a piece a fruit and write a set of instructions on how to do this.

We take a trip to our local museum where we get to see a real-life mummy. Each year the highlight of this topic is our fun, interactive Egyptian Day!

In term 3, our thematic unit is Where We Live. In this theme we use technology to locate where we live geographically on Google Earth. We then look at countries in the UK, then we move to Northern Ireland, then finally to Bangor. We take look at the history of Bangor (in and around 1800s) and compare Bangor from then to now. We will locate local buildings that have a special place in history like Bangor Abbey Church. We will also visit the Heritage Centre and listen to local tales and interact with the history in the local area.

We are so proud of our pupils and are looking forward to our year ahead!

Mrs Keenan, Mrs Coffey, Mrs Craig, Mrs Haddock, Ms Nolan, Miss McCullough and Miss Manning.