At St Michael’s our aim is to provide a rich curriculum and a wide range of opportunities that will build the habits of ambitious, capable learners.
We have had an excellent start to our school year. Y5 have enjoyed working together as a team and produced fantastic Africa map collages. They’ve also had a go at being brilliant scientists – learning how to measure force using a force meter among other things. It has been a great start for Y5!
Here is an outline of what the Year 5s will be learning during the Autumn Term.
Literacy
We will be developing the children’s reading comprehension skills by studying the book ‘Journey to Jo’burg’, using a whole class reading approach.
In writing, the children will be writing a fictional ‘journey tale’ (based on ‘The old man and the donkey‘) as well as non-fiction writing, linked to their topic of Africa.
Numeracy
In addition to embedding the children’s mental maths skills, through our daily CLIC programme and BMBT (Big Maths Beat That), we are following the White Rose Maths curriculum, which covers the whole content of the National Curriculum. This term the focus will be:
- Place Value
- Addition & Subtraction
- Multiplication & Division
- Statistics
- Perimeter & Area
The children should also know all their times tables off by heart.
TOPIC (History/Geography)
In Geography, as part of our whole school theme of ’Seven worlds, one planet’, Year 5 will study the continent of Africa and in particular Kenya. The learning will include using maps, atlases and globes to focus on key physical and human characteristics, countries and major cities. In the second half term, the focus will be on History and their topic will be West Benin – an ancient Kingdom which is now Southern Nigeria. Even more exciting will be the Y5 trip to the theatre to watch ‘The Lion King‘. More information to follow soon.
Science: ‘forces’
The aim of this unit of study is to teach the children about types of forces such as gravity, friction, water resistance and air resistance as well as the use of mechanisms such as levers, gears and pulleys. We want the children to look for patterns and links between the mass and weight of objects, using newton meters to measure the force of gravity. The children will have the opportunity to develop their scientific skills when investigating air and water resistance and when exploring friction. We’ve lined up an exciting trip to the science museum in November as part of this learning.
Religious Education
In RE we learn about the 6 main religions in the world, and this term our focus is on Christianity. Our topic is Beliefs and Practices and we will be exploring the key question: ‘What is the best way for a Christian to show commitment to God?‘
We will also be dedicating some time to deepen our understanding of our school values of ‘Respect’, ‘Resilience’ and in the second half term ‘Hope‘.
PE
The children’s PE slot is on a Wednesday. This half term the children will be focusing on hockey skills – they will have the opportunity to develop their skills in travelling with the ball and keeping it under control when dribbling. They will be taught to link movements such as dribbling, passing and shooting together fluently while on the move. They will make tactical decisions within their performances and as a team.
CREATIVE CURRICULUM
In addition to all the learning already outlined, the children will also be given ample opportunity to do Art and DT (linked to their topic, but also a whole school art project), to participate in Music lessons, to take part in drama & dance activities, to develop their health and relationship education (HRE) and to learn computing skills, including online safety. As the children have to learn another language other than English, we’ve chosen to teach them Spanish as the modern foreign language. Spanish is the second most spoken language in the world.
HOME learning
Home learning will include:
- Mathletics (login and password card is in their homework folder)
- Weekly spelling words to learn (children will be tested on a Friday)
- The children will also be given a fortnightly comprehension (written) task on a Monday, which must be completed and handed in two weeks later on Friday. The date for handing in will be written on their comprehension homework.
Children will be awarded DOJOs points for completing their homework.
stay in touch
Despite the current restrictions about entering our school premises, please do not let that stop you from staying in contact with us. If you wish to speak to us, please contact the school office via schoolmail@stmichaels.lewisham.sch.uk and we will be happy to address any concerns you may have.
