Year Five

AUTUMN TERM

Welcome to Year 5, and what an amazing year we are going to have! We have lots and lots of exciting learning to do in the forthcoming weeks linked to our school vision (John 10:10, "Live life in all its fullness’), our four virtues (perseverance, respect, courage and honesty) and our school rules (being ready, being respectful and being safe). These are at the heart of all we do. 

IMPORTANT DATES:

Monday is our PE day – we will be doing PE with Rotherham United, focusing on healthy lifestyles and inclusivity in sports.

Homework is due in Wednesday (ready to mark on Friday). This allows children to have a couple of reminders before we mark.

Reading Diaries also due Fridays, BUT could children bring them every day as they might read with an adult and we want them to receive those certificates!

CURRICULUM

Reading

This half term, we are looking at “Rebel girls” – stories of females standing up for equality around the world (such as Rosa Parks) or for being amazing trendsetters (such as Venus and Serena Williams).

In addition to this, children have their own reading books PLUS a reading book for a Friday ‘love of reading’ session in which we read in groups and get to really enjoy the books.

Also, I have introduced a “read with an teacher” challenge: Myself and Miss Horler will be taking one of our books home and will read a chapter or two a week. If your child wants to read along, that would be brill. We then have the opportunity to talk about the book (as I find it can sometimes be a bit isolating if no-one else has read the book).

If you would like to take part, I am reading The Wolf Wilder by Katherine Rundell and Miss Horler is reading “Treason” by Berlie Doherty.

Our class book at the end of the day is Street Child by Berlie Doherty.

WRITING

We have some amazing pieces of writing planned this term and will be using this time as a basis to cement the foundations in writing (ensuring we are confidently using punctuation and grammar taught from Year 1).

Our writing is based on the Queen of Falls book, an epic true tale of a retired Head-mistress who instead of living peacefully, decides to go over Niagra Falls… IN A BARREL!!! Will she be successful and be the first Human to ever complete this daredevil feat? Or, will it all go horribly wrong! Expect Newspapers, letters, diary entries, recounts and lots and lots of excitement!

MATHS

Our maths this term is predominately based upon place value (knowing that 234,756 has two hundred thousands and seven hundreds etc) and addition and subtraction. We will also be tackling some shape work and some work on time.

HISTORY

Our topic this half term is The Plague (1665-1666). We will take our children on a journey from the edges of Asia, along the silk and spice trade routes, across the English Channel to London and witness how rats from trading ships spread the disease. We continue our learning by focusing on a local area, Eyam, and how they sacrificed themselves by isolating the entire village to save the plague from spreading further North and by doing so, saved countless lives. We will even travel to Eyam to witness first hand, some of the cottages that these brave soles lived, and died in. #

SCIENCE

We are tacking forces this term and what pushing and pulling forces can look like in real life, from gravity, to air resistance to friction for breaks. We will be carrying out lots of experiments and conducting lots of scientific research, testing our very own hypotheses.

We then move onto to explore our solar system, focusing on how Day and Night are formed as we try and answer some of the questions that have plagued scientists for centuries!

RE

We are focusing on the relationship between religious beliefs and science this half term – do they complement each other or are they contradictory? Can you be religious AND scientific or are the two mutually independent. The children will have ample opportunities to think about and discuss these huge questions as we focus on the story of Genesis, and how that relates to scientific theories of the Big Bang, Evolution and astronomy.

COMPUTING

As we are delving further into a technological world, it is of vital importance that we consider we are keeping our children safe. That is our main focus this half term whilst we also look at how systems control our everyday lives, from traffic lights, to Amazon deliveries!

Watch this space for some of our children's writing and artwork - COMNG SOON!