Ferney Lee Primary School

Welcome to Year 5!

What are we learning in Summer 1?

Our geographical enquiry question is:

'Why was the River Nile so important to the people of Egypt?' In our geography lessons, we will identify our local River Calder on a map and create our own map of Todmorden and its watercourses. We will also explore the features of a river and the journey it takes through its upper, middle and lower courses. The class will re-cap how the water cycle contributes to the formation of rivers and learn about prominent rivers across the world such as The Nile, The Amazon, The Calder, The Thames, The Danube and The Volta. Finally, our unit will consider how the Nile benefits Egypt ready to lead onto our Ancient Egyptian history topic next half term.

In English, we will read a book called 'The Explorer' by Katherine Rundell. The children will produce a diary entry to explore the characters' thoughts and feelings before proceeding to compare a diary entry with a letter and consider how the content and style of writing will change as the audience does. There will be a specific focus on co-ordinating conjunctions, modal verbs and parenthesis.

In Maths, we will focus on 'Fractions' before supporting this knowledge with a unit about 'Decimals and Percentages' .

In Science, we are studying Living Things and their habitats. Year 5 will learn about the 7 life processes, reproduction of different animals and plants and lifecycles.

In Art, we are producing clay sculptures influenced by flowers and nature. The children will be considering analogous colour. 

In Music, we will be completing a unit inspired by the Ancient Egyptians.

In PSHE/RHE, we will answer the question, 'What physical and emotional changes occur during puberty?'

In RE, we will learn about the festivals and celebrations of Judaism.

In PE,  the children will complete 2 units: Cricket and Tag rugby

In French, we will continue the unit 'My French Family'

In Computing, Year five will complete a stop motion animation project inspired by aliens!

Our Learning from Spring 2

Our historical enquiry question is:

'What made the Ancient Maya civilisation successful?' In our history lessons, we will explore where the Maya civilisation was situated in the world and what time period it spanned across. The students will compare what they already know about the Anglo-Saxon period in Britain to the Ancient Maya and reflect on the fact that more than one historical period can occur at the same time in different areas of the world. In lessons, the children will learn how the ancient Maya lived, what their beliefs were and discover some key inventions from the period. Finally, they will think about why Maya civilisation came to an end.

In English, we will complete a short story inspired by 'The Lost Thing' by Shaun Tan. This short piece of work allows the children to think outside the box and think creatively. The children will then  move on to write a persuasive tourist advert to convince people to go to Mexico on holiday. This nicely supports out history topic as the children can reflect on life in Mexico today compared to in the period of the Ancient Maya. Finally, Year 5 will read 'Adelita' and create an in depth character description.

In Maths, we will focus on 'Fractions' before supporting this knowledge with a unit about 'Decimals and Percentages' .

In Science, we will move on to a physics based unit all about Forces where the children will work towards answering the question 'What affects how well a parachute will fall?'

In DT, we are completing the unit 'Cooking and Nutrition' to explore healthy foods, farm to fork and cooking skills.

In Music, we will be completing the unit 'Blues' where the children will be exposed to blues music. They will use their voices and instruments to play the 12 bar blues.

In PSHE/RHE, we will answer the question, 'Why are families and committed relationships important?'

In RE, we will continue learning about the old and new covenants in Christianity.

In PE,  the children will complete 2 units: Dodgeball and Netball

In French, we will start the unit 'My French Family'

In Computing, Year five will start the half term by completing online safety lessons before moving on to a unit about stop motion animation.

Our Learning from Spring 1

Our geographical enquiry question is:

'What makes the USA a good place to live?' In our geography lessons, we will explore where North America is in the world, identify its different biome and analyse how this affects the weather and lifestyles. We will also learn the difference between physical and human geography and comment upon how these features may attract people to live in the USA.

In English, we will complete a setting description inspired by 'Malamander' by Thomas Taylor. This unit focusses on adverbials of place and time, expanded noun phrases and short sentences for effect.

In Maths, we will focus on 'Area and Perimeter' before re-visiting 'Multiplication and Division' to keep up our core skills up to date!

In Science, we will continue to explore space by using physical tasks and activities to consolidate our learning as well as creating a video to send back to 'the alien' detailing how our solar system works!

In Art, we are completing the unit 'Chromatic Art' to explore portrait painting and the use of colour.

In Music, we will be completing the unit 'South and West Africa' where the children will be exposed to traditional African music. They will learn the song Shosholoza and perform it as a class acapella before proceeding to add instruments to the performance.

In PSHE/RHE, we will answer the question, 'How can we become caring and responsible citizens?'

In RE, we will start our unit about the old and new covenants in Christianity.

In PE,  the children will complete 2 units: Dance and Badminton.

In French, we will start the unit 'System Solaire' to support and consolidate our science learning.

In Computing, Year 5 will start the second unit surrounding Mars Rovers progressing to learn about how binary code is used in text and numbers, pixels and image compression.

Our learning from Autumn 2

In our first half term, our Historical enquiry question is:

'Were the Vikings really vicious?' In our history lessons, we will explore where the Vikings came from and when they came to England. Year 5 will learn about longboats, longhouses, Viking beliefs and much more!

In English, we will complete a recount of 'Harker's Letter from Dracula. This unit focusses heavily on the key skills learnt in our PVPG unit of work of being able to punctuate and build single clause and multi-clause sentences successfully and will consolidate grammatical language.

In Maths, we will focus on 4 units: Addition and subtraction, Graphs and Tables, Multiplication and Division and Area and perimeter.

In Science, we will explore, ‘Earth and Space’ by answering the enquiry question, 'What is in our solar system?'.

In DT, we are delving into 'Moving mechanisms’' where we discover how to make booklets and cards move in exciting ways.

In Music, we will be completing the unit 'Looping and Remixing' using both body percussion and electronic looping.

In PSHE/RHE, we will answer the question, 'How can we identify our strengths and set meaningful goals?'

In RE, we will continue our unit called, ‘Why are some places and journeys special?' before moving onto the christian celebration of Christmas.

In PE,  the children will complete the PE PRO football unit.

In French, we will use our knowledge from the first half of our unit in ‘French Monster Pets’ to write an extended paragraph in French.

In Computing, we will learn about Mars Rovers which explores the history of the rovers that have been sent into space, a brief introduction to the technology behind them and binary code.

Our Learning from Autumn 1

In our first half term, our Geographical enquiry question is:

'What makes the counties of the UK unique?' In our Geography lessons, we will discover different counties, their history and landmarks. We will explore the landscape, weather and soil health and how it relates to farming across different counties.

In English, we will complete a Place Value of Punctuation and Grammar unit concentrating on different nouns, verbs and clauses to create accurate sentence structure.For our class text, we will be reading, ‘Coraline' by Neil Gaiman. 

In Maths, we will learn about the Place Value of numbers up to 100,000, which includes rounding, ordering, comparing and representing numbers in different ways. 

In Science, we will explore, ‘Properties and Changes in Materials’ by answering the enquiry question, 'Can all materials change state?'.

In Art, we are delving into 'Monochromatic drawings’' where we focus on a variety of different drawing styles and artists and begin to develop our own artistic style. 

In Music, we will explore music through colour, inspired by the Holi festival of colour. 

In PSHE/RHE, we will answer the question, 'How can we manage and adapt to the changes in our friendships?'

In RE, we will begin the unit called, ‘Why are some places and journeys special?' . .  It includes pilgrimages and spiritual journeys as well as metaphorical journeys through faith. 

In PE,  we will focus on fundamental skills including speed, quickness and agility to prepare us for our PE units throughout the year.

In French, we will learn adjectives for describing our ‘French Monster Pets’ . We will focus on gender agreement as well as the use of the correct articles and pronouns.

In Computing, we will learn how to stay safe online.