This half term, Year 5 have been learning 'Textiles' in their D and T learning. We discussed that within D and T, we are learning about making 'Something, for Someone, for Some Purpose'. We have critiqued existing products, which has fed into our own designs for our own cushions and helped us make our own cushions for our own purposes.

We began by learning different stitches with needle and thread, as well as using different materials. We produced prototypes to learn from and then spent a lot of time focusing on our finished products, which developed our patience, resilience and concentration.

Overall, we have produced some excellent finished products in our cushions and we are proud of our efforts!

This half term, Year 5 and Year 6 have been fortunate enough to receive expert and excellent teaching of orienteering through Airienteers’ Simon Martland. The activities have involved various mapping skills being tested; lots of stamina from the children to get from flag to flag; teamwork to support each other to navigate around unfamiliar areas; and perseverance when difficulties were experienced. Here are some images of the children map reading, navigating around grids using compass points and coordinates, clocking in at the electronic gates and many more fun, engaging and creative ways the children learnt in their PE sessions. Keep an eye out for orienteering events and take a look at the ‘Airienteers’ website (https://www.aire.org.uk/) if you or your child are interested in something a bit different!

Here's what some of them had to say about their experiences in PE:


 

Charlotte – ‘I think the lessons in Orienteering were a really good experience for us and we are very lucky to be able to do it. It is a great way to learn to read maps and keep being active.’

Maddie – ‘I am extremely happy that we did Orienteering again for keeping very active in lessons. I really enjoyed the last session with the ‘Captain Chaos’ game.’

This half term has involved a plethora of investigations in our Forces focus, investigating air resistance, friction, water resistance and more! Here are some of our investigations, where we have thought logically and strategically to ensure that our tests our fair (changing only one variable!), reliable (with repeat tests), recorded logically and evaluated along the way.

The children have recently been working 'cooperatively' (as per our current Primrose Lane Learner Value) in a number of ways, and one of those ways has been our annual speaking competition! Children choose partners to work with and choose a topic of their choice to research more about and present to the rest of the class. We focus on researching specific information, speaking clearly, fluently and confidently, ensuring that we focus on structure of our presentations and content so that the audience learn and are engaged. All children competed brilliantly, but the winners - democratcially voted for by the class themselves - were Erin and Ella on their presentations of Amphibians and Reptiles. Well done to them both for their fabulous, engaging presentation, but also well done to everybody for their efforts!

Year 5 have started their 'Forces' Science topic in style by creating their own Vlogs in character as Isaac Newton and Galileo. We learnt about their success and significance within Science and were able to replicate this learning creatively. Take a look at the videos, we hope you find them entertaining (as well as informative!).

This half term, Year 5 have started their ‘Explorers’ Geography unit, focusing on the UK and Europe. We have discussed and located the 7 continents, various countries of Europe, capital cities of countries in Europe, as well as rivers and mountains across Europe. In order to do this, we have learnt navigational skills to direct ourselves around Europe (using the eight compass points), planning our own journeys where we would like to go travelling in Europe. We have used atlases and Google Maps to do this and have loved researching some of the countries in more detail. Here is some of the work already on display:

In English, Year 5 have been learning about various devices that can be used effectively in their writing to enhance their descriptions, link ideas cohesively and show higher level sentence construction. They have applied this learning to create their own poems. All children created a Haiku poem, which is a three line poem that has 5 syllables in the first line, 7 syllables in the second line and 5 syllables in the third line. As a skill, this can be done fluently to create the structure, but to enhance this, children were thinking of figurative language (simile, metaphor, personification) they could include, extensive vocabulary, rhetorical questions and many more. All children also created their own rhyming poem, focusing on the same skills to apply to a different style. Here are just a few examples below that children were proud to display, which were based on and inspired by our class reader ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’, when the character ‘Michael’ was tossed into the waves from his yacht

Year 5 have settled right back into school since lockdown and have delved right into their writing! We have been focusing on a sinister unit called ‘Francis’, which is about an American girl who goes into a National Park during the night, experiencing some scary events. So far, we have developed our vocabulary with use of synonyms (using a thesaurus), worked in groups to think about her feelings and emotions and written our own descriptions using figurative language – such as simile, metaphor and personification. We look to develop this further and progress our narratives within diaries in character, short stories or even sequels to the clip that we have watched. Come and have a look in our books and at our displays to see the amazing range of learning, you’ll love it!

Year 5 ‘Hope’ Assembly by Rev Steve and Donald

Year 5 enjoyed listening to Rev Steve’s and Rev Donald’s assembly, making notes on what they had said about the ‘Festivals of Light’ and partaking in the activities. As you can see, they dove into the role-play section of pretending to be a seed and coming into the light, thinking about being ‘mindful’. The children enjoyed the humour and facts shared in the assembly, with some of them linking it to what they do in their faiths. The children finished by starting to colour their advent wreaths, ready to continue and reflect on each week up until we finish for Christmas. We would like to thanks Rev Steve and Rev Donald for their engaging assembly, and look forward to next week’s.

Here is what some of the children had to say:

Thomas: ‘I like how this was a fun way of learning about the ‘Festivals of Light’, ensuring that we aren’t breaking Coronavirus measures having assemblies together.’

Erin: ‘I really enjoyed the song at the end.’

Charlotte: ‘I really enjoyed it as there was humour in it, but it was still factual.’

Maddie: ‘I liked how it was a ‘child-friendly’ way of teaching us to enjoy a lesson.’

Riley: ‘I really liked it because we weren’t lots of facts about different religions and how they celebrate the ‘Festivals of Light’.’

Cameron: ‘I thought it was interest how we learnt that candles meant different things.’

As you can see from the picture, we created our own versions of Vincent Van Gogh's 'Starry Night' painting. We had a choice between using paint or oil pastel to create the post-impressionist style that Vincent Van Gogh liked to create. The mark making and focus on colour/mixing was a large focus, ensuring the perspective was evident and a mood was created with our vision. What do you think?

Year 5 were treated to a 'Commando Fitness' session with Mr Simpson in PE, focusing on discipline, stamina, coordination and team work. As you can see from the photos, the activities ranged from relays (including star jumps, commando crawl, burpees, press ups, sit ups, squats and many more!), working as a team to carry a stretcher and tug of war! The children loved their experience and have asked to do it again this half term, which we will definitely take advantage of!

As part of our Earth and Space topic, year 5 investigated the sizes of planets and distances between planets after watching and making notes on a video clip (). The children then worked in groups to create their own Solar Systems that were 'relative' to the distances described in the video (noticing that the distances were astronomical!). The children had to work together (one of our Primrose Lane Learner Values) to convert their measures into 'relative' distances to create their own Solar System with a selection of different spherical objects. You can see some of these below, along with the children working together. They really enjoyed creating these and understanding more about the planets in Space.

A great effort by the Year 5 class with their Halloween costumes!

As you can see from our displays, the children have produced some excellent artwork, showing their own interpretation and representation of 'The Blitz', as well as their own 'Propaganda Posters'. In the Blitz artwork, we focused on 'perspective', shading, mixing of chalk colours with different techniques and our cutting skills inparticular with our silhouettes (as we realised the fine motor skills required for the smaller cuts were tricky! We hope you like our creativity.

As part of our World War Two topic focus, we have designed, made and evaluated our own Anderson shelters. Take a look at some of our fabulous creations, ranging from cakes, lego, astroturf, grass, soil, corrugated materials and many more! We worked hard together to focus on one of our Primrose Lane Learner areas, which is 'Creativity', hence the variety of different ways the children have presented their Anderson shelters. It has been an excellent effort all-round. What do you think?

• Jack’s Anderson Shelter Project.pdf

Please click the link to see a selection of activities completed by some of the children and how creative they have been with their learning. This has ranged from Newspaper Reports, Diaries (including Anne Frank!), artwork, posters and many more!

• Purple Mash Learning.docx

We were fortunate to have a visit from Judith Rhodes in Year 5 last Friday. Judith shared her mother’s experiences as a refugee in World War 2. Her mother, Ursula, left her family behind in Nazi Germany at the age of 15 and came to London as part of the Kinder transport programme - prior to the outbreak of the war. The rest of her family were unable to leave and later perished in concentration camps during the Holocaust. We really appreciated Judith sharing her powerful and moving story which really helped the children to understand the impact of these events on individual families. In the photo, you can see the suitcase that Ursula took with her and one of the very few items of clothing she was able to fit into it. We made notes throughout her presentation of key questions, as well as key points to help us with our follow up reports about her visit and what we learnt. There were some excellent enquiry questions from the children. Questions asked included: Thomas T – ‘How do you think your mother felt as an evacuee?’ Louis – ‘Is that little suitcase the same as your mother’s?’ Maddie – ‘Did your mother have to put ‘blackouts’ up?’ Ella – ‘What did your mother miss the most when she was sent away?’ April R – ‘How did your mother feel at the train station?’ Erin – ‘Who write the letters?’ Hettie – ‘How was your mum treated in this country?’ Heidi – ‘When you found out about your mother’s life, were you shocked?’ Here are some of our thoughts: Charlie – ‘I liked the video that Judith shared, because it shared where she (and her mother) was born and information about her family during WWII.’ Riley – ‘I found Judith very interesting, because she told us information about life in WWII.’ Erin – ‘I liked it when Judith translated one of the letters in German.’ Charlotte – ‘I enjoyed it, because I learnt things that I didn’t expect to, like experiences that her mother went through.’ Bella – ‘I felt sorry for Judith when she got emotional about her father and the anniversary of his death approaching.’ Ella – ‘I liked when she spoke about the cardigan.’

• Judith Rhodes photos attached.docx

As art of our learning on our British Value 'Democracy', we discussed democracy and created our own voting system to vote for our class representatives for School Council. People had to put themselves forward, explain why they wanted to become a School Councilor and then we all had a vote to decide who would represent our class. The results from our tally chart suggested that Chloe and Charlotte had the most votes, and their majority resulted in them becoming our representatives. Well done Chloe and Charlotte.

On 10th December, Chris, from the Anne Frank Trust, came to speak to Year 5 and 6. The session’s 2 main themes were: Discrimination and Prejudice. Switch Off Prejudice examines the dangers of prejudice both from a historical perspective, and in the modern world, encouraging young people to question and challenge discrimination in all its forms.
The aims of this programme are to:
• Increase knowledge of the harmful effects of prejudice and discrimination
• Develop non-judgemental attitudes, respect and empathy for others
• Improve critical thinking
• Increase knowledge, confidence and skills to speak up against prejudice, discrimination, hate and intolerance
• Improve confidence, giving young people knowledge and narrative to stand up for themselves and others.
The discussions started with exploring stereotyping and moved on to all sorts of discrimination e.g. Islamophobia, homophobia and racism. Y5 thought about the experiences of Anne Frank, and her family, the children empathised and thought about how it must have felt to be discriminated against due to your religion alone. This was linked to the discrimination that still goes on today.
The children participated wonderfully and Chris was most impressed, not only by their knowledge of WW2 and Anne Frank, but by their vocabulary, understanding and how well they could articulate their feelings and ideas. It really was an informative and thought-provoking session.
Thomas T: It was really interesting to learn more about the bad things that are going on in the world against the good. We need to make a change.
Maddison: We have learned about the prejudice and discrimination in the world and it’s up to us to make a change!
Toby and Cameron: We need to stand up to discrimination and make a change.

As you will have seen from the email sent out, the Youth Sport Trust will deliver a free virtual after school club as part of a national response to the second lockdown. The 30-minute club will take place at 5pm each weekday on YouTube Live and be led by a different member of the YST’s Athlete Mentor network. Starting on Thursday 12^th November with world number one female inline skater and 10-time British Champion Jenna Downing. Aimed mainly at primary-aged children, a different theme has been assigned for each day of the club - Adventure Monday, Tuesday Play, Wild Wednesday, Thinking Thursday and Fun Friday. Follow us using #YSTAfterSchool and click below for more information.

https://www.youthsporttrust.org/AfterSchoolSportClub