Spring Term
2025
Year 5
Welcome to the Year 5 home page. Here you will find all of the key information about what the children are getting up to this term. The door for Year 5 will be opened at 8:45am and will close at 8.55am for registration. Please ensure children arrive on time to ensure that they can settle into the school day successfully.
Reading
We adopt a reading approach called ‘Booktalk’. During these sessions, teachers ensure a language rich environment discussing themes and vocabulary in the class readers and ensuring ‘working walls’ reflect new knowledge and vocabulary. This has a direct impact on pupil’s writing. This term, our class novels are The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane by Kate DiCamillo and The House with Chicken Legs by Sophie Anderson.
Reading continues to be an important part of the day. Please ensure that your child reads at home daily and that this is recorded in their reading record. Your child’s reading book and reading record need to be sent into school daily to enable us to read at school, change books and monitor your child’s reading progress. A mixture of them reading to an adult as well as reading independently is encouraged in order for children to develop their fluency and comprehension. Our library day is Friday.
Writing
In our writing this year, we are adopting book-based writing units that are based on a wide range of high quality and significant children’s literature chosen to engage, challenge and support children to be critical readers and confident and informed writers. All National Curriculum requirements of grammar, spelling, vocabulary, literary language and composition are embedded leading towards a variety of purposeful and exciting shorter, longer and extended writing outcomes where the audience and purpose is clear.
Our books this term are:
The Lost Thing by Shaun Tan
Freedom Bird by Jerdine Nolen
Rumaysa: A Fairytale by Radiya Hafiza
Beowulf by Michael Morpurgo
Maths
We follow the White Rose Education scheme of learning that inspires maths to really focus on the ‘WHY?’ rather than the ‘HOW?’ in maths. We support our learners more thoroughly using the Concrete Pictorial Abstract approaches, but also extend through reasoning and problem-solving questions and Maths Journaling that flow throughout the whole scheme. This term, we are covering units on:
Multiplication & Division
Fractions
Decimals and percentages
Perimeter and area
Statistics
Alongside this, we will continue to support children in developing their arithmetic skills. TT Rockstars is a fantastic resource that the children have access to at home and will support them with all mathematical learning in school.
Science
During science this term, children will consolidate and extend their knowledge of forces by naming individual forces (e.g. gravity, friction, upthrust). They will extend their knowledge of frictional forces (air resistance and water resistance) and plan fair test investigations to discover which shoe has the greatest friction and which shapes offer the most water resistance. They will learn how forces can be helpful and unhelpful in various scenarios and identify the forces involved in each scenario. They will learn what a mechanism is and how pulleys, levers and gears are used to allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.
Art
How can flowers inspire artists?
In this clay sculpture unit, children will build on their knowledge and skills of sculpture and clay that they have studied through LKS2 and KS1. They will learn from great artists and evaluate and analyse creative works using the language of art. Children will produce their own creative work, exploring their ideas and recording their experiences. They will begin to demonstrate proficiency in sculpture techniques.
Computing
In Computing, we start with a unit on Programming (Selection in physical computing.
In this unit, learners will use physical computing to explore the concept of selection in programming through the use of the Crumble programming environment. Learners will be introduced to a microcontroller (Crumble controller) and learn how to connect and program components (including output devices- LEDs and motors) through the application of their existing programming knowledge. Learners are introduced to conditions as a means of controlling the flow of actions and make use of their knowledge of repetition and conditions when introduced to the concept of selection (through the if, then structure).
We then move on to learning about data and information. This unit looks at how a flat-file database can be used to organise data in records. Pupils use tools within a database to order and answer questions about data. They create graphs and charts from their data to help solve problems. They use a real-life database to answer a question, and present their work to others.
Geography
In Geography, children will learn about the biomes and ecosystems in the UK answering the key question: What trees, plants and animals are in our local ecosystems? They will complete a case study of the New Forest, discovering the diversity of trees, plants and animals found there. They will plan fieldwork to be conducted in a local woodland ecosystem, investigating the amount and variety of trees, plants and animals. They will then conduct this fieldwork at a local woodland ecosystem, observing, measuring and recording their findings. Children will finally analyse the data collected and present their information to an audience.
History
This unit looks at the Ancient Greeks and their achievements from around 3000 BCE to the reign of Alexander the Great around 330 BCE. Children will think about and discuss how we know about the early Greeks by looking at excavation evidence and what this tells us about their way of life. Comparisons are made between Athens and Sparta and at the end of the unit, children will discuss and analyse the impact that the different leaders Ancient Greece had.
Physical Education
In PE this term, we will be focusing on invasion games – netball and football.
During both football and netball, pupils develop their understanding of the attacking and defending principles of invasion games. In all games activities, pupils have to think about how they use skills, strategies and tactics to outwit the opposition. Pupils will do this by maintaining possession and moving the ball towards goal to score. Pupils develop
their understanding of the importance of fair play and honesty while self-managing games and learning and abiding by key rules, as well as evaluating their own and others’ performances.
Please ensure your child comes to school wearing their PE kit every Thursday .
Modern Foreign Languages
We start in French this term by learning about numbers 50-100 and then learn all about euros.
PSHE
During our PSHE sessions this year, we are using a new resource called VotesforSchools which is a weekly current affairs-based voting platform designed to engage children & young people in age-appropriate political and social issues. Through weekly discussion and voting, not only are voters learning about the world around them, but they are also becoming active citizens and preparing to participate in democratic processes. Through our lessons, called VoteTopics, voters can participate in open, informed and balanced discussions about live issues and the impact these may have on them and their communities. Then, they decide where they stand on each issue and their reasons why. Their vote results and comments are passed on to figures and organisations of influence, who in turn provide feedback and insight on how their voices are making a difference to policy, attitudes, and awareness. This allows voters to feel empowered to speak out and that their voices are being heard.
Home Learning
We ask the children read every day and write this in their reading record books. Children are also expected to log onto TT Rockstars in order to develop their times table fluency. Below are also the Year 5/6 statutory spellings that the children are learning to spell in class. If however you wish to also support your child in learning these at home, I have attached the spelling list for you to use:
If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to email me at:
t.prior@southill.dorset.sch.uk
Tom