Dear Children and Parents/Guardians,

Hello and welcome back to school.  I hope that you and your family have had the opportunity to take some time out to relax at some point during the summer break.  This letter intends to help you and your child make the transition to Year 5 as smooth as possible.

I am excited to have your child in my class. I get a chance to lead your child through a wonderful and fascinating experience over the next few months. I hope to share with your child my deep love and passion for very many areas of learning with hopes that your child will learn to share in that passion.

I wanted to tell you a bit about class and school so you can best know how to help your child succeed.

A bit about me first: I’ve been teaching at Worth for 2 years, and have been teaching, mostly Key Stage 2, for 33 years. I graduated in ’86 with a Bachelor’s in English and Modern Art in Swansea, and continued on to pursue a Post Grad qualification in Education in Hertfordshire, then a further Post Grad Certificate in 2014 in Advanced Skills Mathematics Teaching, in Manchester.

I have been a boys' team football manager and coach, my team gaining promotion from their league twice, a Brownie /Guide leader, and a GCSE English tutor.

When I’m not teaching, I enjoy spending time with my husband and our all grown up daughter and son, cooking, watching stand-up comedy, pottery, sewing, pub quizzes, looking online at property for sale abroad and swerving the gym and dog walks with our Cavapoochon Nellie.

I should begin really by saying that pupils in my class will work really hard on everything we do. There will be bumps along the way. There will be some incredible victories and some efforts which do not go as well. Emotions will run high sometimes; there will be distractions; and there will even be some very low points. They may love and hate both me and class all at the same time. And all of this is part of the learning experience. In fact, there is some research which suggests that emotions are critical to deep learning.

I firmly believe that your child must take an active part in his/her own education. Year 5 pupils won’t be able to stand on the sidelines and passively make their way through our lessons. Your child will need to be on top of every project, activity, and effort that we do.

I want you to support your child as they try to figure out what is going on, what’s due when, what the expectations are, and what’s on the horizon. You can help them lead themselves through that, so they come to a good plan “on their own”.

Please stay involved but in a supportive role. If you do not, your child will not be able to take care of themselves, to develop the skills they need to solve problems, learn to communicate, and figure out how they can best make progress. Give them some room to explore their own judgment, but knowing that they may fail now and then.

I am on your side; I want your child to succeed, but in ways that are in addition to the ways you might solely be focusing on. I see your child every day. I see the good days and the bad days. I see the successes and the failures. And as a professional teacher, I also see different aspects of the whole child that all interact together to give us what we see. I see the light bulb moments, and I learn the facial expressions and body mannerisms that your child uses to communicate when in a class full of peers. And those expressions, mannerisms, and even way-of-talking are probably different than what you experience at home.

The expectations you have set for your child may not be the same as the expectations they have set for themselves. That does not mean they have a lower standard, it may mean they have a different standard. Your expectations may reflect your own experience, not their experience. It is crucial that your child be given the support to develop their own expectations and motivations. And that is hard and it takes time. And I think you’ll find that if you put your faith in your child, give them your support, that your child will far exceed your expectations—and even better than that—they will exceed the expectations they set for themselves.

I am truly looking forward to getting you know your child this year. I look forward to the challenge of figuring out what makes them tick, and also what it will take for your child to connect with my teaching.

If you need to contact me, please email the school and it will be forwarded to me but also remember that I am teaching all day so may not read the email until the end of the school day. I will only respond by email if the issue is not one that can be resolved immediately with the child.

My class rules are only two: Work hard and be kind. I have found that these are the only two we generally need.

• PE and Games Uniform: During the Autumn Term, Year 5’s PE lessons will be on Tuesday and Thursday. On the days that children have PE lessons, PE uniform must be brought in to school. Shorts/leggings/jogging bottoms should be worn and must be in plain grey or black. A Worth branded PE top, plain “Worth-green” tee shirt or a plain/Worth branded white or green polo shirt must be worn on the top half. A “Worth-green” sweatshirt or cardigan can be worn over PE uniform to keep warm outside of PE lessons. This must be a plain sweatshirt or cardigan or the Worth branded ones as per normal school uniform policy. Children can come into school in trainers (no flashing light trainers) on PE days so that they are wearing safe and appropriate footwear for sports. Professional and amateur sports team kits must not be worn for PE. If Worth branded PE uniform is not purchased, plain clothing can have a very small logo or branding but no large slogans or logos are allowed. Children with long hair should wear a swimming cap. For safety reasons, no jewellery may be worn during any physical activity and long hair must be tied back. All health and safety rules apply equally to both genders.

• Can I please make a request that you if you wish to have your child’s ears pierced, that you wait till the summer break in July when they will have 6 weeks to heal. Our P.E lessons are fun and interesting and above all, necessary to keep your children happy and healthy.

• Reading Books, Reading Logs &Home Reading - Reading books and logs are able to come into school and return home. It is extremely important that your child continues to read independently and to others at home, selecting a range of different types of text and discussing them with you. This can have a very positive impact upon the development of each child in a range of subjects, not just English.  Please encourage your child to read and keep their logs and reviews up to date.  This includes school’s books, books from home or library books. The children should still be reading for at least 15 minutes daily. Reading logs will be checked regularly to ensure that they keep reading.

If you are struggling to find suitable texts for your child to read, the following websites are extremely useful:

• www.schoolreadinglist.co.uk

• www.waterstones.com/category/childrens-teenage

• www.goodreads.com/list

• www.booktrust.org.uk/booklists

• www.justimaginestorycentre.co.uk

• www.lovereading4kids.co.uk

• www.worldbookday.com

• Poynton Library: Opening times can be found on the Cheshire East website or on the library’s Facebook page. Their staff are knowledgeable and amazing at pointing you in the right direction if you are struggling to find a suitable book.  It is free to become a child member and you can join online.

• In History we are studying the Greeks in greater detail than in Year 4 and our topic is Extreme Earth. I am currently trying to organize a trip/ appropriate workshops for either or both of these and will furnish you with more details as and when I have them.

• Homework will start on week beginning 23^rd of September- Spellings will be uploaded onto the Year 5 page on our website and will have to be learned for a test on Wednesday mornings. Times tables will be learned via Times Tables Rockstars and a speed and fluency test will take place every Friday morning composed of 100 mixed multiplication operations, encompassing all the times tables they should know. This will be timed and each week the children will aim to decrease their speed and increase their accuracy, competing against their previous weeks score.

• I will also leave additional challenges in Topic, Maths and English on our year 5 class page which you child may wish to complete.

• Technology – The children get to design and make a toy with a cam mechanism. It would be very helpful if they could bring in a shoe box as they need one to make the casing for the mechanism. It would be helpful to have these in as soon as possible. Thank you.

• Harvest Festival will be on Friday 25^th October. Donations of food in the form of tins and packets or toiletries are very much appreciated.

• Half Term – school closes on Friday 25^th October. There is no After School Club or sports clubs. School re-opens on Monday 4^th November.

• Panto – Performances are Tuesday 10^th and Wednesday 11^th December at 1.30pm and 6.30pm. The office will send out more information about purchasing tickets nearer the time.

• Thursday 12^th December children are allowed in late but before 10am.

• School closes for the Christmas holiday on Friday 20^th December. There is no After School Club or sports clubs. Children must be collected by 2pm.

If you have any queries over the course of this half-term, please e-mail admin@worth.cheshire.sch.uk and I will do my very best to get back to you at the earliest opportunity.

Kind regards,

Mrs Crehan

PE days are Tuesday and Thursday this term.