Year 5 Website update – Autumn 1

Topic

This term, the children have been learning all about the ancient Greeks and spent some time understanding what life would be like for free people during Greek times as well as slaves. They listened to a Now Press Play experience where they helped save Athens from the Spartans who wanted to invade. This tied in nicely with other learning the children did about invasion where King Darius wanted to invade Greece to add to his empire. The Athenians won that war, despite having a smaller army. This was all because of their battle strategy.

Literacy

This term, the children have been reading information texts and Greek myths. They identified features of non-chronological reports and then spent their time gathering information and writing their own report. All children learnt vocabulary that was specific to the ancient and modern Olympics, and created freeze frames about these words. They understood that information can be organised in ways that appeals to readers and wrote their own report about the Olympics, making use of parenthesis and bullet points. Children enjoyed learning about Cronos and how he ate his own children.

Maths

This term in maths the children have been learning about place value. They started with learning about the different properties of number such as, factors, multiples and negative numbers. They then moved onto using a place value chart to determine the values of different digits and multiplying them by 10, 100 and 1000. Autumn term also means kick starting a new season of the school wide TT Rockstars competition!

Topic

During their trip to the Ragged Trouser Museum, as part of their Victorian studies,
Year 5 students explored the rich history of Victorian Schools in their local community.
Overall, the trip was a delightful blend of history and roleplaying engagement, leaving
the students with a deeper understanding of Victorian life. For International Family
Week, children participated in hands-on sewing activities, stitching flags to their tie-
dye T-shirts. This experience not only taught them practical skills but also fostered
teamwork and creativity.

Literacy

In Year 5 during Spring 2, we celebrated World Book Day by decorating story spuds,
turning potatoes into our favourite book characters. We also created a stop-motion
animation using our spuds as the main characters! For International Week, we
researched Spain and Greece, learning about their cultures and traditions. We then
designed informative brochures and shared them with other students during Mini
World. It was a fantastic way to celebrate books and global cultures!

This term, the children have been completing their learning about fractions by
exploring fractions of an amount. They also started learning about perimeter and spent
time thinking carefully about what perimeter is and calculating perimeter of shapes. All
children have been developing their reasoning skills in math and this can be seen in the
challenges that they have attempted and the journaling explanations that accompany
their calculations. This has allowed each child to apply their core skills of problem
solving and resilience to maths.

Topic

This term, year 5 children have been continuing their learning about the Victorians and understanding how the Docklands were important during this period of history. While learning about the theatre in history, they used drama to act out a play by Oscar Wilde – The importance of being Earnest.

In the run up to international week, children have also learnt about sewing techniques and used this to sew their flags onto their t-shirts. Parents were invited in to help their children and other children in the class to do the sewing.

Literacy

This term, year 5 have been reading their class texts. Children have been focusing on understanding authorial intent and learning the context behind words chosen by the authors. Each class has tremendously enjoyed reading their book. 5CB has been reading Kensuke’s kingdom, 5T has been reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone, 5PB has been reading Stormbreaker and 5C has been reading Boy at the back of the class. This term has also been world book day and all children created story jars of their favourite story. This has fostered a real love for reading.

Maths

During our maths lessons this term, Year 5 has been learning about fractions, decimals and percentages. They have learnt the links between the three and started applying them to real life situations. Children are able to see that 50 percent is the same as half and that is 0.5. This information has been particularly useful when talking to the children about money and converting between pounds and pence.

Topic

This term the children have continued exploring the life of the Ancient Greeks. They looked at different sources to find out how the Greeks lived, dressed and were educated. They had conversations about the Minoans and understood the importance of trade for the people of Crete. They explored the difference between Sparta’s and Athens’ government systems and what this meant for their citizens. Children had some time to think about the similarities and differences between these two Greek states as well as how our modern day Britain is in comparison.

Literacy

Children have been reading their class book and are writing a descriptive piece based on a section of this text. Their grammar and reading skills have all been focused around enjoying and understanding the texts they have been assigned. 5CB is exploring Boy at the back of the class, 5T is sinking their teeth into Stormbreaker, 5PB is enjoying Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s stone and 5C are diving into Kensuke’s kingdom. All children have spoken about the atmosphere in the text and the words chosen by the author to draw a reader in.

Maths

In year 5, children have been learning about the four operations in more detail. They spent some time on each operation and have used their problem solving Curwen core skill to answer questions using these. It has been very important to understand the vocabulary required for each question and to focus on recall of past learning. Children have been able to show off the prior learning of vocabulary related to maths and of strategies needed to solve mathematical problems.