Year 5

Welcome to the Year 5 class page

It's good to be back after the summer holidays.  You'll find some information here about what's in store this term.  Pictures of what the children have been up to will be regularly posted on the school's Instagram.

Each of the schools terms are themed:

Autumn term - the EXPLORE term (with a specific focus on Geography)

Spring term - the DISCOVER term (with a specific focus on History)

Summer term - the CREATE term (with a specific focus on Art and Music)

This is our 'EXPLORE' term with a specific focus on Geography; we will be finding out about physical and human geography.  The children will be locating significant physical features in the world and examining their topographical features.  As we examine extreme habitats we will look at how human activity (human geography) is impacting the environment (physical geography).  Through our 'EXPLORE' learning we will try to answer our inquiry question: 'Is climate change inevitable?'

In Science the children will be exploring living things and their habitats.  They will be investigating the process of reproduction in some plants and animals and learning about the life cycles of mammals, amphibians, insects and birds.  In the second half of the term the focus will switch to properties and changes of materials.

The children will be finding out how information is shared in their weekly computing lessons and later on in the term learning to create vector drawings; exploring how different drawing tools can be use to create digital images.

Our core subjects of Maths and English will be taught on a daily basis and the other core subject, RE will be taught weekly.  The children will also have a weekly RSE/PSHE lesson.  In the first half-term the children will be developing an understanding of families, including marriage and what to do if someone feels unsafe in their family; learning that dealing issues can strengthen a friendship; exploring the impact of bullying and what influences a bully’s behaviour.  In second half term we will be learning to take greater responsibility for sleep, healthy eating and managing feelings; setting goals and embracing failure; understanding the importance of rest and relaxation.  I'm really looking forward to these lessons as I believe a greater understanding of relationships and well being is vital if we are to be 'successful' in today's society.

I will be following the White Rose timetable for Maths.  By clicking on this link, 'White Rose' you will be able to see the topics and when we'll be studying them.  For English I'll be using a mixture of my own resources and those provided by Herts Essentials.

Each week the children will be doing two hours of PE: an hour with me and an hour with Matt.  I will be teaching dance through a series of lessons called, 'Eco Dance'.  We also have a Forest School session scheduled.  I'll use this to reinforce learning across a range of subjects.

For a more detailed breakdown of what will be being taught this term click here.

The DISCOVER Term

This term is the school's DISCOVER term.  In History we will be learning about the Victorians and their contribution to our lives today.  There will be a specific focus on Victorian inventors and their inventions.  This learning will help to answer our class question, 'How have inventions changed our lives?'.  This half-term in Science we will be discovering aspects of planet Earth and its place in our Solar System.  RE will be looking at 'Sources of Wisdom' (stories and sacred writings) from the Jewish and Christian faith; the chidlren will discover how these stories influcence people and the religious communities they belong to.  In computing the children will discover how to make their own video as they learn about filming techniques and the planning, production and editing of videos.

Useful websites about The Victorians

This page contains a mixture of information and photos of our learning.  From time to time, in addition to the weekly homework, extra work will be set on Google Classroom.

Christmas Songs

Below are links to the the Christmas songs Y5 are learning for our Christmas Concert (Years 4, 5 & 6) on Tuesday 14th December.  Please couldy you practise these at home.  Thanks

The EXPLORE term

Road Safety

This week has been Road Safety Week (15-21 Nov).  The children enjoyed learning more about Road Safety from taking part in a live online lesson with Sarah Elliot from Hertfordshire County Council.  They also watched two powerful films:

C U Later :-)

Road ready? Expect the unexpected

Some of road safety posters the children designed for homework have been put up around the school.  Following from the live online lesson the children worked in small groups and produced a voice over for a TV ad about  road safety.  Click below to hear them.

08.11.2021 - so far this term in Maths we have covered place value and addition and subtraction.  We are currently work through a short statistics unit.  We'll then move onto mulitiplicaiton and division.  At the end of the unit on addition and subtraction the children were taught how to tackle multi-step word problems.

Multi-step word problems are often challenging for children as they have apply their maths knowledge in the context of a word problem.  When tackling a word problem it's important to ask four key questions:

• What is the key vocabulary in the question?
• What are the key bits of information?
• Can we put this information into a model - a visual representation?
• Which operations do we need to use?

Here are some examples of multi-step word problems:

When Sam opened up her book, she saw two numbered pages.  The sum of these two pages was 245.  What would the next page number be?

In this problem I would visualise an open book.  The page numbers are consecutive, that is one follows on from other.  

I would draw two pages and halve 245 - make it an even number first - 244.  The first page is 122 (half of 244) so the second page must be 123.  122+?=245 or 245-122=123

So the nexdt page number has to be 124.

Here's another problem:

Adam is twice as old as Barry

Charlie is 3 years younger than Barry

The sum of all their ages is 53

How old is Barry?

I would work through this problem putting all the key information into a simple table applying the rules:

A         B         C

20       10        7       = 20+10+7 = 37

30       15       12      = 30+15+12 = 57

28       14       11      = 28+14+11 = 53

So Barry must be 14.

Below are some multi-step word problems to have a go at.

This term our theme is 'EXPLORE'.  Our core subjects of Maths and English will be taught on a daily basis and the other core subject, RE, will be taught alternately with PSHE every other week.

I am following the White Rose timetable for Maths.  By clicking on this link, 'White Rose' and then clicking on the Year 5 tab you will be able to see the topics and when we'll be studying them.  I will be using White Rose resources alongside Herts Essentials for Maths and other resources.

Our focus subjects which feed into the 'EXPLORE' theme are Science and Geography.  In science the children will be exploring living things and their habitats.  They will be investigating the process of reproduction in some plants and animals.  They will also be learning about the life cycles of mammals, amphibians, insects and birds.  In geography we will be finding out about physical and human geography.  The children will be locating signficant physical features in the world and examining their topographical features.  As we examine different habitats we will look at how human activity is impacting physical geography.  Through all of our 'EXPLORE' learning we will trying to answer the question: 'How is planet Earth changing?'

The children will also be exploring how information is shared in their weekly computing lessons and enjoying sessions in Forest School every alternate Wednesday.