Year 5
Year 5 is an exciting and interesting year, packed with fantastic topics. We begin our year by embarking on a journey into Space. The science topic, ‘Out of This World’, focuses our learning on our solar system. In our science, we learn about the Planets, the Sun and the Moon. We link our science learning across the curriculum writing fact files and biographies in English, and making models in Design and Technology, controlled by Crumble kits in ICT. Our Music is inspired by the Planets by Gustav Holst.
We then move on to our history topic about 20th Century Britain. We learn about World War 1, the sinking of the Titanic and the Suffragette Movement. Each of these historical events caused enormous change in Britain. We consider different historical sources including letters, photographs, artefacts and newspaper reports, deciding what we can learn about that period in time from these sources. In Art, we use our sketchbooks to develop and create fantastic watercolours of No Man’s Land, based on the art of Paul Nash. We write our own newspaper reports, letters from the trenches and poetry, based on the poems of Siegfried Sassoon.
In Term 3, we begin a geography topic called ‘Extreme Earth’. We study the effects, sometimes disastrous, of physical geographical processes and events, learning about volcanoes, earthquakes and tsunamis, caused by tectonic plates moving under the Earth’s crust. We also learn about weather events like hurricanes, droughts and flooding. We will write weather reports, using a green screen and shape poems. In our creative work we will study Hokusai’s Big Wave block print art, developing our own wax resist art.
The next topic about the Ancient Mayans takes us back to a remarkable ancient civilisation. We will learn about how the Mayans lived, what technologies they used and their belief and traditions.
Finally, we will travel to the capital, London, to complete a geography topic based on the London Eye Mystery by Siobhan Dowd. We will study the journey of the River Thames, writing explanation texts about the River. We will learn about jobs and the features of a city. In this topic we will take the opportunity to learn about government and democracy. We will use mapwork skills to locate famous landmarks and make tourist brochures about them. We will also write our own London ‘locked room’ mysteries and study some Shakespeare.
As we progress through Year 5 we become more independent and mature. This allows us to develop some of our learning more independently particularly through some of the TASC (Thinking Actively in a Social Context) activities where we can use our ideas and choose how to present what we have learned.
There is an expectation that we have additional responsibilities to support the whole school community. These include playground and dinner duties, where we support younger children. Some of us choose to be playground leaders and support the younger children in structured play at lunch times. Some of us become Mini Police Officers, helping to resolve playground disagreements. We also take part in the Y5/6 Carol Service and the Y5/6 Summer performance.