Mrs MacGuinness's - Larwood School

Daily Routine

Start of the day – Children are welcomed in from 9:00 am every day

Registration – 9:00 am – 9:30 am

Lunch Time – 12.30 pm until 1.30 pm

End of the day – 3.20 pm (Monday – Thursday)

End of the day – Friday 2:20 pm

Key Information

Essentials

We allocate time daily for Essentials. This is to support our learning in literacy, maths and the behaviour curriculum. During these lessons we will focus on building fluency in maths including pre and post teaching. Literacy essentials will focus on phonics, allowing children to improve upon their reading and comprehension. This time is also valuable time to build upon the children’s social skills and work on areas of the behaviour curriculum / PSHE.

Phonics

Children will access daily phonics within a small group. This allow children to receive a more targeted phonics intervention.

Reading Books and Boom Reader

Children are expected to read daily at school. This is recorded on Boom Reader, if your child reads at home this can be used to record that reading too. If you would like your child to bring a reading book home, please ask the class team.

Class Reading Spine

In our classroom we have a captivating choice of books to spark the imagination of all readers. They include narrative, poetry and non-fiction texts, to ensure our children’s reading diet is widely varied.

The class teacher will read these aloud to the children at the end of every school day. If your child particularly enjoys one of these texts, you may wish to purchase other books from the same author (many of which can be found in our school library).

Lunches and Water Bottles

We ask for children each day to bring in to school a water bottle of their own with fresh water inside, children have access to their bottles throughout the day and they will be sent home at the end of the day to be cleaned.

Each week, we will ask children to select what they would like for their lunch. Lunch choices can be accessed on the website.

PE

Children will participate in PE lessons each week. PE days will be Monday and Wednesday. Please ensure children wear their kits to school on PE days.

PE Kits should contain – White T-shirt, Navy Blue Shorts/trackie bottoms and pumps or trainers – trainers being preferable for outdoor PE.

Swimming

As part of the PE curriculum, all classes will attend swimming lessons at Stevenage Swimming Centre for one term.

You will be informed when your child’s class will be swimming.

Talk for Writing

Talk for Writing is a fun, engaging approach to developing children’s writing skills that was created by author Pie Corbett. Here’s what parents should know:

What is Talk for Writing?

It’s a method that helps children become better writers by first getting comfortable with stories and text types through speaking and acting them out before writing them down.

How does it work?

The approach follows three main stages:

Imitation – Children learn stories and non-fiction texts by heart using actions, story maps, and repeated telling. This helps them internalize language patterns and vocabulary.
Innovation – Children adapt the original text, changing elements while keeping the basic structure. For example, they might change characters or settings in a story.
Independent Application – Children use what they’ve learned to create their own original pieces of writing.

Benefits for your child:

Builds confidence through oral storytelling before writing.
Develops vocabulary and language patterns naturally.
Makes writing more enjoyable through physical actions and speaking.
Creates a toolkit of writing techniques they can use independently.
Improves memory and speaking skills alongside writing.

Talk for Writing makes the writing process more accessible and enjoyable, helping children become confident, creative writers who understand how different types of texts work.

Subject Areas

English

In literacy our learning will be:

Autumn 1: Travel leaflets
Persuasive speech and letters
Autumn 2: Poetry
Spring 1: Instructions
Spring 2: Recount
Summer 1: Narrative
Summer 2: Play script

Maths

Our maths focus in Autumn term will be place value, addition and subtraction and multiplication and division.

Please ensure that your child is regularly practising his/her times tables. This can be done on times table rock stars or by following the links below:

Science

We LOVE science in Year 5/6! We ensure that most of our lessons have a practical focus to inspire a lifelong love of science in the future innovators, entrepreneurs and scientists among us.

For the Autumn term we will be learning about Earth and space followed by Electricity for the second half of the term.

Spring term we will be investigating light and then animals including humans.

We will finish the year with living things and evolution and inheritance in the summer term.

Religious Education

We believe it is important to understand and respect different faiths. This year our focus will be on the beliefs of Christianity and Buddhism.

French

Modern languages are vital in today’s global world! In French, our class will be learning greetings.

Computing

It’s a digital world! Throughout the year our learning will be using Purple Mash. Online safety will be taught throughout the year.

History

During the autumn term we will be learning about World War 2, this will include Investigate the causes of WW2. Learning about the battle of Britian, investigate the impact of the Blitz and evacuation on the lives of people.

Our focus for the first half of Spring term will be the Maya Civilisation followed by local history in the second half of the term.

Finally, the summer term our learning will be based around the history of leisure and entertainment.

Geography

Geography this year will consist of three different topics. Autumn term will be Oceans, Spring will be North America followed by South America in the Summer term.

Art and Design Technology

For design and technology this year we will be using textiles and 3D modelling to create cross curricula art linked to our history and geography work.