Year 5 Spotlight - Spring Term

Welcome to the Wizarding World of Year 5. As you may have guessed, we have been studying Harry Potter in English.  We have been writing persuasive pieces, coaxing people to travel on our very own Knight Bus; creating descriptions, of Hogwarts and the professors; producing our own narratives, finishing the Prisoner of Azkaban in the style of J.K Rowling; and writing a commentary for a Quidditch match. All these pieces of writing have been ‘magical’. The Professors have been stunned by the progress they have seen in our student wizards’ use of specific literary features.  To conclude our topic, we visited Harry Potter Studios and absolutely LOVED it! Seeing the sets and props up close was such a treat. So many people commented on how smart our school uniform was, and said it was quite like Hogwarts!  

In Maths, we have conquered fractions, decimals, and percentages. Not a small feat, as we had to use a third of our brain for fractions, 0.33 of our brain for decimals and 33% of our brain to work out the percentage! We are 100% sure, we could convert anything you asked us to.  

Our Science has been out of this world! We have been focussing on Space and know the difference between a Geocentric Solar System model and a Heliocentric model; we currently believe in a Heliocentric Model where planets orbit the Sun and Earth rotates on an axis. We know the order of the planets and have created some fascinating fact files. After taking a trip to the Science Museum, we were even more impressed with the astronauts' abilities to do anything in their huge gloves!   

In Design and Technology, we have been creating our own pop-up books. We first designed them, with our target audience being a reception or Year 1 child. We are yet to share them with these year groups, but hope they enjoy hearing them as much as we enjoyed making them. Creating the lever mechanism was probably the most challenging part, but we were then able to use split pins to have the arching movement.  

The epicentre of our Geography this term has been Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Volcanoes. We got to make models of the tectonic plates using Oreos, and even better that we got to eat them after! We were lucky enough to take a trip to the Natural History Museum and experience what it would feel like to be in in a stage 4 earthquake – we all had wobbly legs after. 

We have been fortunate enough to have lots of other educational visits and visitors too this half term.  

A huge thank you to Raynes Park High School for inviting us over as part of our STEM week. We were tasked with creating the strongest totem pole, which had to withstand increasingly strong wind. It was a super opportunity, and we are so grateful to them for inviting us. We also had a visit from Jan Mayoran, Director of Finance for The Willow Learning Trust. As part of STEM, she spoke to us about her role and the kind of responsibilities you have as an accountant. We then created our own businesses and thought about intake and expenses and tried to make a profit! Thank you very much to Jan for her time. There was also a crime scene in the Year 5 corridor. As forensic scientist, we had to collect and present the data found to give to the police so they could find out who the criminal was. There were hair samples, cotton from a scarf, a ripped train ticket, footprints, fingerprints; no clue was left unturned! 

We were also lucky enough to have a visit from Nabhinandan and Jayanti Das from the London Institue of Vedic Education. They led a workshop all about the Hindu Holi festival. We got to experience an element of the celebration - using colourful powders and putting them on each other! 

Finally, thank you to all at St. Martin’s Church for their spectacular Easter journey that we were invited to. It is always so informative, and the volunteers are so engaging and kind to give up their time to give us the experience. Most children's favourite part was partaking in a recreation of the last supper.

As you can see, we have been extremely busy this term in Year 5. 

All that is left to say is, “Mischief, managed!”