Year 5

Mrs Barker (Class Teacher)

Mrs Ebbs, Mrs Lorek, Mrs Read and Miss S Sweeney (Support Staff)

Year 5 Homework Grid – Summer 2026
Year 5 Intent
Year 5 Reading Spine – 2025-26
Year 5 Reading Intent
Year 5 Meet the Teacher

Welcome back after the Easter break. We hope you all had a restful holiday and are ready for a busy and exciting summer term ahead.

In English, we have started a unit based on The Hobbit. The children will be building towards writing their own lost tale in the style of J.R.R. Tolkien. Later this term, we will explore fantasy stories by author and illustrator Shaun Tan. Other genres we will study during the summer term include explanation texts and poetry.

Year 5 began their maths lessons by focusing on statistics, learning about different types of tables and graphs and interpreting data. We have now moved on to shape and angles, where the children are broadening their understanding of angle features: learning how to calculate missing angles in right angles, on straight lines and around a point. We have also been reading, plotting and translating co-ordinates.

In Science, the children are learning about Animals Including Humans, with a focus on the human life cycle, from fertilisation through to old age. We will move on to studying  reproduction in mammals and plants, as well as reversible and irreversible changes.

This half term in History, Year 5 are learning about some of the key monarchs from the past thousand years. The children will explore important historical events influenced by these monarchs and discover how the role of the monarchy has changed over time.

After half term, we will begin our Geography unit exploring our local river, the River Lea. The children will build on their previous learning about rivers to deepen their understanding of the local environment.

Our key question in RE this half term is: What is the best way for a Sikh to show commitment to God?

In PSHE, we will be learning about relationships, with a particular focus on relationships online and how to stay safe and respectful in digital spaces.

We have been lucky to visit All Saints’ Church to explore the “Watershed: A River’s Call to Action” art installation. The children took part in creative workshops with artists, where they wrote poetry and created model fish using leaf weaving techniques.

We have many exciting events to look forward to this term, including Sports Day and the Year 5 and 6 summer show!

Welcome back after the Christmas break. I have been so impressed with how well Year 5 have returned to school. They are displaying a great attitude towards their learning.

In English, we are focusing on a type of story called a circular narrative, this is where a part of the story is then repeated at the end, starting the story all over again. We have been using the story The Promise and its figurative language to write a similar tale. During the rest of term, we will be studying a range of genres, including: persuasion, instructions and the poetry of Walter de la Mare.

In Maths, we are currently focusing on formal written methods for multiplication and division. During the rest of term, we will be studying fractions; decimals and percentages; perimeter and area; and statistics.

We have just started our new Science topic on the properties of materials, where we will be learning about the properties of materials and how they are used in our everyday lives. We will explore various test materials, including magnetism, transparency, and hardness, to understand how these properties affect the functionality of different substances. Later this term we will be studying the lifecycles of animals including humans.

Ancient Greece and its influence on modern society is our History topic. We will be looking at areas such as how their society was organised and how the Ancient Greeks contributed to world knowledge. Next half term, we will be studying mountains in Geography, where we will be looking at areas such as how mountains are formed, contour lines and climate.

In Art, we are looking at a style of print making called monotypes. We have studied how they are created, looked at famous pieces by Kevork Mourad and replicated parts of his work and style by visual note taking in our sketchbooks. Next half term, in Design and Technology we will be looking at Chinese inventions in particular we will be constructing kites.

In PSHE this half term, we will be thinking about our Dreams and Goals – considering what we may want to do in the future and how to achieve that goal. After half term, we will be looking at the unit called Healthy Me.

We are all very excited, as later this term we have our class residential!

Year 5 have made an amazing start to the new academic year. Everyone has settled so well to the changes in routines, and I cannot wait to share what we have been learning.

In English, Year 5 have been busy look at mystery and suspenseful writing. We have been inspired by the texts The Watertower and Boy in the Tower and to create our own suspense story. We are also using Boy in the Tower for our Guided Reading this term. We then moved on to recounts where we used our knowledge from our History lessons to write a recount of the life of William the Conqueror. We have been learning about William the Conqueror and will be investigating his significance and that of our local castle at Berkhamstead. In our most recent unit we wrote cinquain poems with a theme of remembrance. The children has produced some truly beautiful work.

In Maths we have been building on our previous knowledge of place value and learning about place value up to a million. We have been learning and building on previous knowledge of addition and subtraction, multiplication and division. We are now learning about fractions. I have been really impressed with the work that I have seen!

The children have enjoyed our first unit in Science. We have been learning about forces. Both contact forces, air resistance, water resistance and friction and non-contact force, gravity. We have completed many experiments and our young scientists made predictions, talked through what makes a fair test, completed the experiments and discussed their conclusions.

In Art, we have been learning about the Art of Georgia O’Keefe. This artist is best known for her paintings of flowers and desert landscapes using a range of media. In RE, we answered the question ‘How far would a Sikh go for his/her religion?’ In order to answer this enquiry question, the children found out about Sikh rules and beliefs. This half term, we are really excited to be working on maps in Geography and will be building bridges in Design and Technology.