Welcome to our class web page where you can find out about our amazing 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:

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

5TM's entrance and exit point is the main gate next to the car park.

Please wait on the playground area to collect your children.

Being Writers

As part of our writing sequence, the children have been exploring formal and informal language. In order to help with the range of persuasive, formal language they can use they have been exploring different options in thesauruses. This led to some excellent discussions about how words can be used differently such as in physical form - 'rubbish' or in abstract form 'your idea is rubbish'.

Old Vic Performance and Workshop

All children in Years 3 - 5 were lucky enough to watch the excellent cast of 'Wonderland' performed by the cast from the Old Vic this week. They were engrossed in the wonderful performance which entertained the children and adults alike. Once the performance had finished, children in Years 4 and 5 received workshops with the members of the cast. This was an excellent opportunity for 5TM to find out more about the actors, their backgrounds and their route in acting. The children also worked in small groups, channeling their dramatics and performing a small group piece.

Being Scientists

As part of our enquiry, the children have considered the structure of plants to understand how they continue to pollinate. Building on knowledge from Year 3, the class firstly dissected individuals flowers (carefully!) in order to notice the different parts before applying this knowledge to a labelled diagram. This is all part of understanding living things within their local ecosystem.

Term 2

'It's the most wonderful time of the year....' As the song goes, we are heading towards Christmas and the term is likely to be filled with lots of interesting learning providing opportunities for curiosity and intrigue. The children in Year 5 will be exploring a number of questions about different enquiries, starting with their local environment. This question is 'How can we improve our local ecosystems?'

Not only will this term be busy with learning, there are a number of other events too; from the visit of the Old Vic, to the Christmas Fayre and the Annual, St. Stephens has talent. A busy but fun-filled term. Keep up to date as the term progresses.

Being orators...

In order to prepare for the Open Classroom event, 5TM paired up with 4LH in order to practice explaining which pieces of work they are proud of and why this is. These practices are a really important part of children 'evaluating' their work, which is a key part of Metacognition.

National Poetry Day 2025

All of St. Stephens celebrated National Poetry Day by taking part in activities and tasks that engaged their creative thinking about words and poetry. The theme was 'play'.

In Year 5, the children focused on a poem by Lucinda Jacob, titled, 'Rules for a good walk'.

This was a really interesting poem to read. It provoked some interesting conversations about our use of technology and how it can often get in the way of important time together. Once the poem had been read aloud, the children wrote their own versions, considering the key thoughts and ideas of playing outside.

In 5TM, we performed the poem as a class to the rest of the school. We considered how our bodies were used to help in this performance and I was really impressed by everyone's efforts. (Photos to follow).

Innovation

In the innovation phase of their learning, the children are encouraged to practise a skill that they are going to use in their ambition and receive feedback on what they did well before considering how they could improve this skill. In Year 5, the focus on is on presenting. Each group received a different animal to present information to other groups in the class. We first explored what makes a good presentation before attempting to share this with others. It will be great to see what wonderful presenters we have in the class. 

Being athletes

Year 5 have both indoor and outdoor lessons in PE. In outdoor lessons, we have been focusing on Netball skills, starting to apply these to small sided games. The children have been passing, marking and shooting brilliantly whilst also considering the tight footwork rules.

In indoor sessions, gymnastics is the focus. The children have recapped skills such as jumps, rolls and balances before combining these into sequences including jumping from equipment. I have been really impressed with the creativity and determination shown!

Being Orators

This term, 5TM are exploring how their physical behaviours reflect what they are trying to say and also how they are listening to others. Firstly, the children explored different emotions and how these can be shown during conversations with others, especially when they challenge or have different opinions.

Next, the children considered how their bodies show emotions such as tiredness, sadness or being calm. We considered how this impacts what we say alongside what we do. Many of us realised that we show something different by what we are doing, to what we actually want to say.

Exploration - Working Scientifically

Across Year 5, the children considered how age can be a factor in growth and also in key activities such as running, jumping and throwing.

Firstly, the children ordered themselves in age order and then compared height. The children then discussed how it is not a linear range, as some children are younger but taller. Classes had some excellent discussions about why this might be such as genetics and factors through chiildhood e.g. injury. Following this the children worked in groups to record how far, quick and long two children could throw, run and jump. Two children in each group, the youngest and the oldest, completed before the others in the group recorded the results. Discussions then followed about who and why the results before recording conclusions in their books. Some fantastic conversations as Scientists.

Engage and Explore

Starting our enquiry, the children explored pictures of key individuals from yester year and guessed who they were. Firstly, Mr. Monks was identified from images as a youngster (some classic outfits on show as a child of the 90's!) Then the children were given two well-known celebrities to try and identify - amazingly it was difficult to work out that these were Taylor Swift and David Attenborough. This highlighted the amazing changes that we experience throughout our lives.

The children then started exploring how we compare to other mammals when being born. Using google classroom, there was paired research to find out how long other animals were pregnant. This provoked some really interesting conversations about the size of animals compared to length of pregnancy and also life expectancy.

Term 1

Year 5 have a busy term ahead with multiple questions to explore and answer. We begin by 'being scientists' and exploring the lives of humans and animals, considering how they change over time. 

The term has started by 'being artists', building on previous drawing the skills, the children have been drawing their self-portraits considering techniques to add detail to their work before evaluating their pieces.

Alongside this, the children will be busy learning new knowledge and skills in other subjects including RE, PE and Music. All of Year 5 will continue to learn a new language in French lessons with our specialist teacher, Mrs Hayes.