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.

Independence is highly encouraged, where children take active ownership of their next steps in learning, enabling them to be articulate about their own learning experiences and journey. Children thrive knowing that they are in control of their learning, and feel motivated to further their learning at home. 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. Power Maths lessons encourage and support our growth mindset approach to learning.

English in Year 5 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 an 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 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, Dub).

When reading, children develop their familiarity with a range of different text types. Children are encouraged to reflect upon their reading; 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.

Non-core subjects are placed at the heart of the Year 5 curriculum, driving children’s interests and curiosity forward. Through an engaging and challenging curriculum, children explore a number of topics in the subjects of History, Geography, Art, Design Technology, Music, Computing, French, Physical Education, Religious Education and Personal, Social and Health Education. The children’s content knowledge and skills are assessed against our progressive learning journeys lesson by lesson , and these are also used to plan teaching sequences across the three terms of the school year.

Key Questions to drive learning and progress

  • How did they put a man on the moon?

  • How can you prove that the Earth turns?

Exciting events in Year 5

  • Visit to the Space Centre, Leicester

  • Visit to Rutland Water


  • Taking responsibility for lunchtimes through volunteering as "Lunch Buddies"

  • Participating in Launch Days and Landing Events

Class Novels include