Year 5 - Sycamore Class

Children in Year 5 are encouraged to take an active role in their own learning and to be ‘lifelong learners’, taking their learning beyond the school walls. Children are encouraged to be a good role model to other pupils through our in-depth teaching of the Jigsaw (PSHE) curriculum and develop a respect for each other’s differences as they grow and mature. 

In Mathematics, children in Year 5 extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include larger numbers. Stronger connections are made between multiplication, division, fractions and percentages, and children will apply their knowledge to creative problem-solving tasks in order to reach a mastery level in each area through the teaching of reasoning, fluency and problem-solving skills across a range of progressively challenging concepts.  White Rose lessons encourage and support our growth mindset approach to learning.

English in Year 5 follows the Talk for Writing approach and involves children being able to distinguish between, and write in, formal and informal styles. They will begin to develop cohesion throughout paragraphs and ultimately their whole piece of writing, using a range of sentence structures. Children will practise using a dictionary and thesaurus to broaden their vocabulary and will continue to explore prefixes, suffixes and homophones. New punctuation will be introduced that can be applied through writing in a variety of ways, including: character descriptions, descriptive writing, narratives, balanced arguments, persuasive arguments, explanation texts, non-chronological reports, biographies, essays, recounts (diary, newspaper article) and a variety of poetry (Kennings, Narrative, Free-verse and Shape).

When reading, children develop their familiarity with a range of different text types through our whole class reading approach. Children are encouraged to reflect upon their reading by thinking about: would they recommend the book? How does it compare to other books that they have read? Did they predict the outcome of the book? Can they summarise a section of the book? Children continue to develop their ability to infer, using evidence to support their point, and a range of new vocabulary is explored within different contexts.

Science captures the interest of the Year 5 children through topics surrounding: plants and animals, materials, forces, and Earth and Space. Children explore these areas through a range of exciting experiments and observations! By the end of the year, children are developing their confidence in designing, planning and conducting an experiment as well as reporting and presenting their findings, alongside developing their understanding of the different types of scientific enquiry and when to use these appropriately. Children are then able to comment on the reliability of their results, which often use more complex methods of data presentation. 

In other subjects, we follow Kapow and will cover the following areas:

·      History – Ancient Greeks, Ancient Maya and Tudors

·      Geography – mountains (Alps), oceans and deserts

·      Art and design – installation art, a space themed unit ‘I need space’ and architecture

·      Design and technology – pop-up books, building bridges and healthy eating

·      RE and worldviews – we will be looking at: Why Christianity looks different, what happens when we die, who should get to be in charge and why some places in the world are significant to believers

Key Questions to drive learning and progress

• What did the Greeks ever do for us? (history)

• Why do oceans matter? (geography)

• Why doesn’t Christianity always look the same? (RE and worldviews)

• Why do we have day and night? (science)

Exciting events in Year 5

• Visit to the Space Centre, Leicester

• Visit to the Sealife Centre, Birmingham

• Visit to Bosworth Battlefield

• Prestwold Church Christmas Visit 

• Taking responsibility for lunchtimes through volunteering as librarians.

Class Novels include:

• Cosmic

• Just a Spark

• Wonder

• The Explorer

• The Last Wild

• Can You Feel The Noise?