Welcome to 5JW's class page.

Welcome 5JW!

Welcome to our class web page where you can find out about our learning journey. You will find information about our activities, examples of our work and comments from us! Please visit often to see our learning journey develop.

Key information:

5JW have outdoor PE on a Tuesday and indoor PE on a Thursday. 
 

Drop off and collection is at the front of the school by Reception. 
 

Children are encouraged to read for pleasure at least 3 times a week and complete TT Rock stars frequently. Maths and spelling shed homework is set on a Monday, and due the following Monday, online but hard copies are always available if you have technical issues. 

Term 4 Learning overview:

ENQUIRY 3

What makes Earth, Earth? 

During the first few weeks of term 4, we will be continuing to explore the world of science. As scientists,  we will be exploring what makes Earth, Earth?

Throughout this enquiry, we continue to explore space and understand how space and our learning of forces link. This enquiry links nicely to global goal 7: looking at affordable and clean energy. We will also look at global goals 4 and 5 whilst reading Boy at the back of the class - understanding gender equality and quality education. 

In reading, we will continue to explore the chapter book ‘Boy at the back of the class’. We will have a copy each to explore in depth, infer, predict, summarise and ask questions. We will learn all about refugees and discuss ways we can help change the world. 
In writing, we will be looking at and exploring the planet Pandora from the movie Avatar.  We will be writing diary entries, discussing the main characters feelings throughout the flight to Pandora and creative descriptive pieces of writing linked to the unknown planet. This will help us continue to practice our Y5 writing targets; complex sentences, expanded noun phrases, embedded relative clauses as well as figurative language. 

Being artists! 

This week in 5JW we have been artists. We have looked at the professional works of artist Chris Ofili and how he was inspired to create his art piece 'No Woman, No cry'. 

We discussed what techniques and media he used to create his art pieces and we were very surprised to learn how he became so well known! 

After this, we created our own pieces of art. These pieces were based off on influential people. We discussed what influential means and what makes a person influential. As a class, we chose five different people to choose from that we could use to create our art; Ariana Grande, Rosa Parks, David Attenborough, Albert Einstein and Messi. 

We used sharpies and laminating sheets to draw over the portraits of our person and then used a combination of different mixed media types to build up a background for our art. 

World Book Day 2025!

Today was World Book Day, our favourite day of the school year! 

This year's theme was heroes so the activities that we completed throughout the day were all linked to heroes! 

We created a character profile for our heroes and then battled it out, using our oracy skills to see who was the best reading hero in the class. Well done to Olivia, as Harry Potter, whose speech wow'ed the class! 

After breaktime, we were very excited to have Miss Porter into our class to read us 'The Explorer' which is one of her favourite childhood books.

Then we had a real life author visit us! C J Delahay, who has written 2 books, very kindly came to our class and told us all about her journey as an author. We had so many insightful questions for her! 

In the afternoon, we learned all about graphic novels. We love graphic novels in 5JW so this was a real treat! We got to create our own graphic novels and read them to our friends. 

We even have a section in our book corner now for the books that we have created. 

Year 5 learning overview 3: 

ENQUIRY 3

What do forces do? 

We will be jumping into the world of science. As scientists,  we will be exploring what forces do! This links nicely to global goal 7: looking at affordable and clean energy. We will also look at global goals 4 and 5 whilst reading Boy at the back of the class - understanding gender equality and quality education. 

In reading, we will be exploring the chapter book ‘Boy at the back of the class’. We will have a copy each to explore in depth, infer, predict, summarise and ask questions. We will learn all about refugees and discuss ways we can help change the world. 
We will also be enjoying The Barnabus Project and basing lots of our writing on this. We will be inventing our own characters, writing newspaper reports and letters. This will help us explore formal language further and practise using direct and reported speech.

Special visitor - Dog's Trust! 

Today in 5JW, we had the privilege of having a special visitor from Dogs Trust into our class to teach us all about dog behaviours. 

We had a great time learning about the different behaviour shown by our 'doggy best friends' and what each of these expressions mean. 

We were able to demonstrate our fantastic oracy skills to Helen through different games, activities and role play exercises to help us understand how we can treat our dogs in the best way for them. 

Thank you Dogs Trust! 

Being scientists - Our solar system!

This week, we have been learning all about the solar system! 

We linked our prior learning of forces to the solar system to understand how the planets stay in orbit. We learned all about the rotation and revolution of the Earth, Sun and Moon and how this process creates day, night and the different seasons. 

In teams, we were challenged to lines ourselves up as planets in the correct order. This allowed us to demonstrate our school value of humility as we had to work positively in a team. 

We discussed why the planets that are closer to the sun (Mercury and Venus) are hotter in temperature and why Uranus and Neptune are the colder, icy planets. 

Being writers - Newspaper interviews
 

During our writing unit this term, we have learned all about reported speech. After perfecting this target, we wrote our own newspaper report linked to The Barnabus Project. 
In our planning stage of the newspaper report, we used our grammar and oracy skills to create interviews and present them to the class. 

Being scientists - Investigating water resistance!

In our enquiry lessons today, we learned all about the water resistance force. 

We discussed the definition of water resistance in depth and explored the differences between humans, boats and fish in how they are able to move through water and how they are limited in their ability to move through water. 

We then started to plan our investigation 'Do all objects fall through water in the same way?'.

We discussed our predictions based on our knowledge of how humans and fish move through water and explored how different objects e.g. a pencil, a gem and a piece of paper fall to the bottom of a water beaker. 

We have enjoyed discussing the independent variables (things we change), controlled variable (what stays the same) and the dependent variables (what we measure) to help us become scientists. 

We then started our investigation into how different shapes of playdough experience water resistance by the times it takes the pieces to fall to the bottom of the beaker. 

We found that when we created more streamlined shapes, they travelled through the water at a greater speed than the circular shapes. 

Being scientists - making balloon rockets!

On our first week of term 3, we have engaged and immersed ourselves into our state of being for this term as scientists. 

We conducted an experiment into air resistance by attaching a balloon to a straw on a piece of string. We observed how (once released) the air allowed the straw to travel across the piece of string. 

We changed some variables in this investigation, for example, the angle of the string, the amount of air in the balloon.

Year 5 - Learning block 2

Being technologists - Making an information video

In our computing lessons this term, we have been learning all about videos.

This includes; different shots, how to record and edit a video and how to plan an information video. 

We started the unit by watching different types of videos (information, music video) and discussed why these were effective. Then we learned all about different shot types to film with a camera (e.g. long shot, mid shot and close up), we then started to storyboard and plan our own videos, being a metacog and evaluating our practice along the way. 

During the last two weeks, we have filmed and edited our videos - adding sound effects, subtitles and music.

They are absolutely brilliant videos!

Being theologians - Christmas in a Box! 

With Christmas getting closer and closer, today we had a special visitor from St Stephens Church to teach us all about the Christmas story. 

Regan told us the Christmas story through artefacts in different boxes. We learned more about Mary, Joseph and the journey to Bethlehem and asked Regan lots of interesting questions that we had. 

We designed our own boxes, wrapped up special stones, decorated flags and created a tree decoration. 

We had so much fun getting into the Christmas Spirit! 

Thank you so much Regan & St Stephen's Church for allowing us the opportunity to do this! 

Being an athlete - 5JW learning the Haka!

In PE this term, we have been learning all about the haka. We have discussed where it originated, why this ceremonial dance is performed at rugby games by Australia and New Zealand and the different dance moves / techniques that are involved in the routines. 

So far we have choreographed a short piece of the haka together as a class, combining the different dance moves that we have learned. We are now working towards a final performance by collaborating with others and creating our own haka routines in small groups to eventually bring together to make one big performance!

12/11/24 - Inter Faith day. 

Today in 5JW, we discussed and learned all about world Inter-Faith week.

This is an occasion during the second week of November, that is dedicated to celebrating religious diversity and how is it prominent in our society. We discussed the different religions that are in our community and how these different religions are able to exist and operate in cohesion with each other. 

We started our learning by reading a story called 'Little Glow'. This book had an overarching theme of togetherness and unity from an inclusive community, who celebrates all religious festivals, throughout the year. In our class, we discussed the different festivals that we spotted (e.g. Christmas, Diwali, Chinese New Year and Hanukkah) and had an in-depth conversation about why it is important for all societies to learn about them and accept them. 

We then took a deeper dive into the Hindu religion and the religious festival of Diwali - the Hindu festival of light. As a class, we learned about why they celebrate this and why bright colours and bright lights are used. We then looked at different 'rangolis' (the art of Diwali) and discussed how we could have a go at making these ourselves with the rangoli patterns and the bright colours. 

You can see some of the art we were making below! 

Year 5 Gurdwara Trip - Friday 8th November.

During our RE lessons, we have been learning all about different places of worship. We explored in detail the Sikh place of worship, a Gurdwara, and compared their similarities and differences to a church. Today (8.11.24) we visited the Gurdwara Sri Guru Singh Sabha in St George.

We had an excellent time linking our prior learning of the topic and seeing this in person at the Gurdwara. We sat in the Langar hall where we learned all about the different foods that they serve, free of charge, at the Gurdwara. The speaker from the Gurdwara provided us with in-depth knowledge and information about the 10 Gurus (very similar to Jesus’ disciples), who were the first founders of Sikhism in India, and we looked at photographs and paintings of lots of different Gurdwara’s all over the world.

As a year group, we went upstairs into the prayer room. This was incredible to be able to see and experience what these are like as we had only learned about them in school through pictures and videos. Our guide taught us all about the 5 K’s of Sikhism – which are the markers of a Sikh identity. We asked our guide lots of questions that we had during our visit and even added more information to our RE books when we returned to school.

Viking Enquiry Immersion - Making Viking shields

This week in 5JW, we have started a new enquiry "How did the Anglo Saxons and Vikings change Britain". 

To start this, we spent our first lesson learning all about Viking shields - what their purpose was and why they used them. 

Then we created our own shields! Using recycled plastics and cardboard, we cut the cardboard into the correct shape, carefully drew the lines and the circle in the middle and then painted them in lots of different colours and patterns. 

Term 2 Enquiry - How did the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings change Britain?

In Term 2, we will continue to be historians in our study of Anglo-Saxons and the Vikings to explore how they changed Britain. 

So far, we have enjoyed learning about the different kingdoms that were once in Britain - especially discovering that the South West used to be known as Wessex! 

Along with developing our research skills, we will be looking at lots of different evidence and artifacts to support our learning.

Our First Enquiry Ambition:

During this week in our enquiry lessons, we have been learning about speeches and presentations. We have discussed the steps to success of a speech (e.g. clear voice, confidence, facts, images and prompts) and used these to create our own presentations. Our presentations were based around the focus of 'The development of humans from babies to old age' and through this we linked our learning so far in this term. In our speeches we also compared and contrasted the life cycle of humans to other mammals and frogs! 

We worked collaboratively in groups to create our final pieces. Some of us wrote speeches, while others created posters and planned activities.

Today (11.10) we invited the Y2s over from the Infants School so we could perform our speeches and share all of our knowledge about our science enquiry.

National Poetry Day 2024

Today is National Poetry Day (3.10.24) and during the day today we have explored lots of different activities. Our afternoon activity was to recite a poem by a famous author. The poem that was assigned to Year 5 was 'Words are Ours' by Michael Rosen.

We looked at some videos of techniques that we could use in order to perform our poems. We decided that we would use of school value of 'humilty' and work in teams for each section of the poem. 

During our reading lessons we have been exploring the 'Viking Boy' story. During our reading lesson we discussed the feelings of the different characters in the story during a very crucial change in the plot. 

We loved acting out the 'warriors'!

Being a scientist - How do some plants reproduce? 

Today we have been learning all about plant reproduction. To support our learning, we observed the different plants in the allotment to explore their key features. After this, we returned to our classroom and discussed the key features and their functions. We dissected lillies to see up close the different parts of the plant, e.g. the stigma, the anther, and presented our findings to the class.