Welcome to the Year 5 Class Page!

On this page you will find your homework, weekly spellings and information and links to our learning which will be updated as and when we move through the year. You will also find photos and descriptions of the exciting things we have been getting up to. Have a look! 

This term, we are learning about fractions and decimals in maths, we will be reading and writing about The Wolves of Willoughby Chase in English, and learning about Lent in RE.  In Science, we are enjoying learning about Living Things and their Habitats! In History we will be developing our knowledge of the Anglo-Saxons. 

We have loved starting our new Spanish lessons all about our family!

We started the year by agreeing our class rules. We have all signed them to show that we will follow these in all that we do!

As a fresh start half way through the school year, we have discussed and agreed new class rules. We have all signed these to show that we follow these rules in everything that we do!

To promote a love of reading in our classroom, we have a reading tree. Children can come here to write a book review or read book reviews other children have written to help guide their next book choice. They have different opportunities throughout the school day to write their own book review.

For DT this term, Year 5 are exploring biscuits. To help us understand the importance aspects of a good biscuit, of course we needed to taste test some! Year 5 even tried some home made gluten free biscuits, which most children agreed tasted really lovely!

We had a visit for Alex (and Herold) from Life Education. We discussed using the 'calm palm', who trusted adults are, and we had a chat about different drugs and alcohol and what to do if someone peer-pressured them into trying some. The children were fantastic and asked lots of lovely questions.

We used Atlases to answer the question - what can we find out about mountains using a map? 

This term, Year 5 have the exciting chance to learn how to play a flute. Our first session was great. We learnt the different parts of a flute and began to practise the technique to create a great sound. 

This week Year 5 have begun their new History unit - Vikings and Anglo-Saxons: the struggle for the Kingdom of England to the time of Edward the confessor. We have begun our unit by exploring whether Vikings were rule makers or rule breakers. We used laptops and books to find different sources of evidence to explore this key idea. We have considered the importance of reliable sources. After collecting evidence, we will put together presentations to summarise and share our findings in our next lesson. 

We started off Science Week with a show from Craig. He became a human candle and we nearly blew Mr Bailey up. In our Science workshop, we became detectives and solved the case of the missing sandwich. We looked at fingerprints and different ink. We had a great time exploring slime.  

In Year 5 Mrs Tippen asked if we could help her! She needed our help to persuade the local Parents and Guardians to enrol their children at St Thomas More Catholic Primary School. We took this assignment really seriously and put on our thinking caps and wrote persuasive letters to the Parents and Guardians in our local area. Here are some of our letters. 

As a school we took part in World Book Day, our day included lots of activities about books, we acted out some of our favourite story scenes, wrote fact files about our favourite authors and completed a book review! It was so much fun!

To kick start 'Book Week' Year 5 took part in a drama workshop based on the book 'Where the Wild Things Are'. Everyone thoroughly enjoyed themselves performing as though they were Max, the Wild Things or even the furniture coming alive in Max's room. 

Our mission was to design, create, test and improve a glider. We worked in a team to test three different designs and evaluate their performance. 

On Monday 7th February we took part in Internet Safety Day we had a session with the Stay Safe Initiative. We looked at what our digit footprint is, the difference between 'human life' and 'digital life', scams and what to do when someone has been hurtful to us online. We took part in 'The Toothpaste Challenge' to understand that it takes a very quick amount of time for us to say something harmful but it is harder to take it back. We found the session very inciteful and it has definitely given us more to think about when it comes to our 'digital life'. 

We explored the effects of friction by using different materials to see if they would cause more or less friction. Our dependent variable was the distance the car travelled. We used this information to help us investigate which material caused more friction. 

For our London Sinfonietta challenge, we had to listen carefully. We began our challenge by completing a listening walk around our school. We then composed our own music using different sounds in different patterns. Here you can see us rehearsing and then performing our compositions. 

Year 5 Isaiah has taken part in the London Sinfonietta Composition Challenge. As a class, we have spent the last few weeks exploring music composition without writing down each note. We looked at how colours, line length and even symbols could be interpreted into music. We created graphic scores for our competition piece; here are some of the pieces we submitted. 

In our Maths lesson this morning, we completed 12 different word problems to find the corresponding letter to solve the clue. We worked in pairs to solve the problems and raced to find the correct letters to reveal the treasure. It was great fun.

On Tuesday the 25^th January Year 5 were very surprised to find that their chairs were gone. They had disappeared from the classroom and were taped in the bay area. This caused lots of confusion and speculation. We checked other classrooms but it was only the Year 5 chairs that had taken action. We found a letter which described how they were feeling and how they had gone on strike as they had, had enough. They were tired of being swung on and mistreated. We needed to act and fast! We decided to write letters to the chairs to persuade them to come back. Fortunately, they did return but we are going to be incredibly respectful to them as we don't want a strike again. 

In science, we have been exploring how to separate materials that have formed solutions and suspensions. We had lots of fun discovering the best method to separate these materials. We found the evaporation method most exciting and could not wait to see the salt that remained on the plate once the water had evaporated. 

During PE this term we are practicing our static balances. We had lots of fun work with partners to create different balances. As part of a team game we are playing Kabbadi, this is lots of fun and also a challenging to get round a new set of rules. 

This term, Year 5 have had the exciting oportunity to have cricket sessions with Oli - from Gloucester Cricket Club. We have loved each session. We have learnt lots of skills which we are using in the games that we play. Our favourite game so far is traffic light! 

Today we were given a challenge to find the best electrical conductors for the floodlights of a football pitch. We carried out an investigation to test different materials. We then presented our findings to the rest of the class. We were looking for the material with the least resistance which would make the bulb brighter!

In our D.T lesson we learnt that using trusses made bridges longer and stronger. We were then challenged to create a bridge which spanned 38cm and could hold 500g. Lots of our bridges could hold 100g and a few were able to hold the 500g. 

Year 5 had a fantastic morning learning all about African drumming. We learnt the difference between bass and tone and loved composing our own pieces of music and chants. We all had a great time! 

For World Food Day, Year 5 made and tasted salsa. We had great fun chopping, slicing and squeezing the ingredients we used. 

For World Food Day 2021, Year 5 Isaiah made Tzatziki! We had pitta bread alongside so we could taste it. We loved being able to make and try a new food, although it was not everybody's favourite we can all say we would eat it again!

Year 5 had a great time in P.E this week playing 'Seated Volleyball'. We had to remember that we could not move from our seats. We really enjoyed learning this new game! 

In science we have be exploring Earth and Space. We had lots of fun using fruit to understand the size and distance between the planets!

Year 5 had a great time in P.E this week playing 'Scorpion Handball'. We had to remember that our knees weren't allowed to touch the ground. It was great fun!

This week we began our Creation unit in RE. In our first lesson we learnt all about the Bible. We created presentations (in groups) to show what we had learnt. We answered the question - How do Catholics view and use the Bible? We already knew about the Old and New Testament but we were surprised to learn that the Bible is not just stories. In fact, it includes poetry, history, psalms amongst other things. Did you know the Bible is like a library?

Year 5 enjoying our music session. Today we used the glockenspiel to play along with our song - 'Ghost Parade'