Oak Class 2024 - 2025

WELCOME TO OAK

Class teacher - Mr M Heathcote

Mr Parrish teachers PE every Tuesday and Thursday afternoon and Miss Graves teaches English and MfL every Friday morning.

Learning Support Assistant - Mrs K Shapland

Learning Support Assistant - Mrs G Oakes

Follow us on Twitter  @WhitegateOak

Oak class is the final chapter in your journey at Whitegate. In Oak you will have every opportunity to shine and demonstrate just how much you have grown along your Whitegate journey. You are the role models that everyone else in the school community looks to. It is you who we are looking to for how to treat each other as we would wish to be treated. I am excited for all that is in store for us this year! It will be a year of challenges and successes. A year where, together, we can strive to be the very best we can be to reach the God-given potential that we all have. I look forward to growing our confidence, maturity and most importantly, wisdom.

Our proposed plan.

We will be focusing in on the Ancient Mayan civilisation within our history work. We will be exploring how religion played a key role in the social hierarchy, delving into the way they traded and trying to unpick the question of what happened to them in 900AD. The Mayans will also form part of our computing curriculum through the use of BBC Microbites.

Our key text of ‘The Curse of the Maya’ by Jonny Pearce and Andy Lonergan will provide us with many opportunities to explore SPaG as well as setting descriptions, mythological writing and the writing of balanced arguments. It promises to be a history filled term!

We will also consider the geographical location of the Mayans and once we have revised our knowledge of the UK and British Isles, we will be applying this to our new focus.

Our maths focus will be on place value before we shift our focus to multiplication and division. We will be looking at decimals, fractions and percentages also and focusing in on written and mental methods for these topics.

Within RE, we will be looking at how faith impacts the way people behave, live and how their values are affected by this. It promises to be a deep and profound piece of work looking at a range of world faiths before we explore Christmas through advent and the second coming of Jesus.

Our science will be focused on changing state of matter and will include revisable and irreversible changes and reactions within rusting, burning and in chemical reactions. We will then explore the properties of materials by looking at conductors and insulators, evaporation and solubility.

Across our more creative subjects, we will be engaging with architecture in art, creating Christmas cakes in DT and most importantly preparing for the production of ‘Wind in the Willows.’

Reading

Reading is at the heart of successful learning and we will immerse ourselves in a range of quality texts over the course of the year. As Reading is a priority across all subjects, we regularly use a range of fiction and non-fiction texts in our guided and whole-class Reading lessons to help inform richer learning across the curriculum. In addition to this cross-curricular learning, a single day might also see us exploring the motivations of characters in our gripping class novels or simply allowing children time to develop a love of reading through our provision of high-quality fiction books. Wherever and whenever possible, we will prioritise developing the skills and positive attitudes towards Reading that will enable Oak class to become confident, informed and engaged learners. 

Home reading expectations are detailed below, but should your child express an interest in a particular author, series or genre, please let us know and we would be delighted to order books from our library partners free of charge.  Visits to your local library are also encouraged!

PE

PE will be on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons.  Please can children come into school on those days already dressed in their PE kits.

Homework

Please ensure your child reads at home at least 4 times per week for 15-20 minutes.  In Years 5 and 6, they are expected to record their own reading in their Home – School contact books; parents just need to sign each time. 

TT Rockstars should be practised at least 3 times per week also for a minimum of 5 minutes each time.

For Year 6, Mental Maths will be sent home twice per week; both sheets will be given out on Mondays. The first sheet will be due on Wednesday and the second on Friday.

Both Year 5 and Year 6 will also have a weekly SPaG sheet. This will be given out on Mondays and is to be returned the following Monday.

All Oak children will be given their own personal spelling lists to practise at home.  These are linked to the statutory spelling lists for each year group available at the bottom of this page. There will also be a statutory spelling list for each half term: these will be different for Year 5 and Year 6.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me using the Home-School book  We love to celebrate any out of school learning or achievements by our children so please email to the office or send in anything your child would like to share with us. 

Some key dates for the half term:

Macmillan Coffee morning - 27.9.24 - 9.30am

Cadbury World trip – 9.10.24 – 7.50am – 4.15pm

Autumn Fair - 23.10.24 - 1.30pm

Parents’ Evenings - 13+19.11.24

Christmas Fair - 6.12.24 - 3.30pm

KS2 Production 17.12.24 - 1.30pm

KS2 Production 18.12.24 - 6pm