Welcome to Year 5.
Our Teachers are Mrs Bland and Mrs Poole and our Teaching Assistants are Mrs Yiu and Miss Felgueiras.
Jul 032026
Welcome to this week’s Year 5 blog update
It has been another productive week in Year 5 as we fly through the summer term. In our maths lessons, the children have continued to develop their data handling skills by diving deeper into the world of graphs and charts. They have been working hard on interpreting and displaying different types of data. Meanwhile, our English lessons have been filled with creativity and discussion as we continue our journey through The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Ann Duffy, focusing on the character of Jub and exploring the deeper themes of the story.
The main buzz around the classrooms this week, however, has been the frantic and exciting preparation for the upcoming Five Pound Challenge, which takes place next Wednesday. The children have been organised into their business groups and invested their initial £5 into supplies. Since then, they have been entrepreneurs, planning how to turn that small sum into a profit when they sell their products to the rest of the school.
As a result of all this planning, our classrooms have been absolutely transformed into a make-shift workshops. We have spent a huge amount of time painting, creating, and assembling, meaning the rooms have been completely full of paint, beads, and mountains of cardboard. The teamwork and enthusiasm have been fantastic to see, and the children are excited for the next week. We cannot wait to see how their business ventures turn out , and we wish all of our young entrepreneurs the very best of luck.
Jun 262026
A very hot week.
This week in year 5, we have had a busy and productive week.
In English, our focus has turned to the book The Lost Happy Endings. The children have been exploring the narrative, focusing on effective dialogue between characters. We have also been working hard on using a variety of conjunctions to link our ideas and create more complex, interesting sentences.
In maths, we have shifted our focus to data handling. The children have been learning how to interpret and construct line graphs. They have been doing brilliant work understanding how to interpret information, which is a skill that will definitely come in handy for our upcoming projects.
This week also saw the start of our exciting 5 Pound Challenge. Each group of children is being given the opportunity to take a five-pound investment to plan a small venture, such as baking cookies or creating crafts, which they will eventually sell to the wider school. We are currently in the preparation and planning phase, so no selling has started just yet. Parents, please remember that this is an independent school project, so absolutely no ingredients, materials, or resources from home can be used for these products.
Finally, our history lessons took a step back in time as we explored Victorian games. The children learned about what life was like for children in the past and even had the chance to play some traditional games themselves. It was wonderful to see them enjoying the games that children their age would have played over a century ago, bringing our history topic to life in a really fun way.
Jun 192026
A Week of Big Ideas in Year 5
What an action-packed week it has been in Year 5. The children have worked hard.
In Maths this week, we shifted our focus to word questions. The children had to put their problem-solving hats on, carefully decoding clues within text to figure out exactly which operations to use. It was lovely to see how everyone persevered to find the correct answers.
In English, the children wrote persuasive letters addressed to our head teacher, Mrs Stray. Their goal is to convince her to let Year 5 take part in the five pound challenge, where each group receives a five pound investment to buy materials or objects to sell back to the school for a profit. The children are buzzing with entrepreneurial ideas and cannot wait to see if their letters pay off.
Friday brought the sun, which was the perfect way to celebrate a week of hard work. On top of that, since last Friday when the children found out who their teachers will be next year, there has been a wave of excitement running through the year group as everyone looks forward to joining year 6.
Jun 122026
Victorians to Volleys!
In year 5, we have had another action-packed week. In our English and History lessons, we continued exploring the Victorians and used our facts to write informative leaflets, focusing on catchy subheadings and factual but humorous language.
We also tried something brand new in P.E. by taking part in a pickleball sessions. We had a brilliant time learning how to handle the paddles, serve, and keep a rally going with our partners. Alongside our practical lessons, we started our TestBase assessments this week. A lot of the questions were tricky, but everyone showed fantastic resilience and a great mindset while tackling them. Finally, in maths, we have been mastering time by practising reading analogue and digital clocks and converting between 12-hour and 24-hours.
Jun 052026
Last half-term of year 5!
This week, we have begun an engaging English topic on the Victorians, coinciding with our upcoming trip to the Victorian museum. This experience helps us to connect classroom learning between History and English.
Additionally, students have been encouraged to explore independent science topics, revisiting questions from Year 5. We are investigating scientific questions from their Year 5 studies, taking ownership of their learning. We look forward to seeing the creativity and enthusiasm students bring to their questions and sharing their discoveries with the rest of their classes. This week in maths, we are focusing on scaling. Understanding scaling helps our problem-solving skills and our ability to work with proportions. We are exploring real-world examples of scaling, such as buildings.
We have finished the week with an outside scavenger hunt for grammar questions. It has been a great way to incorporate the outside into learning. It has been a busy week of learning!
May 012026
A week of learning and football!
What a fantastic week we have had in year 5.
In Maths, we have been working on our calculation skills by mastering the bus stop method for division. It has been great to see everyone becoming more confident with multiplying and remainders. Alongside this, we have been brushing up on our division and even traveling back in time to tackle Roman numerals.
Our English and History lessons have taken us on a journey to West Africa. Using our class book, The Children of the Benin Kingdom, as inspiration,we have started drafting official notes about this fascinating civilisation. We have been exploring the culture and history of the kingdom, learning how to organise our facts clearly and professionally to show just how much we have discovered about the past.
Of course, a huge highlight of the week was our special football session. We were lucky enough to have professional trainers from Spurs come in to work with us. The energy was high as we practiced our dribbling, passing, and teamwork under the sun. It was an inspiring experience to learn from the pros.
Apr 172026
Flowers and first week back!
This week in year 5, we have been reading the book ‘The Children in the Benin Kingdom’ we have been using this text to dive deeper into the culture and heritage of the Edo people. The story’s twists and turns have captivated the students attention and we look forward to reading more next week.
In Maths, we have been looking at perimeter. The children have been calculating the distance around both squares and compound shapes. They have done a fabulous job applying their prior knowledge around multiplication and addition to perimeter. We have addressed common misconceptions about area and perimeter and the overlap.
Science was hands-on this week, as we brought nature directly into the classroom. The children dissected real flowers, to identify and label the different parts. They carefully investigated the stamen and carpel, gaining a better understanding of how pollination works by seeing the anthers and stigmas up close. It was a great way to take on our plant studies.
Mar 272026
Happy Easter!
What a week! I can’t believe we’ve finally reached the end of the term. We have been working so hard in Year 5, and it was great to finish on such a high note.
In Maths, we spent the week working with grids. We practiced plotting shapes using coordinates and learned how to reflect them across a mirror line. It was a bit of a challenge to make sure every point was in the right place, but we got the hang of it in the end!
We also finished our Mediterranean leaflets this week, and they look great. It took a lot of work to get all the facts and pictures ready, but seeing them all finished and polished today was brilliant.
To celebrate the end of term, we have done some Easter colouring to brighten up the classroom. We are all so excited for the two-week Easter holidays and can’t wait for a rest. See you next term!
Mar 202026
Exploring Earth and Beyond
We have had a creative and very hands-on week in year 5.
In our Maths lessons this week, we have been exploring the relationship between 3D shapes and their 2D nets. The children have been cutting, folding, and sticking to see how flat shapes can be transformed into solid objects. It has been a very practical week, and it was wonderful to see that moment of realisation when a net finally folded up into a perfect cube. We even discussed different ways to draw the same net and how important it is to make sure the faces are in the right positions so that the shape actually works when it is built.
We also took advantage of the weather to head outside and experiment with sundials. It was a great way to see science in action as we tracked how shadows change position and length throughout the day. The children were fascinated to see how the movement of the sun can be used to tell the time, and it really helped bring our understanding of light and shadows to life as we watched the gnomon cast its path across our dials.
During our English sessions, we have been developing our research and note-taking skills. We have been looking at the Mediterranean and learned about its unique geography, climate, and culture. The children have practised picking out key information from different texts and organising their thoughts into clear, notes.
The highlight of the week has been finishing our Mars dioramas. These were inspired by the Curiosity rover, and I must say they look absolutely brilliant. The classroom has been a hive of activity as we used card, paint, glue, and tissue to recreate the rocky Martian surface. We also used foil to represent the rocks, which really brought the models to life.
Mar 132026
From popping percentages to martian missions!
We have had a busy and productive week in Year 5.
In our maths lessons, we have been using the bubble method to help us get to grips with percentages. This is a fantastic way to visualise how numbers can be broken down into smaller pieces. We start with our main 100% bubble and then branch out to find 10% and 5% by dividing and halving.
Our English sessions have taken us all the way to outer space. We have started designing our very own Mars rovers, thinking carefully about what a robot would actually need to survive on a dusty, freezing planet. The children have been coming up with brilliant ideas for specialised cameras, solar panels, and sturdy wheels.
To bring our space designs to life, we have been getting messy in art. We are building dioramas out of boxes to show our rovers on the surface of Mars. So far, the children have painted the inside of their boxes to dry ready for next week.
Finally, a huge well done to everyone involved in winning the galactic challenge. Standing up to speak in front of a crowd is a massive achievement that requires a lot of confidence. We are all incredibly proud of how you represented the school.
