Y5 Weekly News 21.03.2025

Happy Friday, Year 5!

We have had another fantastic week. Thank you for working so hard!

One of our highlights was being visited by Mrs Okulla as part of Science Week. Mrs Okulla is a radiographer, and she told us all about the different types of scans that can be used to help medical professionals see inside our bodies. It was fascinating to learn about them all. We then got the chance to look at some X-rays, which was simply incredible. We want to say a big thank you to Mrs Okulla for giving up her time to come and visit us -- thank you!

For the rest of our lessons, we continued our learning about fractions, decimals, and percentages in maths. We worked hard to understand how to convert between these different types of numbers, using a variety of methods and techniques to help us. We then put our knowledge to the test by completing an 'End of Unit Check.'By Wednesday, it was time for us to start our new unit on area and perimeter. Our focus has been on understanding perimeter -- the total distance around the edge of a shape. We began by calculating the perimeter of rectangles, using the formula (length + width) -- 2, and then moved on to more complex rectilinear shapes. We carefully added up the lengths of all the sides to find the total perimeter, making sure not to miss any edges. It's been fantastic to see you using your reasoning skills to work out missing side lengths and solve perimeter problems with confidence!

In English, we continued our unit inspired by The Promise by Nicola Davies. This week, we have been busy planning and writing our own character narratives, drawing on the rich descriptions and powerful messages from the story. It's been wonderful to see you all working so hard to develop your ideas, create vivid characters, and bring their journeys to life. You've shown great creativity and determination, resulting in some truly amazing pieces of work -- I am so impressed with what you've achieved!

This week, in Book Club, we continued exploring the fantastic book 'The Infinite Lives of Maisie Day'. We took time to carefully unpick the text, focusing on how the author creates atmosphere and builds tension. We had thoughtful discussions about the powerful words and phrases used to describe the darkness that was chasing Maisie, considering how the author's choices made us feel and what they might suggest about Maisie's journey. It's been brilliant to see you dive into the text so deeply and share such insightful ideas!

In our RE lesson, we continued learning about Easter and how Christians believe Jesus's death is a celebration of victory. We explored the key events of the Easter story, discussing what makes each moment significant. After reflecting on the story together, we carefully selected the top six events that we felt best represented victory -- from Jesus's sacrifice on the cross to his resurrection and the hope it brings to Christians. It was wonderful to hear your thoughtful ideas and see how well you explained why each event showed triumph over sin and death.

For your PHSE lesson, we thought about the different emotions we all feel. You shared stories of times when you felt big emotions that made you act in certain ways. When we looked at the quote from Dondi Scumaci, you decided that it meant it's okay to feel all these emotions -- but we mustn't let them control us.We talked about situations on the playground when we thought we could've acted differently if we had taken a moment to think before reacting. Some of you shared that you like to draw, colour, or spend some time alone to help manage your emotions. Finally, we talked about how learning to manage our emotions is part of growing up -- we'll always feel them, but we don't always want them to "drive" our actions. This links to the Bible reference: "Love does not count up wrongs that have been done" -- 1 Corinthians 13:4-5.

In our first PE lesson of the week, it was time for netball. This week, our warmup game was designed to test our peripheral vision -- important in all sports. The skill focus was shoulder passes -- a pass for longer distances that needs to be passed directly to a teammate with no bounce. We worked on technique and played a few mini matches to incorporate all the rules and skills we have touched on so far.For our second lesson, we focused on invasion games in general. We learned the skills of overlapping and underlapping when trying to keep possession of the ball. We then showcased our skills in three mini games of netball, football, and rugby.

In Music, we listened to a piece of 20th Century orchestral music composed by Florence Price. She set out to use her music to bring about change and was the first African American woman to have a symphony performed by a major orchestra in America.When listening to her composition, we identified when trumpets were played using a mute. We also heard violins using a technique called pizzicato -- this is where the violin strings are plucked instead of being played with a bow. We noticed where the music shifted from a major key to a minor key, adding to the emotional power of the piece.

On Wednesday, it was time for D.T.! We were excited to learn that we will be making spaghetti Bolognese! Before we start cooking, we needed to learn about the ingredients. We explored what these ingredients are and found out about the 'Farm to Fork' process of beef. We then created posters to share the facts we had learned.

We invited Year 6 to take a look at our finished typography projects during our Art lesson. We shared our island artwork with them and asked for their feedback. They were really impressed with the creativity shown in our designs and the different types of typography we used to make our maps unique and meaningful. After hearing their thoughts, we took time to evaluate our work, identifying the parts we felt most proud of and reflecting on what we might improve next time. Finally, it was time to take our artwork home -- I hope you've enjoyed showing your fantastic creations to your families!

We were captivated by the idea of day and night in Science. This sparked our curiosity, and you asked so many amazing questions. We learned that day happens when our part of the Earth faces the sun, and night happens when we face away from the sun. It was fascinating to explore!

We thought about the areas of Wybunbury that we would like to preserve during Geography. Using Google Maps, we explored the village and considered the benefits of both man-made and natural features. We agreed that Wybunbury Moss is a place that we must preserve.

We continued our work on databases by investigating how records can be grouped. We compared our paper record cards to a computer-based database. Using 'grouping' and 'sorting,' we explored how data can be organized to help us answer questions more efficiently. It was great to see you experimenting with the data, spotting patterns, and drawing conclusions -- it really showed how powerful databases can be!

Hope you have a fantastic weekend,

Miss Pennance