Year 5

Welcome to Year 5.  In Year 5, we are valued as individuals. We try to rise to challenges, whether they be creative, mathematical, sporting or about us living out our school values. We learn to work both collaboratively and independently. Reading and a love of books and stories are at the heart of everything we do.

Staff In Year 5

Year 5 Class Teacher - Mrs Girling

Learning In Year 5

Click here to view the Year 5 Curriculum Map.

Click here to view the Year 5 Timetable.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Autumn 1.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Autumn 2.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Spring 1.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Spring 2.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Summer 1.

Click here to view the Year 5 Topic Web for Summer 2.

Year 5 Class Blog

Summer 1

Even though it was short, the first half of the summer term proved to be another busy one.

To link with our science and geography topics, we began with a visit to Camley Street Natural Park. The park is on the edge of Regent’s Canal, so we were able to investigate the quality of the water and identify the water life that can survive in this environment during pond dipping. We found water beetles and caddisflies. There was also a family of nine ducklings and we spotted a coot on the pond too. We explored the different habitats at the park, including a meadow and a woodland. We even got to taste wild garlic!

Our D.T. project this half term was all about bridges. We built and tested a variety of different bridges, including beam, arch and truss bridges and discovered that a triangle is an extremely strong structure. We practised making truss bridges using just spaghetti and masking tape and then tested them to see whose bridge held the most weight.

After this, we built even stronger truss bridges using wood. We learnt how to use saws and other equipment correctly. We were very proud of our final bridges, adding names and road signs. We decided not to test them to see how much weight they might hold as we didn’t want to risk breaking them!

In science, we carried on with our learning about life cycles, this time looking at flowering plants. We dissected flowers, looking for the male and female parts, for example, the stamen, stigma and style. To watch the life cycle in action, we planted sunflower seeds in sustainable newspaper pots. The seeds have already germinated, the stems and the leaves are small but growing quite quickly. We plan to observe them over time, taking measurements and see which one grows to the tallest height.

During Science Week, we celebrated the city we live in. For us, that meant looking at London Zoo and the iconic penguin house. Sadly, the penguins weren’t happy in the one designed in 1934 and they have since been rehoused at Penguin Beach but our magnetic, skating penguins are very happy in our card designs inspired by the original by Lubetkin.

Lastly, we wanted to share some of the alternative pages we designed for David Almond’s book, The Dam. The book tells the story of the development of the reservoir at Kielder Water in north Northumberland and the impact it had on the few remaining residents who lived in the area before the valley was flooded to build the dam. The area is now a major tourist destination for the north east. Our illustrations, set out in a similar style to those of the illustrator, Levi Pinfold, show what you might see if you visited this beautiful part of the world in 2025 and our words are written in the style of David Almond.

Spring 2  

This half term continued to be just as busy as usual.

We were able to take part in more sporting events – a netball match against Coleridge and a return football match against St Michael’s. We really like playing against other schools as it helps us to develop our skills in a different way to our P.E. lessons and coaching sessions.

As part of our involvement in the Woodland Trust Green Schools Award, we visited Cherry Tree Wood and gathered lots of information to create our own Wild Trail. We learnt that Cherry Tree Wood is home to many birds, including the mistle thrush, chiffchaffs, blackcaps, robins and blackbirds and some of the local trees we identified include the oak, hornbeam, crab apple, bramble, hazel and of course, a bird cherry and a native cherry. If you are lucky enough, you may also spot an orange tipped butterfly or a brimstone butterfly – we saw both! We are hoping that some of our photographs will be added to the Woodland Trust website.

We were also very proud of our computing work. Mr Flanagan taught us how to use a modelling programme on Purple Mash. The programme allowed us to create nets for our own individual designs which we could then print and fold into 3-D models. Our models included animals, vehicles and even flower pots!

We’ve enjoyed lots of extra learning this half term, including an A-Life workshop, International Week events and a World Book Day free writing focus.

During the A-Life workshop, we explored all the ways we can keep ourselves fit and healthy, both physically and mentally. We accepted challenges to get our heart rate racing and others to solve puzzles. We needed to work collaboratively and think about how each of the activities would help us in real life.

The country we learnt about during International Week was Albania. We filmed ourselves sharing key facts about the country’s geography and history and used mosaic tiles to recreate the Beauty of Durres, an ancient Roman mosaic discovered during WW2. We listened to the music of Dua Lipa and Rita Ora. We ended the week with Adela sharing an amazing presentation about her holiday experiences visiting her grandparents, uncles and cousins which made us all want to visit Albania!

For World Book Day, we were inspired by a book called Onyeka and the Academy of the Sun written by Tola Okogwu. We wrote and published our own superhero stories where an unknown super power is discovered and ends up saving the day! We visited Reception to share our books with the younger children and have enjoyed reading each other’s work in class.

Spring 1

This half term, our science topic was all about space and the planet Earth! We had fun learning about the phases of the moon, explaining why the Earth is spherical and how we experience night and day.

To give us a better understanding of how night and day come about, we used a tennis ball with a character stuck on it to represent people on the Earth and used a torch as the sun. We rotated the tennis ball and could see how the figure moved in and out of the light and the dark – day and night.

In D.T., we have designed and made soft felt toys linked to the theme of space. We learnt how to sew using a running stitch and a blanket stitch. We have really been creative with our designs, there are astronauts, aliens, planets and space ships.

In geography, we have learnt about the Alps. We now know that the Alps spreads over eight different countries. We are very pleased with our persuasive travel brochures which encourage tourists to visit this beautiful part of Europe.

Mrs Girling was very impressed with our homework projects, also inspired by space. The projects included everything from moon cakes and a marzipan planet Earth, to detailed paintings, collage, exciting PowerPoint presentations and fantastic models.

Autumn 2

This half term, we were very excited to take part in a friendly football match against year 5 classes from St Michael’s in Highgate. Lots of us were able to play in three different teams and we enjoyed juice and biscuits afterwards. We are looking forward to visiting St Michael’s for a rematch!

In class, we followed the adventures of Odysseus as he completed an epic journey to return to his homeland of Ithaca and his beloved wife and son, Penelope and Telemachus. On his travels, he tricks a cyclops, angers the great God of the Sea, Poseidon, fools Scylla and Charybdis and meets lots of new people who eventually help him to reach the shores of Ithaca. We would recommend that you read ‘The Adventures of Odysseus’ as retold by Hugh Lupton and Daniel Morden and illustrated by Christina Balit.

In our science lessons, we have been exploring forces, for example, we learnt that the larger the surface area, the longer it will take for a parachute to reach the ground and a tin foil parachute will reach the ground before a tissue paper parachute as it has a greater mass.

Coding lessons and programming Micro: Bits has been great fun! We have designed virtual pets, created a program to play the game rock, paper, scissors and made a step counter to keep track of the number of steps we take.

We also took part in lessons organised by Brain Buddies. Linval and Rachel taught us about the different parts of the brain, including the ‘wise owl’ (the prefrontal cortex) and the ‘guard dog’ (the amygdala) which can cause us to ‘flip’ in times of stress. They also taught us about the Zones of Regulation and lots of relaxation techniques to control tricky feelings and emotions, for example, to smell the roses and blow out the candle or to squeeze the lemons! All emotions are good and can keep us safe but we need to be able to recognise how we feel and manage stronger emotions.

Autumn 1

Our class book this half term was Skellig, written by David Almond. We enjoyed reading it and looking out for the clues and connections about the characters. The main character is a boy named Michael, who finds a mysterious person in his garage. Owls are an important part of the story too – we researched and published fun and interesting non-fiction booklets about owls.

During Black History Month, we read a book of Caribbean and African folk tales, retold by Wendy Shearer. We learnt about the best hunter in Mali – a boy called Sirankomi. We acted the story out, which was really exciting and then made our own version of the story. Our illustrations were inspired by Faith Ringgold.

In history, we explored the Ancient Kingdom of Benin. We learnt about the story of the Oba’s palace being attacked by the British and lots of treasures being stolen. Many of the artefacts are still in the British Museum today. There is talk of some of the treasures being returned to modern day Nigeria. We looked at both sides of this argument and voted 16 – 9 for the artefacts, particularly the Benin Bronzes to be returned to Nigeria.

In P.E., we have netball with a really good coach. She organises fun games for us but makes sure that we make lots of progress with our netball skills too. We also enjoy fencing with a specialist coach. He teaches us lots of new things each week and develops our skills through playing games.

In art, we have been looking at different artists including Gustav Klimt, Van Gogh and Georgia O’ Keefe. We used the different styles as inspiration to create our own art work from photographs we had taken of the school grounds.

Parent Information

Welcome presentation from Mrs Girling

Year 5 Suggested Reading List

Year 5  PE And Sports Opportunities

In Year 5, our children have the opportunity to take part in weekly swimming lessons at Park Road swimming pool.

Being able to swim is a valuable life skill and something we encourage all our children to learn.  The aim of their weekly swimming lessons is to help children to be confident in and around water as well as learning and improving their swimming and water self rescue skills. 

Our Year 5 children have their first opportunity to learn a sport taught by a specialist external sports coach.  This gives them the chance to learn a new set of skills and practise and play together as a team.  

Mastering the fundamentals of a new sport and learning vital lessons in sportsmanship and teamwork, they also have opportunities to take part in local sports competitions allowing them to test their new skills.

This year, Year 5 are taking part in weekly netball coaching sessions and you can find out more information on that here.  .