Brushwood Junior School
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.
Autumn Term 2024
English and Guided Reading
In English and Guided Reading lessons this term, the children are studying the following key texts;
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:
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!