Year 5
Welcome to Year 5!
2024-25
In Year 5, our teachers are Mrs Gilchrist (Class 7), Miss Brown (Class 8) and Miss Wilson (Class 9). We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSA): Miss Jackman and Mrs Parkin.
If you have any questions, please speak with your child's class teacher. If they are not around at pick-up, you can speak to them by phoning the school office and requesting an appointment.
Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning.
Curriculum Newsletters
Updated - Friday 22nd November 2024
RE: The birth narratives (Christianity)
In Re this week, we continued to compare the two gospels of Luke and Matthew from the Bible and their versions of the birth narratives. In pairs, we discussed some questions about one of the narratives and then compared these with a pair who had the other version. We used these verbal comparisons to fill in a Venn diagram as a class.
English: Relative clauses
This week, we have been practising using relative clauses in 
our sentences in preparation for our non-chronological report about the Shang dynasty. We sorted and matched the main clauses with their corresponding relative clauses, then located the noun in the main clause to snip and insert our relative clause. We worked in groups to do this and then carried on practising this skill in our workbooks.
History: Fu Hao
This week, we learnt about a very powerful and significant figure in the Shang Dynasty: Fu Hao. First, we mind-mapped any questions we had about an interesting statue that was excavated from an archaeological site in China, before revealing it was a statue of a lady called Fu Hao. Then, we researched her interesting life in this ancient civilisation and then wrote.
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Update - Friday 11th November 2024
Reading: There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom
This week, we have continued reading our guided reading text: There’s a Boy in the Girl’s Bathroom. At the beginning of the lesson, we discussed the unfamiliar words in the WALT: intonation, tone, and volume, and how these are used when we read a text aloud. Then, we role-played Carla's meeting with Colleen to show our understanding of her as a character. We started to act out some of the scenes, for example, how she walked into the room and what she did in the room, as well as using our intonation, tone, and volume when reading.
Geography: Capital City Top Trumps
In geography this week, we have been using our knowledge of continents, countries and capital cities to compare the different capitals in our world. As we were playing Top Trumps, we started to evaluate which capital city we thought was the most powerful and why.
History: Artefact carousel
In this week’s history lesson we continued to explore the different aspects of the Shang dynasty. We looked at some photographs of artefacts that were placed in different areas of the classroom, and discussed in small groups how these ancient warfare items helped the Shang people become successful warriors. As we observed the artefact, we discussed their features and how they could’ve been used to help the Shang warriors fight.
Update - Friday 3rd November 2024
English: Deadly Dynasties
This week, we started our new writing unit: a non-chronological report about the Shang Dynasty. We have practised our non-fiction writing quite a lot already this term, so we decided that we would put a Horrible Histories spin on our writing in order to not only inform but to also entertain. We watched some Horrible Histories clips to help give us a clear purpose for our writing and then began to mind map what our audience and form could be.
Science: Earth and Space
In science this week, we have begun our new unit: Earth and Space. We shared our initial understanding of space and then read our knowledge organisers to help us understand different scientific words such as orbit. We then took to the playground to demonstrate a small scale example of our solar system and how the sizes of the planets compared to each other, using different sized fruits.
Updated - Friday 11th October 2024
English: Guess Who...?
This week, we started our new writing unit that's linked to Black History Month. In our first lesson, we used our inference skills to try and guess who our influential person for our final piece was from a selection of clues. After guessing that our person was Simone Biles, we discussed why she was influential and learned more about the importance of Black History Month. After this, we tried to order Simone’s life events in chronological order, which will help us with our biographies at the end of the unit.
English: Lights, Camera, Action...
In our next lesson, we reminded ourselves of the words and phrases we created and extracted from some newspaper headlines to describe Simone Biles to show how influential she is. Then, we matched the stills from her documentary trailer to help us structure our commentary for the trailer of her new documentary on Netflix.
Updated - Friday 4th October 2024
RE: Salat & belonging
In this week's lesson, we continued exploring what belonging means to Muslims and referred to the 5 pillars of Islam we had already learned in year 3. During the lesson, we learned prayer brings the Muslim community together and gave them a strong sense of belonging through praying at the same time wherever they are in the world. After this, we designed our own prayer mats with instructions for a Muslim child explaining how it should be used to help them feel they belong to their religion. Also, a massive WELL DONE to Redouane and Zak from class 9 who were very brave and incredibly knowledgeable in sharing their own experiences with using prayer mats. The class gained so much knowledge from this and you should be very proud of yourselves!
Art: Casting techniques Year 5 have been practising their casting techniques which we know was an incredibly skillful technique pioneered in the Shang Dynasty. All three classes had great fun using the different techniques to create different molds and cast out of clay and plaster, ready to create our masks next week. They look fabulous!
Updated - Thursday 26th September 2024
This week, year 5 chanelled our inner Indiana Jones, and became archeologists for the lesson. After discussing the role of an archaeologist and why archaeologists are important for learning about other cultures, we collected our ideas together, we created a whole-class definition. We will use this understanding when we listen to the podcast about an ancient dig site in China and the evidence they found, in the second part of the lesson.
Update - Friday 20th September 2024
Science:
This week, we have conducted our own investigation to measure the friction different surfaces exert on an object. We discussed how to ensure that the experiment was fair and what measures we could implement to ensure our results were accurate. Year 5 had great fun observing how far the car would travel on each surface and understood that the property of the material (whether it’s rough, smooth or hard) can influence the amount of friction it can create.
In PSHE, we continued to explore our rights and responsibilities as a citizen in our country. After learning about the different articles in the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC), we discussed what difficulties refugee children have and how difficult it is to manage their own rights. We played a game where different children rolled a ball to the child in the middle and each ball represented a difficulty we thought a refugee might face. The child in the middle had to collect all of the balls without dropping them; the balls did not stop for the person in the middle to collect them, which symbolised how some difficulties don’t stop and will need to be juggled in everyday life, even if you are a person already in a difficult situation. Then,as a group, we brainstormed the top 6 things ALL children needed in order to learn and collated them, as a class, to make the top 6. We thought carefully about what responsibility we have in order to uphold these rights.
Updated - Friday 13th September 2024
This week in PSHE, we discussed what rights were and the ‘United Nations Convention on the Right of the Child’ (UNCRC). With a partner, we considered 8 of these rights and what our responsibility could be to uphold them. We worked in groups to write down our ideas on posters.
In art, we have been practising our sketching skills by sketching Ancient Chinese motifs called Taotie. We have learned they are made from bronze, using an ancient mould casting technique. They use line, pattern and form to create motifs with human-like characteristics that originate from the Shang Dynasty. Here are some of our example:
School Council Vote - Democracy:
This week, we have been practising our British Value: democracy, and have voted for new school councilors to represent our class. Each candidate was given a chance to write a speech to share with the class, then we conducted a vote to choose our representative. Congratulations to:
Hansika - Class 7
Johannes - Class 8
Ruwa - Class 9
Updated: Friday 6th September 2024
History: The Shang Dynasty
This week, we have started our exciting topic, ‘Shang Dynasty,’ and have been studying the history of China. In our first session, we explored the timeline and key aspects of the Shang Dynasty. We had great fun re-enacting a Shang Dynasty play, which taught us about the Yellow Emperor.
English: Please let us have two weeks off our homework, Miss Charman!
We have been practising our persuasive skills to help us convince Miss Charman to allow us to have a 2-week break from homework at some point this term. We have just returned from a long summer break, so our persuasive skills must be very accurate and convincing! Hopefully, our Apprentice piece's expanded noun phrase and formal tone will do the trick!
Geography: Cardinal & intercardinal compass points
In our geography sessions, we have applied our knowledge of cardinal and intercardinal compass points to navigate Basingstoke and our local area. We have used legends to pick out human and physical features in our area and have started to discuss the different features of a town, city and village.
Swimming:
Just a reminder of the swimming sessions starting next week:
Class 9 - Every Monday from 16/09/24 – 14/10/24
Class 8 – Every Friday from 20/09/24 – 25/10/24 (except on the INSET day: 27/09/24)
Class 7 – Every Thursday from 19/09/24 – 17/10/24
