Year 5

Key information for parents:

• Mrs Woollam will teach Year 5 on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday.
• Mrs Blood will teach Year 5 on Thursday and Friday.
• The children will be supported by Mrs Griffiths. 
• The doors off the main playground are opened at 8:40am. Year 5 children are to enter school through this door.
• Year 5 finish school at 3.15 pm. If your child is allowed to walk home alone, please ensure that you complete a consent form.
• PE takes place on a Monday. Children should come to school in their PE kit. If it is non-uniform day on their PE day, children will need to wear appropriate clothes and footwear for their PE lesson.
• Children change their reading books on Mondays each week.
• Homework is set each Thursday - to be completed and returned before the following Thursday. 

Wednesday 1st July

A huge well done to the children yesterday for showing such effort and determination in their sports day races. We are really proud of you all for giving it your best effort! The children expressed their enjoyment of the morning to me from the races down to the Mexican waves and dancing in between! 

As we go in to the final two weeks of Year 5, we have a number of transition mornings next week in our new class to get ready for September and the children's final year at primary school. Before then, we have planned our final piece of writing this week, which we will draft, edit and copy up neatly next week based on 'The Hunter' text that we have been studying. It has been lovely to see the children showing that same effort in their work this week that they did in Sports Day even though they are nearing the end of term. 

For our final couple of weeks, we will be focussing on Fractions in Maths, namely equivalent fractions and simplifying fractions with some work on conversions of units such as grams into kilograms. Our foundation subjects such as Geography will come to an end. This week has seen us studying the Great Barrier Reef as part of our unit on how to protect our oceans. In Computing, the children will finish their unit on Spreadsheets, which they have worked really hard on to use and understand formulae. 

A great week, Year 5! Keep up the hard work!

Friday 26th June

Well this week has certainly been a hot one ☀️, but the children (and adults) have coped really well and we have still managed to get lots of learning done, whilst fitting in lots of hydration and ice lolly breaks 🍦💦

In PSHE today, we explored figures who have contributed to society and explored the achievements of Greta Thunberg and Marcus Rashford. The children also discussed who they felt contribute positively to our local community and some of the characteristics of a diverse community. 
We worked in small groups in science to investigate: Does a larger surface area mean a parachute takes longer to fall to the ground? We did this with balloons of different sizes and recorded our times and then found the average to gain a result. Next week, we will be using modelling clay to help us answer: Does the surface area affect the time taken for an object to sink? As we look into water resistance. 

The children have worked well with Mrs Griffiths in Music to create their own musical theatre piece. They have loved the opportunity to be creative and share their ideas for this. We can’t wait to see the finished pieces!

During some of our cooling down time this week, we watched a Staffordshire Fire and Rescue video all about water safety. This is a poignant topic with the temperature as high as it is and the children had lots of great questions and learnt a lot from watching and discussing this. It also linked nicely with our RNLI session in New Brighton last week 🚤 🏖️ 

Tuesday 16th June

We have enjoyed our trip to New Brighton today. The weather was good to us and we even managed an ice lolly on the Promenade! Our day started with our Geography fieldwork on the beach, observing and collecting data on the types of litter found there. The children were shocked to see the amount of litter on the shore even though the town and pedestrianised areas were immaculate. Tomorrow, we will use our data to create a pie chart to look at the types of litter of litter that is causing the most issues for our ocean. We will also think about ways that we can protect our oceans.

Just before lunch, we also enjoyed a visit to the Lifeboat Station to see the Lifeboat and to hear about ways that we can stay safe near and in the water. The children listened really well and showed lots of respect to the kind volunteers who gave up their time to speak to us today. The children were a credit to our school and hopefully will sleep well tonight after our long journey today. Well done, Year 5!

Friday 5th June 2026

Another busy week in Year 5!
We have had a great first week back after our half term break and the children have quickly settled back into routine. 
The children enjoyed their penultimate swimming lesson on Monday and will start having two PE sessions on a Monday with Mr Roberts from next week. 

In maths, we have continued looking at fractions and finding fractions of amounts using our multiplication and division knowledge. We have started a new text called ‘The Hunter’ in English and this week we have made predictions about what will happen, written sentences using modal verbs, written a conversation between Jamina and her grandfather and also used relative clauses to describe feelings. In science, we began our new topic of unbalanced forces so we look forward to beginning that properly next week. Mrs Griffiths took the music sessions this week and the children really enjoyed creating their own songs for our musical theatre unit. We discussed human rights in PSHE - focussing on the right to freedom of expression and the rules and responsibilities we have around that. Our first art lesson of this half term started with drawing self portraits and then tracing over these but using words about ourselves rather than lines. Some photos of these are below - they turned out to be very effective! 

Wednesday 6th May 2026

After the long weekend, we started off our week with a visit to the Library. Below are some photos from our visit. Many of the children were keen to read the books on the shelves and expressed an interest in becoming a member. If your child would still like to join, they could pop in on their way home and sign up if they haven't done so already. All the children have received a membership form so there could be one lurking at the bottom of their bag still! If not, please leave a message and I'll print out another form for them. 

Friday 24th April 2026

Apart from enjoying the welcome sunshine and beautiful weather, Year 5 have been very busy inside the classroom learning lots of new things! We have planned a persuasive letter in English, considering how to make this effective and get our point across in the best way. In maths, we have started looking at what a factor is and working systematically to find all the factor pairs of a given number. Did you know all square numbers have an odd number of factors? Within these discussions, we were able to identify prime and composite numbers and define these confidently. Mammals were the focus of this week's science as we looked at the life cycles of a blue whale, a kangaroo and a hedgehog. We created our own informative poster detailing the stages and then compared these. Did you know a kangaroo can have a joey in the pouch, one outside of the pouch and a pregnancy on pause all at the same time?! The children continued to work on their own games in computing using 2DIY3D on Purple Mash, adding different elements to make them enjoyable for the player and also realistic. We spent time adding and editing sprites - collectables or baddies within the games. 

Wednesday 15th April 2026

Science Week 2026: Science is Everywhere

The children have had an enjoyable week so far taking part in a range of Science activities. The week started off with an assembly led by Mrs Hollins who wowed us with some amazing Science experiments such as piercing a plastic bag containing liquid with sharp pencils. Each day, we received a mystery Science concept/object to discuss and demonstrate to the children and took part in an exciting Scavenger Hunt around the school. We will finish our week off with a workshop delivered by Mr Ferdinand. Below are the photos taken during our Parent Engineering Workshop yesterday to build a bridge where a vehicle can travel the furthest distance. 

Curriculum

In English, we have started a new text called 'The Paperbag Prince'. For our 'wow' activity for our text, we watched a range of videos which talk about plastic in the ocean and held a debate to see whether the children think that Year 5 should use plastic. They clearly identified that most of the equipment and supplies in our classroom are actually made out of plastic and it would be very difficult for us not to use plastic in our school environment. 

We are continuing to work on the topic of 'Decimal Fractions' in Maths and the children have now used a written method to scale and multiply decimals. Next week, the children will learn how to use scaling and division to divide decimals.

Friday 27th March 2026

Maths and English

This week, we have come to the end of our English unit and the children have planned (including research), drafted, edited and written up their own biographies about the Canadian astronaut Chris Hadfield. We have practised regularly reading through our writing to check it makes sense and to ensure we have included all the features necessary. This half term, we have focussed on fronted adverbials to create cohesion across paragraphs, using brackets, dashes or commas to indicate parenthesis, using commas to clarify meaning and avoid ambiguity and using a variety of verb forms correctly.

In maths, we have continued to work on decimal fractions and have learnt and applied the knowledge that multiplying by 0.1 is the same as dividing by 10 and we have also used our multiplication of decimals knowledge to convert efficiently between units of measure and solve problems related to measure and money. Our place value charts have come in very useful as we have divided and multiplied by 10, 100 and 1000!

Wider Curriculum

In PSHE, we have furthered our learning about the physical changes that take place during puberty by learning more about menstruation. We discussed some common misconceptions and had the chance to ask any questions or raise any concerns we may have. Year 5 were extremely sensible and mature during this session and I was very proud of them.

Friday was Break the Rules Ahead of April Fools - we had sweets for snack, spent time playing board games sat by a friend of our choice and even had an extra play time! Some of us also turned up at school with crazy hair!

We completed our end of unit assessment in science and all the children were pleased with the amount of knowledge they had gained and retained over the course of the topic of Earth & Space. Below, I have also included some photos of a practical session we did to demonstrate how day and night occur as a result of the earth rotating on its axis every 24 hours.

Have a brilliant Easter break and we will look forward to welcoming the children back into school on Monday 13th March, which also happens to be the beginning of our Science Week and also our very first swimming lesson!

Lots to look forward to!

Wednesday 18th March 2026

Curriculum

Having completed some assessments in English and Maths last week, we returned to our topics this week that we have been studying. In English, we investigated a model biography of Neil Armstrong to prepare for writing our own biography on Chris Hadfield next week. Today saw us research different parts of Chris' life such as his education, family and life in space ready to present our findings to the class tomorrow. A new topic was started in Maths this week - Decimal Fractions - and we have begun to look at multiplying and dividing numbers such as 7 by 10, 100 an 1000 to produce decimal numbers. We learned today that dividing by 1000 is the same as multiplying by 0.001.

Wider Curriculum

In art, we have investigated the prints of Elizabeth Catlett who has inspired us to create our own artwork for printing using bold lines and textures through different lines and patterns. 'Would you like to live in the desert?' is the enquiry question that the children have been studying in Geography. Today, we have identified a whole range of benefits and challenges in living in the desert. We identified benefits such as visiting the desert for recreation, taking part in activities such as hiking, camping and quad biking and threats such as drought, flash floods and desertification. Perhaps ask your child to see what they can remember! 

Friday 6th March 2026

Curriculum: This week, Year 5 have used a dramatic technique in English called hot-seating in order to create and answer questions for characters from within our text The Darkest Dark. The children created some questions about the moon landing of 1969 and used these answers to create quotes. We remembered to use single quotation marks to open and close the dialogue and to include a comma before starting our quote. In maths, we have continued to work on comparing and representing differences between amounts (including money, time and measure) using bar models and calculations. We discussed the difference between comparing these additively and multiplicatively. In geography, we used the Chrome books to research the Mojave Desert and share our findings. We started to design our own game in Computing - including all the elements we have seen whilst playing other games on Purple Mash.

Other: On Thursday this week, we celebrated World Book Day! We spent the day dressed in our comfy PJs and enjoying all things books! Year 5 first discussed why people read and the benefits of reading. Lots of us love to read and could share how it makes it feel. We used the text, 'Chaos at the Chocolate Factory' to inspire the creation of a brand new room in a chocolate factory. In teams, we designed our room and decided upon what would be created in there. The children had a fantastic time using junk modelling to make their pieces and the results (and also how well the children worked collaboratively) are very impressive! They were all so enthusiastic and it was brilliant to see them focussed and engaged throughout the task. We had to DEAR (drop everything and read) when Mrs Gleave gave us the signal over the intercom and we then designed our very own bookmarks to us as we read for pleasure at home and at school. We had a lovely day - finished off with a whole-school assembly to announce the winners of the whole school competition and the Golden Tickets!

Wednesday 24th February 2025

Welcome back after half-term! We hope you all had a lovely break. It sounds as though a couple of you had some lovely Harry Potter experiences! 

Core Curriculum

This week. we have moved on to a new Maths topic comparing lengths, depths and heights using multiplication and division using words such as 'twice' the height and 'double' the length. The children have practised drawing bar models to help them to solve equations. In English, we have started to look at the text 'The Darkest Dark'. One of our children has already enjoyed this text at home so I'm sure she will be teaching us about it. Today, the children have written some fantastic paragraphs making inferences about the early life of Chris Hadfield from the story. 

Wider Curriculum

I have posted an example below of one of our dances from last half-term that was short enough to attach. The children did an amazing job at choreographing and it's a shame that I can't show you the rest of their dances but the files are just too large to share! 

This half-term, in PE, we have started to develop our hockey skills. It has been lovely to see some children show some previous experience of the sport through being taught by their Dad or an older sibling. In Art, we have begun the topic of 'Expressive Art' and the children have considered how to create movement on their page through mark making and drawing lines. 'Shopping' is our new topic in French and we have revised our numbers as well as learning larger numbers to 100. Finally, in Geography, the children are learning about desert biomes and have recalled some super previous knowledge about biomes and lines of latitude. Great work, children!

Wednesday 4th February 2026

Core Curriculum

In English, this week, we have begun to plan our own myth based on the text that we have studied, 'Arthur and the Golden Rope'. The children have decided on their own hero and villain and thought about three quests that their hero can journey on using their three magical objects that they have. We look forward to reading the children's myths at the beginning of next week. In Maths, we have completed our first unit on area and have moved to the second unit where the children have so far explored square centimetres and square metres. Today, we estimated and measured the Snakes and Ladders playground marking in square metres. Some of the children were extremely accurate in their estimations and only 0.5 square metres away from the actual measurement! Well done, children.

Wider curriculum

Yesterday, volunteers from the Market Drayton Arts Festival came in to school to work with the children to design their calendars for the month of February. The children enjoyed the session and produced some brilliant paintings (please see our photos below). We'll keep our fingers crossed that our entries will be chosen for the competition. Our current PE unit is dance and we have now moved on to learning some Rock and Roll dance moves. The children began to learn the hand jive and the heel toe and jump kick travelling actions last week. Today, they have learned a range of spins and have started to choreograph their own dance incorporating all of these dance moves learned so far. I'm looking forward to watching their dances next week. 

Wednesday 21st January 2026

This week, the children have been working really hard across all areas of the curriculum. In English, the children have been continuing to read 'Arthur and the Golden Rope'. They have created a set of magical objects and written expanded noun phrases about them such as the 'remaining embers of the crackling fire'. Some of the children took part in a role play to unpick the scene where Atrix warns the townsfolk that they will freeze because the Great Fire has been extinguished. In Maths, we have worked on using the short division method to divide 3 digit by 1 digit numbers and built up to using short division where we need to regroup and where there are remainders. 

In the wider curriculum (DT), we have been disassembling Doodlers (electronic robots that create wobbly circular patterns) and changed the configuration of them to include a motor in a different position, changing the type of counterweight and the type and number of drawing materials. The children had great fun (see the accompanying photographs). PE has engaged the children in a dance called 'Dance by Chance', where they have built up their own dance over the last three weeks and considered the relationships, space and dynamics to name but a few elements. In History, the children have investigated the six wives of Henry V111. We listened to a song about each of the wives before they investigated one wife to see if she met the requirements of an appropriate Tudor wife for the king (one that was quiet and listened only, loyal, attractive, played an instrument and danced and would provide an heir to the throne). Thank goodness we live in modern times! 

Friday 9th January 2026

Happy New Year! It was fantastic to be able to welcome the children back to school and they have all settled quickly back into routines and lots of new learning has taken place.

In maths, we are continuing to work on our division skills using short division (bus stop method) and the children are working on dividing a 2 digit number by a 1 digit number. We then introduced regrouping (more than 9 in one column) and how we accurately represent this in our written method to ensure accuracy. We have learnt some new mathematical vocabulary within our lesson too; can the children tell you what a dividend, divisor or quotient is? 

Our writing outcome in English this half term is to create our own myth. With this in mind, we have looked at some information about Norse gods and their beliefs about the after life and also some Marvel characters, which we used to write some sentences containing relative clauses (clauses starting with a relative pronoun - that, whom, whose, who, which, when, where) and eventually to create our own class set of Top Trumps cards.

We continued with Databases in Computing - thinking about queries and how we use query tools, commands and operators when using a database to find information. The children started there South and West African music unit in Music this week and enjoyed learning a traditional African song. In PSHE, the children spent time looking at food packaging to determine how healthy or unhealthy certain foods are and how important it is to eat a balanced diet.

Despite the weather conditions meaning we have spent our playtimes in the classroom, the children have really enjoyed using this opportunity to play board games, complete puzzles and be creative with their friends.

Friday 19th December 2025

It's been a busy time in school this week! We've managed to finish off teaching our curriculum subjects with the children particularly enjoying creating their Installation Art pieces on Tuesday afternoon. The children were a little disappointed that we couldn't fit in more time for this! Please see the photographs below. Thank you to all parents who supported their children in sending in some items to create their final art pieces. They definitely wouldn't look amiss in the Tate Modern! 

The children have enjoyed a lovely range of Christmas activities towards the end of the week. Some of the photos can be found on the school Facebook page. They had a fantastic time making cards, enjoying their Christmas dinner and receiving a visit from Santa and his reindeer. A great time was had also at the Pantomine, which was earlier this month. 

We wish all our children and families a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year. We hope that you all manage to have a good break and a rest over the Christmas period and look forward to seeing the children refreshed and eager to learn in January.

Thank you for your support,

The Year Five Team

Friday 5th December 2025

Core Curriculum

This week, in English, we have continued to study the text, 'The Lost Happy Endings'. The children have created their own role-play of the moment that Jub encounters the twisted, old woman in the forest (see photos below) and then wrote about that moment using dialogue to portray the characters and advance the action. 

In Maths, we have continued to work on our understanding of expanded and short multiplication where we needed to make one or two regroups (exchanges). Next week, we will move on to the new topic of Division. 

Wider Curriculum

After learning about different types of installations in art, the children have now moved on to planning their own installation artwork using everyday objects based on a particular issue such as climate change. We have one more week to complete our plans before we ask the children to bring in their resources to create their artwork in our final week before Christmas. We can't wait to show you our final pieces in the last week!

Friday 28th November 2025

This week, the children have carried on with the class English text of The Lost Happy Endings - we have finished the story and debated whether or not Jub was in fact a villain within the tale - justifying our view with evidence from the text... The children have compared the three characters and discussed their similarities and differences and whether or not the story followed the theme of a traditional tale.

In maths, we have continued to work on our multiplication skills and apply these to multiplying 2 digits by 1 digit using both expanded and short multiplication. The children are becoming more confident with this and at understanding why regrouping happens.

We have spent some time creating Christmas stockings in preparation for Advent next week. The children are very excited and our classroom is beginning to look very Christmassy... 

Wednesday 19th November 2025

Core Subjects

This week, we are completing our termly assessments in Reading, Spelling, Grammar and Maths. However, we have still managed to fit in a couple of Maths and English lessons. Towards the end of the week in Maths, we are developing our understanding of multiplication using both the short and expanded form. In English, we are continuing to look at the story 'The Lost Happy Endings'. The children have written their own Winter forest poems using personification and have created freeze frames to help them to describe the character of the twisted, old woman adding in appropriate dialogue.

Wider Curriculum

In art, the children have started to learn about the topic of '3D Sculpture' and, in particular, 'Installation art'. We have studied the artwork of Cai Guo-Qiang, who uses gunpowder and fireworks for his large scale works. Yesterday afternoon, the children had the opportunity to create their own piece of installation artwork and investigated the effect of space and scale when completing their 3D art. They had great fun creating explosions of powder paint, glitter and crushed charcoal using some positive and negative stencils. See the photos of our artwork below.

Friday 14th November 2025

Maths & English:

We have carried on with The Lost Happy Endings - creating similes, metaphors and some personification to describe the forest setting. We then went on to arrange these into a poem. 

In maths, we have moved onto our multiplication unit. This has started by us looking at arrays and the grid method to multiply 1 digit by 2 digits. We have identified where regrouping is required and been able to apply these skills to a range of contexts and problems.

We have also done some arithmetic revision to recap on the four operations.

Wider Curriculum:

What a busy week we have had! Across the school, Anti-Bullying Week has taken place with the theme of 'Power for Good'. We wore our odd socks on Monday to celebrate differences and spent time creating a kindness charter and deciding on what it means to be kind. Tuesday was our school Remembrance service. The children all created and shared their work on this with the rest of the school as we came together to sing and remember those who have lost their lives.

In Science, we have investigated the factors affecting the rate at which solids dissolve and asked: Does the temperature of the water affect how quickly sugar dissolves? The answer was a resounding yes! We talked about the importance of having controlled variables and repeating the tests to ensure accurate results. We spent time during computing finalising and debugging our Viking quizzes and next week we will share these and offer feedback to others.

Children in Need took place on Friday with the children spending the day dressed in their PJs! They also brought along a soft, cuddly friend to spend the day in our classroom.

Wednesday 5th November 2025

Welcome back, we hope you have all had a lovely half-term!

Core subjects

In English, we are studying a new text called ‘The Lost Happy Endings’ by Carol Ann Duffy. The children have made super predictions, created a ‘Role on the Wall’ and written a set of expanded noun phrases to include in their later writing such as ‘the towering, ancient oak tree with a hollow trunk’. 
In Maths, we are continuing to work on Negative numbers. The children have looked at a range of contexts involving negative numbers such as in temperatures, lifts and sea elevations. They had been a little unsure of interpreting and labelling the intervals on a thermometer before half-term when the scale goes up in 2’s, 5’s and 10’s including negative numbers but we have further worked on this again to support their understanding. 
 

Wider Curriculum

The children are very proud to have completed their DT pop-up books. Today, we have visited the Year One class, who we designed and made our books for, to read our stories to the children and show them our different mechanisms. The Year One children were very excited for us to visit them! Please have a look at our photos below. 

Photos of Class sharing their Pop-up Books with Year One

Friday 24th October 2025

Maths & English

In English this week, we have been using all the skills we have worked on over our current writing unit to independently write a series of diary entries about events in the life of Matthew Henson. We have chosen these events, planned, written and edited our pieces carefully ensuring we have included the necessary features. We have started learning more about negative numbers in maths this week and becoming more confident at reading horizontal and vertical scales. We have spent time accurately calculating the intervals in order to label and work with number lines and using these to answer questions. 
 

Wider Curriculum

Our science lesson this week was very hands on with the children designing and trying out their very own water filters. They chose a range of materials and layered these into half a plastic bottle before pouring in muddy water to see how effectively it was filtered. We then reflected on how well these worked and what we might change for next time. We continued looking at quizzes in computing and adding even more features to our quizzes in order to make them appeal more to our audience. Some fantastic quizzes were created at home and we have enjoyed sharing these in class. In music, the children continued to compose their own music using notations and performing the pieces on the glockenspiels. We have also had a Bouncebackability session this week focused around writing jokes and making our friends laugh. 
 

Have a fantastic half term break and thank you for your continued support and to the children for all their hard work over the recent weeks 😊

Wednesday 15th October

Core subjects

In maths this week, we have continued to work on our understanding of decimals and have been writing, comparing and solving problems with decimals up to 3 decimal places. The children have been a whizz at comparing decimals and have amazed me with their fantastic work ethic. Well done, children!

In English, we have completed our setting descriptions of Murmansk from the Matthew Henson story, ‘Race to the Frozen North’. The children had the task of putting lots of features into their writing including fronted adverbials, noun phrases and the present progressive tense. 
 

Wider curriculum

Please see the photographs below of the children’s pop up books that they are designing and making. The children have been continuing to add their mechanisms and some children are now working on their illustrations. They cannot wait to show you their completed books!

In PE this week, the children have been focussing on their stamina and how it helps them to improve their performance in team games. In our sprinting exercise, some children really worked hard to display their stamina and it was lovely to see some children not giving up when it was tough going. 

Friday 10th October 2025

English & Maths

We have continued to focus on decimal numbers in maths this week and have worked on column addition and subtraction with decimals to 2d.p and also rounding decimals. Going forward, during maths on a Friday, we are going to look at Shape, Space and Measure - this week we have started by looking at our understanding of degrees and how we can use language to describe turns using compass points.

In English, we have carried on reading and enjoying Race to the Frozen North - all about Matthew Henson - the first American to reach the North Pole. We have planned and written pieces based around this and also began to write a setting description about Murmansk in Russia as this is a place Matthew spent many months after his ship became stuck in the frozen sea.

Wider Curriculum

In science this week, we have been defining and making mixtures using a variety of substances as well as recapping our knowledge of solids, liquids and gases. We have been completing some quizzes in Computing and discussing what we felt made a good quiz in preparation for beginning to create our own using Purple Mash. On Friday, we took part in Hello Yellow for World Mental Health Day. The children came to school dressed in bright clothing and we spent time throughout the day sharing our thoughts around mental health and the many different emotions we may experience. We then mind-mapped lots of ideas to support us in improving our mental health if we are ever having a tough time. The overarching message of the day was: Everybody's mental health is important and we need to share our feelings with others if we are struggling in any way.

The link below gives more information for parents and this was also shared with the children:

https://www.hugomeynell.co.uk/mental-health-wellbeing/ 

The children had some fantastic ideas and we all enjoyed the activities.

Wednesday 1st October 2025

English and Maths

After a busy week last week, Year 5 have returned to the normal rhythm of our class. In English, we have continued to look at inspirational women, notably Mae Jemison, who was the first African American woman to travel into space. The children wrote amazing emails home as Mae, telling of her adventures aboard the Endeavour space shuttle in 1992. In Maths, we have started a new topic, 'Use knowledge of decimals to solve problems in different contexts: length'. We have been writing equations involving the addition and multiplication of decimals.

Wider Curriculum

Our DT pop-up books are slowly beginning to evolve. The children have begun to cut out their sliders and levers ready to attach to their books to help to tell their stories. Next time, we'll post some photographs to show you our progress when we start to attach them to our books. 

Each Wednesday, we welcome Sam, who delivers some 'Bouncebackability' PSCHE training to the children based on the characters from 'The Beano'. We have completed four sessions and will finish our final session next week. The children have loved having Sam and are always really excited to see her. 

In History, we are studying the Vikings. In groups, the children have constructed large timelines of the Viking period and labelled them with the different events. Here are a few photographs of the timelines. 

Friday 26th September 2025

Year 5 have had a very busy week as usual! In English, we have started looking at our Young, Gifted and Black text and learning more about the lives of some significant figures within black history and how they became famous. The week ended with us planning a recount from the viewpoint of Bessie Coleman - the first African American woman to hold a pilot's license. The children were amazed at the footage of a 1920s air show and the daredevil stunts they attempted! Decimals have continued to be the focus of our maths lessons this week and we have spent time refreshing our knowledge of place value and using this knowledge to round, order and compare decimal numbers. Thursday was particularly action-packed as we had our Reading Breakfast first thing where we were joined by lots of the children's family members to share our love of reading and show them our classroom. It was fantastic to meet so many of you! Children's author, Harriet Goodwin, joined us virtually on Thursday afternoon to share her knowledge and passion for writing during our first Creative Writing Workshop. The children spent time thinking about the structure and feature of well known stories and learning more about her books. The week was finished off nicely by the Macmillan Coffee Morning and the opportunity to eat some yummy cakes whilst raising money for a good cause. Yum!

Laches Wood

Creative writing with Harriet Goodwin - part 2

We had a fantastic session with Harriet today where we entered into our creative bubbles and wrote our own exciting story opening. 
 

Harriet explained that every unputdownable book has an opening that contains:

1. Extraordinary event

2. Makes the reader ask questions

3. Contains an exciting action sequence

4. Uses a strong character voice

5. The reader needs to care about the character

Harriet has left us with the task of writing our own 100 word story opening before our next session in May.

Tuesday 18th March 2025

Road to RIAT

Year 5 took part in an all day STEM activity run by the Smallpiece Trust in collaboration with the RAF - Road to RIAT. Via a youtube live link we welcomed Ollie into our classroom. Ollie certified us all as Aerospace Engineers for the day.

Our first mission was to learn about Space. Space is 62 miles above sea level and as we travel into space the sky turns from deep blue to  the dark sky that we see at night. We learned that 80% of the known universe is a vacuum (empty of all matter). Ollie also explained that to travel into Space we have to defy gravity. Gravity is the weakest force in nature and we have to overcome this to be able to travel into space - that is where rockets come in.

Ollie introduced us to Newtons 3rd Law (Action and reaction are equal and opposite - for every action there is an equal opposite reaction). Taking this and aerodynamics into account we had to design a rocket that would be capable of travelling to space. In their groups, the children discussed and gave consideration to the payload (where the astronauts sit), fuselage (body of the rocket), fins (stabilise the rocket and stop spin) and booster (provide thrust for launch) for their rocket.

Then came one of our favourite parts of the day - launching and testing our rockets.

During the afternoon session, Ollie talked to us about sustainability. This means taking care of our planet for future generations to come and using our resources responsibly. We then applied this new knowledge and designed a sustainable aircraft of the future. Our designs will be put forward for a national competition where they have the chance to win tickets to RIAT.

Later in the summer we will take part in Meet the STEM SuperStars when we will have the opportunity to ask questions and find out about life as an RAF specialist, Engineer and Scientist.

#RoadtoRIAT

Music - Graphic Scores

In music we are studying Music to represent Holi - The Festival of Colour.

Today we created Graphic Scores to represent a piece of popular music.

PE - Today we have used our team building and communication skills to perfect our tactics in dodgeball.

PE Enrichment - introduction to Ju-jitsu. What a treat the children have had today! We have loved learning the basic kicks, punches and rolls from the sensais at Valor Ju-jitsu. We were amazed by the demonstration they put on for us too,

SCIENCE - Lifecycle of a mammal

Today we developed our Research using Secondary Sources enquiry skills as we researched the life cycle of 3 different mammals. We used our research to discuss similarities and differences and we considered the survival benefit of these. We ensured that during conversation we were using appropriate scientific vocabulary-

. gestation

. Juvenile 

. Offspring

. Adult

. Infant

. Newborn

. Characteristic

SCIENCE - Flower Dissection.

The first lesson of our new unit Life Cycles and Reproduction covered sexual reproduction in flowers. To allow us to explore a flower in detail we carried out a flower dissection. We used magnifying glasses to make close observations of petals, sepals, anther, filament, stigma, style and ovule. We used discussion, animations and a clip from Bee Movie to consider the process of sexual reproduction in flowers and the role that bees and insects play. Next lesson our learning will move on to reproduction in mammals.

Creative Writing Workshop

Today we had the first of four creative workshops with published author Harriet Goodwin.

Harriet's first session encouraged the children to discuss what makes a good story.

1. Identify the problem

2. Why does your main character REALLY care about solving the problem? This is usually based on love.

3. The story starts at the point of change for the main character. This is always an exciting event.

Harriet then introduced us to our CREATIVE BUBBLES. These are protective forcefields that we put around ourselves when creating our writing. When in these creative bubbles we cannot be disturbed or interact with other people. This is to allow our imagination to flow and to encourage independence.

We are really looking to our next session in April!

PE - Dodgeball

Today we enjoyed our last dodgeball ball session of the unit. There were some really tense games! The children have really impressed us with their skill development, team work and good sportsmanship 🏅🏅🏅🏅