We love the focus and flair that the children have applied to their learning this week! They’ve written some Pulitzer-worthy newspaper reports about the mysterious events of an unforgettable Tuesday night that left a small town in chaos - and are now busy crafting their own imaginative stories to share with younger pupils in KS1. Pigs really might fly!

Our classrooms transformed into mini-lunar labs as the children endeavoured to answer the question, "Why do the Moon’s craters vary so much in size?" In art, they used their collagraph plates to create striking abstract prints, perfect backdrops for the imaginative future scapes to come. In maths, pupils have been flexing their addition and subtraction skills using RUCSAC to help them reason and problem solve, and in music they’re composing atmospheric three-note melodies inspired by Hans Zimmer’s Earth. Meanwhile, our budding historians have been busy asking questions about the artefacts discovered at Sutton Hoo and developing their own hypotheses as to their purpose, ownership and origins.

We are delighted with how confidently the children have settled into Year 5, demonstrating excellent behaviour and a real enthusiasm for their learning. Our unit of work on Space in science has captured their imaginations, with astronaut training and a growing knowledge of the solar system linking handily to space-themed retrofuturism in art. In maths, they are securing strong foundations in place value to one million, while in English they are exploring our core text, Tuesday by David Wiesner, and developing their prediction and inference skills. We have also begun our new History topic on the Anglo-Saxons.

We are all looking forward to an exciting year of learning ahead!

Year 5 have been really busy rehearsing for their Isle of Wight assembly, which was a huge success this morning! Thank you to everyone who came to watch. We are all very proud of their individual achievements, as well as how well they have worked together to perform as a year group. In DT this term, we have been designing and building pulley systems. We have linked this to a real-life problem that farmers in Nepal face, as they have to transport tomatoes they grow down mountains to towns so they are able to sell them at markets. We think you will agree, their designs are fantastic! Next week we will automate them, so we look forward to that. In maths we have entered our final topic of the year - volume. In English, we continue to read Journey to Jo'burg and have started to think about planning a creative narrative where the characters the children design will Journey to a country or city of their choice! 

Year 5 have been busy learning all about the coastal features on the Isle of Wight! We have investigated how the groynes at Sandown beach work to stop longshore drift, as well as being able to identify the effects that coastal erosion has had on the island. We will see all of this in action next week! In English, we have rounded up our topic on The Lost Words, where the children have impressed us with their poetic prowess. We have begun to look at our new core text, Journey to Jo'burg by Beverly Naidoo, where we have explored the history of apartheid in South Africa. We have had some excellent discussions in our classes, full of curiosity. In maths we have been learning how to count through zero into negative numbers, applying this to real life situations like temperature. We look forward to seeing you all on Monday morning with a suitcase in tow! Happy packing!

What an excellent start to the summer term Year 5 have had! We wrapped up our learning linked to Shakespeare’s Macbeth by choosing a favourite scene from the book to perform using our puppets. Our new core text is The Lost Words by Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris. We have begun to explore kenning poetry and write some of our own. In geography we have started our topic of coastal features, where we have learnt how to write 6-figure grid references and understand the features of coastlines. You will see in the photos below some lovely examples of our observational house drawings from our new art topic. This week we used viewfinders to choose a section of our sketches to develop into a monoprint. In science we have been able to enjoy our wonderful outside space as we looked for flowers to identify the male and female parts needed for reproduction. 

What a weird and wonderful couple of weeks it has been in Year 5. Following all manner of strange sightings on World Book Day, which narrowly missed our last newsletter, we have been busy investigating strange substances in science. Making the most of the sunshine, we worked outside, making and manipulating Oobleck - a non-Newtonian fluid that confounds predictions and defies normal fluidic behaviour. Back inside the classroom, we have been filling the heads of our Macbeth puppets with stuffing and giving them (in some cases quite terrifying) facial features. Further afield, the children have been learning about the Fair Trade organisation in the context of global trade, developing their understanding of the different stages of supply chains and of how consumer choices can have an impact on producers and suppliers half a world away. Closer to home in maths, we have begun a new unit of work on shape and are busy working with angles, whilst in English we are putting the final touches to our newspaper reports based on Macbeth.