Eagles & Hawks (Year 5)

Teachers: Mrs Taylor, Mrs Baker and Mr Giles

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Davies, Mr Harris, Mrs Slack, Mrs Smith

Summer Term

We start the Summer term by immersing in learning about the Maya civilisation. In history, we'll learn about who the Maya were and where they lived, what we have found out about the Maya from archaelogical finds and how an entire civilisation seemed to simply disappear. We'll continue to develop our historical understanding within our English sequence as we focus on writing a non-fiction text all about an element of Mayan life. We'll focus on how to write a text which is clear, engaging, factual and organised; we'll take inspiration from and learn through a range of non-fiction texts about the Maya.

In maths, we start by learning about the equivalence between fractions, decimals and percentages, before moving on to looking at statistics and analysing data. We are learning about William Morris in art and we'll be taking inspiration from nature to create a mono-print of our own design and creation.

We have a number of trips this half term, including to the Mosque in Exeter and to the Eden Project, where we'll tie our geography projects through the year together with a workshop on sustainable living.

Spring Term 2023

This term, we start our learning with a brand new topic all about mountains: Why are mountains so important? Through a geographical lens, we look at different mountain ranges around the world, as well as some particularly famous mountains, including Mount Everest and Mauna Kea. We learn how mountains ranges are formed and consider how fold mountains are different from mountain ranges in the UK, such as the Cambrian Mountains. We look at the climate differences around mountains and the ways in which humans have to adapt to live in and around them. A look at biodiversity and the ways in which mountains can be used for renewable energy sources and water use completes our sequence. In art, we'll be looking at landscape paintings by Paul Cezanne and will be developing our skills in painting. After half term, we'll be becoming scientists and investigating the properties of materials and considering their suitability for different purposes. There will be plenty of investigating and we'll be careful to ensure our investigations are both rigorous and reliable. In D.T we'll be designing and making a shelter fit for the Antarctic - considering our design brief, designing and making a prototype, making our final piece and evaluating its effectiveness afterwards.

In English, we will be studying 'The Tempest' by William Shakespeare. We'll be getting into Shakespeare's world and unpicking the story and characters in this play. Drama, reciting, reading and character development will form a huge part of this sequence and we'll be considering how stories can come alive on the stage. Vocabulary and a development of accuracy in our writing will help us to continue to become writers who are able to make deliberate and powerful choices about our writing. After half term, we'll be looking at 'Shackleton's Journey' by William Grill. We'll be writing motivational speeches in role and then working on creating a non-fiction text in the same style about a chosen explorer of our own.

In maths, we'll be beginning by returning to fractions. We'll consider equivalence between fractions and will begin calculating with fractions by adding, subtracting and multiplying. We'll follow by working with word problems and beginning to consider what strategies and calculations are required to find the answer.

Our weekly newsletters and children's knowledge organisers can be found on Google Classroom each week. These provide additional detail about our curriculum each week, as well as events within school.