Learning in Year 5

In Year 5, children become increasingly confident, reflective and independent learners. Through a carefully sequenced, knowledge-rich curriculum, pupils deepen their understanding, tackle more complex ideas and apply their knowledge across different subjects.

Reading and writing lessons are enriched by challenging and engaging texts such as Shackleton’s Journey, The Explorer, The Boy in the Tower, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, I Am Not a Label, Secrets of a Sun King and Five Children and It. Children develop their writing through biographies, balanced arguments, formal letters of application, playscripts, stories set in other cultures, myths and legends, dialogue, and a range of poetry.

In mathematics, pupils develop fluency, reasoning and problem-solving as they apply increasingly sophisticated knowledge of number, calculation, fractions, decimals, percentages, measurement, geometry and statistics.

Across the wider curriculum, pupils:

• investigate the properties and changes of materials, animals including humans, forces, Earth and space, and living things and their habitats in science;

• explore world countries, biomes and environmental regions while developing four- and six-figure grid-reference, Ordnance Survey map and fieldwork skills in geography;

• study ancient Greece and undertake a comparative historical study involving the Maya, Benin, the Anglo-Saxons or the Golden Age of Islam;

• develop creativity through drawing, painting, printmaking, textiles, collage, sculpture and three-dimensional art;

• design and make products involving systems, textiles, structures, mechanisms, and food and nutrition;

• explore musical stories, song structure, notation, music technology, composition and improvisation using voices, keyboards and other instruments;

• extend their Spanish through numbers, emotions, local amenities, friends and family, sports, hobbies and preparing a meal; and

• learn about friendships, families, respectful relationships, personal safety, healthy choices and being ready to learn through PSHE.

Regular opportunities for reading, handwriting, spelling, physical education, creative expression and language learning ensure that children experience a broad, balanced and ambitious curriculum throughout Year 5.

Further details can be found in our Year 5 curriculum overview.