Year 5 Weekly News 09.05.25

This week was a very special one! On Thursday, we celebrated VE Day! We spent time learning all about World War II and why Victory in Europe Day is such an important moment in history. We discussed the importance of peace and why it's something worth celebrating. To mark the occasion, we created colourful bunting to decorate our classrooms and proudly took part in a national assembly, joining 199,000 other children across the UK! At lunchtime, we held our very own version of a street party. Everyone looked fantastic in their party clothes as we celebrated together. It was a truly memorable day, filled with learning, laughter, and a powerful message of peace.

When we weren't celebrating, we were busy with our usual lessons. In Maths, we continued learning about angles. We practised drawing both types of angles using a protractor, carefully refining our drawing skills. In addition, we tackled the concept of angles around a point, mastering the technique of calculating and understanding how angles relate to one another.

In English, we were excited to learn that we will soon be writing our very own survival narratives, using The Lost Book of Adventure as our inspiration. During our lessons, we explored a fantastic example of this type of writing. We analysed its structure closely and uncovered some useful writing tools that made the narrative truly captivating. From descriptive language to suspenseful plot twists, we identified the key elements that make a survival story shine. Meanwhile, in spelling, we continued exploring words ending in -ant, -ance, and -ancy.

Over in Reading, we delved back into DK Witness: Amazon to explore the topic of ecotourism. We looked at both the positives and negatives of this concept and discussed how our choices can impact the environment. I was really impressed by the thoughtful discussions and the way you all shared your ideas with maturity and confidence.

In Music this week, we worked in our groups to decide who would take on each part--whether that was an acting role, a beatboxing role, or both! This required lots of patience and teamwork. You listened carefully, respected each other's ideas, and made sure everyone was happy with their roles. Well done!

In PE, you enjoyed a badminton lesson with Mrs Whittingham and an athletics session with Coach Beth. It was great to see your energy and enthusiasm in both.

Our new Art unit began this week with the fascinating theme of structure. In our first lesson, we explored what it means to be an architect and discussed the different things architects must consider when designing buildings. We also learned about the tiny house movement and compared these compact homes to larger, more idealistic designs.

In Science, we started with a fun game called What's it made from? where we guessed the materials of everyday objects and talked about their properties--like being waterproof or conductive. Then, you designed your own lunch bag that could keep food dry, cool, and safe. You thought carefully about the materials you'd use and sketched out your ideas. We finished by discussing which materials are most suitable for certain jobs and talked about recyclable and sustainable options. Great work, everyone!

In Geography, we continued learning about the rainforest. We began by sharing our own experiences of walking through forests in the UK, which led to some great discussions. Then, we studied graphs about the Amazon rainforest--including data on rainfall, temperature, and sunshine levels. We found it to be a very hot and very wet environment! Finally, we compared this to similar data about Crewe, and the differences were fascinating.

In Computing, we began our new unit on vector drawings. First, we learned what a vector drawing is and explored how digital drawing tools work. We added and edited shapes to create our own house pictures, practising how to resize, move, and change their colours. Then, we looked more closely at how these images are made up of individual objects. We used our new skills to create animals like owls, sheep, and lions--some of you even discovered how to duplicate objects to save time. Everyone did a brilliant job combining shapes to make some truly creative vector images!

Finally, in Wellbeing, we explored the idea of identity by finishing the sentence "I am...". This activity helped us recognise our strengths, celebrate what makes us unique, and gave our self-esteem a lovely boost!

Thank you for another wonderful week, Year 5. I hope you have a fantastic weekend.

See you on Monday,

Miss Pennance