Topic

In topic, year 5 has been focusing on the Victorians and the way the Docklands have changed over time. As part of our learning, we went on a trip to the Museum of Docklands to explore how people in the Victorian period used to live and how important trading was for the Dock workers. As part of this experience, we learned about: The Industrial Revolution (mining, factories, trains – and children’s roles in those), Victorian London, as well as social and economic inequality and the struggle against it. 

Literacy

In Literacy, we have written poems based on the topic ‘empathy’. We explored what life was like for a child living in a workhouse, and we used a range of literary devices to enhance the quality of our poems. We were then given the opportunity to read our poems aloud, practising when to change our voice, how to consider speed on our delivery and when to use movement and gestures, among other things.

Maths

In maths, we have had a big focus on basic skills, including: counting forwards and backwards; times table and division facts; the four operations and properties of number. We have also started to look at fractions – this includes simplifying, adding, subtracting and finding equivalent fractions. We used concrete resources to support our understanding.