September News

Year 5 have settled in well, adapting quickly to new timetables, routines and work ethic.

In maths, we began with baseline assessments for Winning With Numbers before moving on to our  place value unit. We started by revisiting 3-digit numbers and have since expanded our learning to  numbers up to one million. The children have been ordering, comparing, and rounding numbers,  applying their understanding of place value. This is a key skill we will continue to build on throughout  the year. We are really impressed with how well the class has embraced the higher level of  independence required in Year 5. I am very pleased that all the children completed their 3x timestable quiz this week, we will be moving onto our 4s.  

Our writing stimulus this term is Rock, Paper, Scissors. We immersed ourselves in the short film by  creating a news report for the class. We then used a range of techniques to describe the setting during each part of the short film. Alongside this, we have been recapping how to identify past,  present, and future tenses. A key focus this term is handwriting – ensuring everyone can write neatly  and clearly. Letter formation and fluent writing are important skills, and we practise these daily. 

Our big question in Geography is: What is life like in the Alps? We began by locating the Alps on a  map and have started a case study of Innsbruck, learning what makes this city unique. Later this  term, we’ll be working with Mr Bailey, who will use exciting technology to help us explore the Alps  in even greater detail! 

In French, we’ve started learning how to say the date, including days of the week and months of the  year. The children are enjoying practising their new vocabulary – test them at home to see what  they can recall! 

Science began with a crash landing into our topic of forces! The children designed and tested their  own parachutes, discovering that a larger surface area makes the parachute fall more slowly. Next  week, we’ll be investigating water resistance. 

It has been a busy and exciting start to Year 5. Both myself and Mrs Mallaburn are really pleased with  the children’s commitment to homework so far. Please continue to encourage regular reading at  home too – it makes a big difference! 

October News

The children have settled in brilliantly and have shown incredible enthusiasm and dedication throughout the term. Year 5 – keep up the hard work, happiness, and pride next term!

 Maths

In Maths, the children have been working incredibly hard on the four operations. We began by mastering column addition and subtraction with 4-digit numbers, before moving on to 2-digit by 2-digit multiplication. To complete our unit, we revised division and tackled 4-digit numbers divided by a 1-digit number — a real challenge that the children faced with determination!

 We’ve now started our unit on fractions, exploring equivalent fractions, fractions of amounts, and multiplying unit fractions. I am especially proud of the fantastic progress on Times Table Rock Stars — Year 5 have achieved some outstanding scores recently! Please continue to encourage your child to practise their times tables regularly, as these skills are essential for success in Maths.

 English

 I am so proud of the children’s effort and maturity in their recent English work. We have been writing non-chronological reports about the events of Nagasaki and Hiroshima in 1945, and the children have shown great enthusiasm and empathy while exploring this important historical event. Their writing has been thoughtful, detailed and they have worked hard to include parenthesis, our newly learnt skill. We look forward to finishing and publishing these pieces after half term.

 The children also shone during our trip to the building site, demonstrating curiosity and excellent behaviour throughout the visit. In addition, this term they designed some wonderful doodlers, which were a big hit with Year 1, who had a brilliant time judging them!

 Finally, Mrs Mallaburn and myself could not be prouder of the children’s wonderful Harvest Festival performance of “The King and the Seed.” They worked so hard to learn their lines, perform confidently, and show true teamwork. Their resilience and commitment really paid off — what a fantastic achievement!

November News

Autumn Term 2 is in full swing and we have been super busy! So far, we have taken part in TTRS/Numbots Day, Remembrance, Children In Need and Ellington’s Got Talent. Congratulations to our Y5 winner and to all of those who audited and took part – we had a blast! We will soon be starting to practise our Christmas songs ready for the wonderful carol concert.

Maths
In Maths, we have been looking at fractions, decimals and shape. We took on the challenge of rounding decimals to the nearest whole then to the nearest tenth then we moved onto equivalent fractions, simplifying fractions and finding fractions of an amount. We have also covered shape; the children were put to the test
when making their own 3D shapes. We have revisited perimeter while also working on increasing shapes by a given scale factor.

English
We have just finished reading Kensuke’s Kingdom, the children are working really hard on using the text to find evidence to support their answers. Our next book is ‘Clockwork’ by Philip Pullman. In English we spent a week on performance poetry, working on using intonation, tone, volume and expression to make the meaning
clear to the audience (videos on DOJO). At the moment, we are producing a newspaper report on the events in ‘The Island’ which is a picture book by Armin Greder. While discussing the moral of the story, the children came up with some superb reflections, we decided the story shows that ‘fear makes people do terrible things’ (quote by Y5 student). During SPaG we have been going back to basics, we have been working super hard on understanding what a simple, compound and complex sentence needs. Our next unit will be a drama script based on the Literacy Shed video ‘The Alchemist’s Letter’.

History
Y5 Historians have been loving our new topic ‘Were the Vikings traders, raiders, settlers or more?’ The children have shown a great amount of prior knowledge and have shown a wonderful interest in lessons. This week they delved into primary and secondary sources trying to uncover what Viking life was like.

Science
I am very proud of the enthusiasm the children have shown while learning about ‘The Solar System’, the children have brought some fascinating facts to the classroom and it has been a joy to see them so enthusiastic about our topic. Scan the QR code to see some of their wonderful fact files!

French
In French, we've started learning how to say if we have a pet, we have been working on discovering the names for household pets. Test them and see how they do!
Myself and Mrs Mallaburn love to see the children thriving and showing a great love for learning. Please continue to support with homework, times tables and reading at home. I have also encouraged the children to pop onto BBC Bitesize if they have the chance as there is an array of fun education videos and games on the website!