5AH

Our Rights Respecting Class Charter

Term 4

Key information:

Term 4 PE: Indoor  PE on a Monday and outdoor PE on a Wednesday with Bristol Sport. 

Words of the week:  vulnerable, swiftly, humility

Times table to be tested on Friday: 4 and 9 times table. 

British Science Week

Article 29: You have the right to an education which develops our talents and abilities.

Today we had an amazing workshop led by the scientist Mad Mark. He conducted some science experiments that truly wowed us all. He demonstrated how sound travels, gravity and how air expands in the heat and contracts when it is cold.

The session was great fun and we learned lots about science!

World Book Day!

Article 31: You have the right to play and relax by doing things like sports, music and drama.

Today, World Book Day arrived in Year 5. We shared our favourite book with 3MK and had a biscuit, experienced speed book dating where shared a little about our book of the day with a member of the class and then moved on after a couple of minutes and finally learnt the poem’ There’s a dog in the playground’ by Allan Ahlberg. Our final challenge was to perform the poem in a sharing assembly to the whole school at the end of the day.

Wow what a day!

Heart dissection!

Article 24: you have the right to the best health care possible, safe water to drink, nutritious food, a clean and safe environment, and information to help you stay well.

As part of a science inquiry this term, we had the opportunity today to investigate the layout of a real heart! We have been learning about the circulatory system and the different parts of the body that keep us all alive. We have talked about what keeps us healthy as well as investigating the different chambers of the heart and looking at how it keeps pumping. 

WOW day fun!

Article 31: Every child has the right to relax, play and take part in a wide range of cultural and artistic activities.

Today we started our new enquiry with an artistic WOW. Our enquiry question this term is: How can we change our community values to make sure our planet is healthy? This will be a science based enquiry taking in a trip around space to learn about the sun, moon and the solar system.

We used NASA’s pictures of our planet earth to inspire and enthuse us to create some amazing pictures using blow painting, texture painting and marbling.  We followed the Try it, Use it and Prove sequence to produce some amazing art.

Suffix spelling

 Article 28: You have the right to a good quality education.

Today we looked at words ending in a single f followed by –er. We explored  how Suffixes are used to make new words and give base words different meanings. By learning and understanding each of the spelling rules for suffixes, we will be able to use them correctly and know which ones to use when.

Term 3

Key information:

Term 3 PE: Outdoor PE on a Monday and intdoor PE on a Wednesday.

Words of the week:  auxiliaries, bawling and dreamily

Times table to be tested on Friday: 12 times table

This term, Year 5 will be investigating the history of Bristol by examining the slave trade and answering the question: ‘How did the sugar trade change Bristol’.  We will be using the text ‘Freedom’ by Catherine Johnson to support our writing and develop our understanding of slavery. Our final challenge will be to create a TED talk showing the impact of the slave trade.

TED talks

Article 13- Every child must be free to say what they think and to seek and receive all kinds of information, as long as it is within the law.

Today we had our in class assemblies. Each of us were in small groups answering questions linked to our term’s enquiry. Our challenge was to prepare and deliver TED talks to help answer the key enquiry question. It was great performing to our parents and carers.

Safer Internet Day

Article 13: Freedom of Expression 

Today is Safer Interent Day and  we spent the day learning about our identity and how our identities can reveal quite a lot about us. We spoke about the importance of keeping ourselves safe online and making sure we speak to our parents if we are ever worried about something. As one of the activities, we filled in a spin wheel with details about how we use the internet. From the information given, we had to work out which spin wheel belonged to which person.

WOW!

Article 32: You have the right to protection from work that harms you, and is bad for your health and education. If you work, you have the right to be safe and paid fairly.

To kick start our new enquiry we started off reviewing our learning about the industrial revolution. This led us onto looking at the triangular slave trade. In order to understand why there were slaves, we looked at how sugar was grown on the Jamaican plantations. This led then us to look at a prominent Bristolian Edward Colston. In our oracy trios, we discussed the pros and cons of whether his statue, currently in the centre of Bristol, should be removed or not due to his involvement with the slave trade. Some of us shared what we thought and the reasons behind our arguments.

As well as looking at how sugar is grown we studied some food labels and looked at the sugar content in many different food types. We were amazed at how much sugar can be hidden in some of our favourite foods. Before lunch, we made some healthy breakfast bars- see the recipe below, using some really heathy and naturally sweet ingredients.

What a day!!

Collage creations

Article 28-Every child has the right to an education

We started off the day by looking at the Pero Bridge in the centre of Bristol. This bridge was constructed as a pedestrian footbridge to span Bristol's floating harbour, and was named in honour of Pero Jones, who came to live in Bristol as the slave of John Pinney.

We drew one of the horns that form part of this amazing piece of engineering. Used one colour of newspaper to build up the shades of the horn. Once we had finished the ‘Try it’ stage, we reviewed what we had done and looked for ways to improve our next ‘Use it’ attempt.  Shortly, we will use the painted colour palettes to create our final collage piece.

Computing Day

Article 29- Your education should help you use and develop your talents and abilities.

Using the BBC micro:bit  which is a handheld, programmable micro-computer that can be used for all sorts of cool creations, from robots to musical instruments, we explored and developed our programming skills.

Skipping challenge

Article 31: You have the right to play and rest.

Today we got out the skipping ropes and held our annual skipping challenge. Each member of the class had three attempts to skip for 30 seconds and the best score went forward as their score. We will have to see which house has won later on this term.

PlayPod fun!

Article 31: You have the right to play and rest.

Today we were extremely excited to have a session using the PlayPod equipment. We were reminded of the rules and then time to play imaginatively with all the amazing items that we currently have.  

As you can see, we had lots of fun!!

Term 2

Key information:

Term 2 PE: outdoor on a Monday and indoor on a Wednesday with Bristol Sport. 

Protest Art 

 Article 12 - Every child has the right to an opinion and for adults to listen and take it seriously.

The last couple of weeks, we have been looking at Banksy the artist and protest art. We have learnt about Banksy and who he might be, how he grew famous and what his art represents. With this in mind, we have been planning our own protest art.

We will be using the art technique of block printing onto fabric a design that  is a protest about something that we feel needs addressing- climate change, inequality, racism and many more extremely important issues.

St Stephen’s Church

Article 14: Every child has the right to think and believe what they want and to practise their religion.

Today, Year 5 visited St Stephen’s Church. We were made to feel extremely welcome by Lisa and Sandy. Our focus was on marriage and what a wedding ceremony is like in a Christian place or worship. We had our very own ceremony- bride, bridegroom, best man, mother of the bride and bridesmaid were all present.

It was quite an occasion!!

Dance, dance dance! 

Article 29- Use and develop our talents and abilities.

Today, Year 5 were extremely lucky to start their dance sessions with Bristol Sport. It was lively, loud and great fun. Clearly 5AH have some amazing dance moves!!

Wow Day!

Article 32: You have the right to be protected from work that is bad for your health and education. You have the right to be paid fairly for work that you do.

Year 5 learned about child labour and the fashion industry through their wow day. First, we investigated clothing to see what it was made of and where it was made. We found that our clothes were made in places such as Bangladesh, Shri Lanka, Vietnam, Chile and Indonesia.

We then learned what it could be like to work in a cotton mill. We tried to create thread from raw cotton and we also learned how to stitch two pieces of material together by hand- something which many people are still doing as part of their jobs.

Next, we learned that child labour was a big part of the cotton industry during the industrial revolution and sadly that it could be a dangerous and scary time to be a poor child. Furthermore, we found out that child labour still happens today in many industries and many children across the world are not having their rights met.

Finally, we talked about how we could help to stop child labour through protest, which will be our aim for this term!

Gurdwara Visit:

Article 29 Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the full.

Year 5 visited the Gudwara today! We learned so much about Sikhism and had a really interesting visit.  During this session we were comparing different places of worship for different faiths. It was really interesting to see the similarities and differences between the Church and the Gudwara. We talked about the holy book, (the Guru Granth  Sahib) saw where it was read and kept, and we even had some drinks and biscuits at the end. We were so grateful to the volunteers that showed us around! 

Mass Maths!

Article 29 Education must develop every child’s personality, talents and abilities to the ful.

Today in Year 5, we started learning about mass and how this is different to weight. We selected numerous items and estimated what they would weigh. Next, we used scales to find their mass and compared the actual measurement to our estimates. Some of our estimates were good and some were not!

Rights Respecting

Today we launched Rights Respecting throughout the school. In class, we looked at what this meant to us in Year 5.

In 1989, governments across the world promised all children the same rights by adopting the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. The Convention says what countries must do so that all children grow as healthy as possible, can learn at school, are protected, have their views listened to, and are treated fairly.

We started off by sorting different images into: Most important, important and least important. Later on, we watched a film about children in India and how they prioritise the images differently. We finished off by discussing the difference between wants and needs. Later this week, we will be writing up or own class charter about the rights that we will adhere to so that everyone is able to access learning.

Term 1

Key information:

PE days for  Term 1 will be- Indoor PE on a Thursday and outdoor PE on a Tuesday.  Swimming will be on the days indicated on the letter which was given out at the end of last term. 

WOW!

For our WOW day we were lucky enough to have ‘Jungle Jonathan’ come in to school with his collection of exotic rainforest animals. We encountered a tarantula, a scorpion, stick insects, a gecko and even a snake! We learnt about the effects that deforestation is having on these animals' homes. We are looking forward to finding out about what we can do to help prevent this from happening.

Not only did we have our session with Jonathan, we also spent some time 'Rewilding' part of the roundabout at the front of the school. It was much harder work that we had initially thought. First we had to remove the grass from the top and then dig down and turn over the soil. Finally, we will be planting flowers and sowing seeds that will entice bees. This is our contribution to the Global Goal- Life on land.

Have a look at the seeds as they grow over the coming months.

In class assembly

Wow! Today was the first of our new in class assemblies. Each of us selected a piece of our learning from the term and presented it to our parents and carers.  We focussed on the oracy skills that we have been working on across the term. Although a few of us were a little nervous, everyone who came to listen were incredibly impressed and thoroughly enjoyed hearing about our Term 1 learning journey.

Bristol Reggae Orchestra

Wow what an impressive group of lively, energetic and inspiring musicians. We were entertained by the Bristol Reggae Orchestra- the only one of its kind in the world. Not only did each of the musicians introduce their instruments but they also played some iconic reggae tunes.

NSPCC 'Speak out,Stay safe'

Today, Year 5 had a workshop on speaking out. During the session, we learned about why we should speak out and how we should stay staff.  We looked at different ways that children can speak out- to a trusted adult, through the NSPCC web site of by phoning Childline- 0800 1111.

Swimming!

We have all had great fun this week during our intensive swimming sessions. All of us have improved our strokes, gained confidence and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.

A big thank you to all the parents and careers that gave their time so willingly to walk with us to the pool. Without these kind individuals, we would not have been able to swim. Thank you!

Place Value learning

Today, we moved on with our Place Value maths learning by looking at decimals. We know that the further away from the decimal point to the right the smaller the part of the whole. Though the use of dienes, we explored how to make numbers up to three decimal places as well as using money to show two decimal place numbers. 

Cricket galore!

This term Year 5 are extremely lucky to have Bristol Sport teaching us all about cricket. We will be developing out throwing and catching skills as well as learning tactical approaches. All these new found skills will be applied to playing games of cricket.

We can’t wait!

Oracy in Year 5!

Today, we started learning about oracy in Year 5. Part of our learning involved working in trios and we were asked to pick one of the scenarios on the board to roleplay- making a complaint, gossiping with a friend, job interview, argument with a sibling, conversation with a police officer, conversation with a shop keeper, asking a stranger for directions and ordering food in a restaurant. We needed to consider the way we talk and how talk changes depending on who we might be speaking to:  our friends/teacher/family etc.

We then shared our role-plays with the class – during this time, we thought about the different ways in which we talk, considering our voices, vocab and body language.