Welcome to Year 5!

Meet the team:

5K - Mr Kerslake is the teacher and Mrs Lacey is the teaching assistant.

5G - Mrs Ghaffar is the teacher and Mrs Caswell and Miss East are the teaching assistants.

Miss Podbury is the Year 5 and 6 Phase Leader.

Spring Term 2025

English and Guided Reading

In English and Guided Reading lessons this term, the children are studying the following key texts;

• Walk with a wolf
• Wolf Brother

Pupils continue to practise writing different genres of text and apply their grammar knowledge throughout the units. This term, children will be writing and performing news broadcasts, writing instruction texts on how to be a wolf and writing narratives based on the story.

Regular spelling and handwriting lessons continue to take place, with links made to each week’s pattern in other lessons too.

Maths

The focus this term is:

• Multiplication
• Division
• Fractions, decimals and percentages
• Perimeter and Area

Fluency, as well as reasoning and problem solving skills, continue to be practised. We encourage children to regularly practise their times tables at home so they are secure using these.

Science:

This term, we are focussing on the life cycle of different animals and classifying them based on similarities and differences between them. Children will be comparing different types of mammal, including placentals, monotremes and marsupials. They will also be acting out the life cycle of a bird and seeing how metamorphosis impacts insects and some amphibians!

History/Geography

In History this term, the children will be focussing on 'The Tudors'. They will be exploring sources of evidence from Tudor times to decide if Henry VIII was a fair ruler or a tyrant, working out why Anne Boleyn was sent for execution and looking at what special events went on when the Queen visited for a royal progress!

We will be looking at oceans during the 2nd half of Spring term and exploring why these are a crucial part of the Earth. With a closer look into the Great Barrier Reef. The children will also take part in a field trip to the local river to discover more about it and the local area.

Art and DT

In art this term, the children are learning about mixed-media art, while looking into the art of Chila Kumari Singh Burman. The children will be making their own self portraits and turning these into poems, as well as using different media to create artwork based on their faces.

In DT, the children will be briefed with designing and creating a stuffed toy for a small child. They will improve their sewing skills and learn about the processes required to design, create and evaluate a project.

PSHE

The theme this term for PSHE is safety and the changing body. The children will look at topics including healthy meals, staying safe in the sun, online friendships and puberty.

RE

This terms RE focusses on religious freedom and different festivals involving light. The children will be talking about the Sikh festival 'Bandi Chhor Divas', looking into why the gunpowder plot was carried out and how religious freedom has changed over time.

Computing

Computing this term involves computers and how they communicate. The children will be looking into the Mars Rovers, learning some binary and using this to send and decode computer messages. The second half term focusses on stop-motion animation and creating their own 'Wallace and Gromit' style cartoons!

Music

Music in Spring centres around Holi - the Hindu festival of colour, children will be creating their own graphic scores and exploring how music can show different emotions and colours. 

Children in Year 5 will then be starting African drumming after the half term!

French

French this term is all about clothes! The children will be learning the names of different pieces of clothing and describing these to their friends. 

They will also be looking into weather and how to describe the different weathers at different times in different places. 

PE

PE this term involves dance, gymnastics, health related exercise and dodgeball.

Enrichment

Children in Year 5 have 2 exciting trips planned for the Spring term.

The first to the National portrait gallery in London to explore different types of art, including the exciting Tudor art gallery.

They will also be completing some geography field research in our local area and looking at our rivers, how clean these are and where they eventually lead. 

Children in year 5 also have the opportunity to join the 2 Chiltern League sports teams for this year - Tag Rugby and Girl's football.

Autumn Term 2024

English and Guided Reading

In English and Guided Reading lessons this term, the children are studying the following key texts;

• The Promise
• There's a boy in the girls' bathroom.
• The Planetarium
• Why is snot green

Pupils continue to practise writing different genres of text and apply their grammar knowledge throughout the units. They are engaging in various drama related tasks to support their understanding and ability to reflect on the texts. Regular spelling and handwriting lessons continue to take place, with links made to each week’s pattern in other lessons too.

Maths

The focus this term is:

• Place value
• Comparing and ordering numbers
• Rounding numbers
• Addition
• Subtraction
• Multiplication

Fluency, as well as reasoning and problem solving skills, continue to be practised. We encourage children to regularly practise their times tables at home and frequently run Times table Rockstars tournaments between the two classes!

Science:

This term, ours topics are forces and space. The children have been conducting experiments to test the effects of gravity, air resistance and water resistance. We have also been looking at which forces are pushes and which forces are pulls.

In the second half of the Autumn term, the children will be exploring space and finding out why the earth orbits the sun, the names and properties of the planets and discussing whether the Earth is flat or spherical.

History

The children are exploring the key question, 'Why did the Romans invade and settle in Britain?'

The children have learnt about the resources the Romans were after, the types of equipment they wore into battle, performed different Roman battle formations and how the Britons responded to the Roman invasion. 

Geography

In the second part of the Autumn term, children will be exploring 'Are deserts are a good place to live?' 

They will be looking at the climate, features and uses of deserts. They will also be considering the pros and cons of living in a desert and deciding if it would be somewhere they would like to live.

Art

In Art this half term, we are learning about collagraphy, the process of making prints using a specially created 'printing plate' which has lots of interesting items stuck onto it.

The children have also been looking at art related to space and using different materials (oil pastels, crayon, highlighter, collage) to recreate these.

DT

In DT in the second half term, we will be learning about healthy recipes. The children create their own recipe and jar labels for spaghetti bolognese, considering how adding different ingredients will alter the taste. The children then get to prepare and cook their recipes!

PSHE

This term in PSHE lessons, the children are looking at the topic 'Families and relationships'. 

They are learning about what qualities make a good friend, the up and downsides of friendships, how to respect themselves, family life and stereotypes.

RE

Our topic this term is 'Pilgrimages' and we are exploring the key question, 'Why do people choose to go on pilgrimages'. We are learning about different religions and why certain pilgrimages are important to them. 

Computing

In the first half term, we are looking at search engines. The children have been researching facts using different search engines and finding which ones they like best. They have also learnt that not all information online is true after researching explorers on a misleading website!

Music, French and PE

In music, the children are looking at tonality and how to create melodies. The children are learning how to speak about themselves in French, including their birthday, age, name and where they live. In PE, the children have begun to improve their football and netball skills.

Enrichment opportunities

In the second half of the Autumn term, the children will be able to explore the space dome, an inflatable planetarium that engrosses them into their science topic of space.

Friday afternoon enrichment activites are also well underway, with the children getting opportunities to learn Slovakian, circus skills, new computing skills, paper crafts and more!