Croeso  i Dosbarth Pump

Here you will find the newsletters for the children in Dosbarth Pump. 

21.11.2025

Following the recent flooding in Monmouth, I hope you are all safe and well. Our thoughts are with everyone affected. It has been truly heartwarming to see the community spirit shine through during this challenging time. 

Over the last two weeks, Year 5 have reconnected with their class text Framed through a variety of engaging activities. The children explored character personalities and compared the main character, Dylan, with Turner’s famous painting The Fighting Temeraire. They expressed emotions and feelings inspired by both the image and the character, showing impressive insight, da iawn, Year 5! Taking their learning further, the children planned and recorded group podcasts featuring the characters as guests. They demonstrated excellent communication, teamwork, and editing skills, using Adobe tools to create scripts, make adjustments, and design podcast names and logos. Each group generated a QR code to link their podcast to their Literacy book, a fantastic example of digital creativity and cross-curricular learning. 
As part of the topic, the children developed their drawing skills by creating detailed portraits. Inspired by Andy Warhol, they photographed their work, cropped and edited images in Adobe Express, and applied vibrant colours to produce their own pop art pieces. These will be proudly displayed in our Gallery Exhibition next week—don’t miss it! 
In mathematics, Year 5 have been exploring inverse operations and using multiplication skills to estimate and check answers. Their problem-solving and reasoning skills continue to grow as they apply these strategies in different contexts. 

 

Diolch yn fawr for your continued support! 

07.11.2025

Welcome back! This week, the children have been busy planning and writing their own exciting adventure stories for the BBC 500 Word Challenge, using their ICT skills to publish and then peer assessment of each other’s work to give constructive feedback and suggestions for praise and improvement. In maths, the class have been investigating decimals and their positions within the place value system, challenging themselves to match decimals with fractions—a tricky but rewarding skill! To end the decimal topic, the children have been using recipes to mix their own fascinating drinks, a fantastic opportunity to develop their skills in an engaging and real-life context. In RVE, the children reflected on the importance of Remembrance Day and creatively expressed their thoughts by building three symbolic poppies in Minecraft. They’ve also continued to develop their swimming skills and have been excellent role models whilst representing the school. As part of developing the Welsh language skills within the class, we have completed several tasks using our reading and oracy skills based on a class text, Diwali. Here, the children looked for familiar words and sentences and had lots of fun building new words and phrases.  

Wishing you all a restful weekend. 

17.10.2025

It has been another busy and exciting two weeks in class! We have been working hard on rounding numbers up and down, including higher numbers using a range of methods. The children used number stops to help identify the numbers before and after, supporting their understanding of rounding to the nearest 10, 100, 1,000 and even 10,000! 
We also explored fractions of shapes and numbers, with a variety of fun activities. The children shaded fractions on shapes, played a memory game, tackled real-life word problems, and used pictorial methods to find solutions. They showcased their fantastic fraction skills by creating beautiful fraction portraits, a creative highlight of the week!  In Literacy, we continued reading our class text, Framed. The children used a QR code to research an eyewitness account of the hiding of artwork from the National Gallery during World War II. They answered some very challenging questions that tested their scanning and retrieval skills. I was extremely impressed with their curiosity and determination! In PE, the children are nearing the end of their sessions with County in the Community. They have worked so hard to develop a wide range of skills and demonstrated wonderful teamwork throughout. We also started our exciting swimming sessions, which the children have been eagerly anticipating. I can’t wait to share more about their progress in the next newsletter! As part of the “Shocktober” campaign, delivered by the Welsh Ambulance Service, the children have been learning invaluable CPR skills and had the opportunity to discuss what they should do and who they should call in an event of an emergency. Finally, we have enjoyed a calm and creative session in the forest school area this week. The children made incredible 3D self-sculptures using natural materials. It was lovely to see their imagination and individuality shine through their creations. 

It’s been a week full of learning, teamwork, and creativity — well done to all the children for their enthusiasm and hard work! 

Wishing you all a restful weekend. 

03.10.2025

It’s been very busy in Year 5 and the children have been working so hard across all areas of the curriculum. In science, we’ve been busy exploring the immune system and investigating how germs spread. The children carried out some fascinating experiments and then wrote a wonderful explanation piece to share their findings – we were really impressed by their scientific thinking! In literacy, we’ve continued reading Framed by Frank Cottrell Boyce. The children loved diving into the story and even used their maths skills to plan the journey to Manod, the setting of the book. It’s been a great way to bring different subjects together! As part of our whole school topic, the children have been working so hard on writing their own autobiographies. This is such a tricky piece of writing to complete due to finding the information/memories and ensuring they include the key features. When writing their autobiographies, the class went silent due to concentration, and they all gave 100% effort into their writing. I was immensely proud of all the class for this and look forward to parents reading their hard work next week. The children have been learning the Harvest song and performing beautifully in St Nicholas Church. I was so proud of them, they sang with such confidence and joy. Year 5 have also started their forest school adventures. Last week was their very first session, and it was wonderful to see how well they supported each other as a team when challenges came up. In maths, we’ve been brushing up on our time skills by reading real-life timetables. The children looked at bus and pool schedules from Trellech to Monmouth and worked out which bus to catch and how long journeys would take, all in preparation for going swimming soon. 

Diolch for all of your support. 

19.09.2025

Over the past two weeks, Year 5 have been extremely busy developing their routines and roles within the class. In literacy, we have continued to explore the text It's Only One! Here the children have written about the morals in the story using a newspaper format. They delved into the formal features of a newspaper and worked hard to present their work thoughtfully. In maths, we've tackled real-life word problems, using our addition and subtraction skills to sift through important information and solve challenges successfully. As part of our assessments, the children completed GL Assessments, which we've affectionately named 'Have a Go jobs'. I’m proud to report that every child gave it their all, showcasing their reading, spelling, and maths capabilities. In Science and Technology, we’ve been focusing on safe searches and assessing the reliability of information online. Using Britannica Education within the HWB, we had a great time exploring the resources, videos, and links in a safe way. To launch our new text, Framed by Cottrell- Boyce, the children entered the class to find a crime scene. The children then went on a mission to solve the problem, Who took the House Captain Bears? The class went around the school looking for suspect alibis, including interviewing Mrs Peacock and Mrs Appleton. Once the children had collected their notes and shared their thoughts they then presented their findings and wrote down who the main suspect was. Using fantastic reading and oracy skills the children then found out it was indeed ........... Mrs Appleton. This week ended on an exciting note, as we introduced our Science topic on the immune system and cell functions. The children illustrated germ transmission using crumpled paper, creating a memorable experience that truly enhanced their understanding.  

Thank you for your continued support! 

5.9.25

Welcome Back to the New School Year! We are excited to welcome Year 5 back to a brand new school year! It has been a fantastic start, and the children have settled in brilliantly. This week, we have been exploring the text Health and Wellbeing based text, It’s Only One. This wonderful book encourages the children to think deeply about how their actions impact the environment and influence those around them. It has sparked some thoughtful and positive discussions, with many insightful responses from the children. Additionally, the children have completed their entries for the Usk Show Art and Handwriting competition. We were truly impressed by the time, effort, and care they put into their work—it’s clear they took great pride in these tasks. Next week, we will begin our new topic titled ‘Guess Who?’. The children will dive into the story Framed, stepping into the role of investigators to solve the mystery within the text. They will use a variety of skills to research the story’s setting and make predictions about what might happen next. In Numeracy, we will focus on place value and understanding the value of numbers. These skills will be applied within our topic as the children calculate distances between the story’s location and Trellech. As part of our outdoor learning, the children will also have the opportunity to create pictures using natural materials, which they will transform into unique bookmarks—combining creativity with nature! We look forward to another exciting week of learning and discovery.