5BW
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.
Contact form - Mr Wright
Key information:
5BW have outdoor PE on a Tuesday and indoor PE on a Thursday.
5BW's entrance and exit point is the main gate next to the car park.
Please wait on the playground area to collect your children.
Term 5
Year 5 Term 5 Enquiry Overview
Year 5 will be finishing their Enquiry about the Anglo-Saxons by debating whether they thought the Vikings were right to invade the Island. Classes will then move into their next Enquiry of Space, titled, 'What makes Earth, Earth?'. This will allow them to explore atmospheric conditions compared to the other planets in the Solar System whilst understanding how key aspects such as Night and Day occur on our special planet. Alongside being geographers, the children will also be Scientists exploring key concepts such as air and water resistance through investigations. As Writers, Year 5 will continue to write their final pieces based on 'The Arrival' by Shaun Tan. Also this term, the children will be Artists, completing their mixed media pieces using the portraits of famous individuals.
Oracy:
5BW's oracy target is -
Term 4
Year 5 Term 4 Enquiry Overview
Year 5 will be continuing to develop their knowledge of the Vikings and the Anglo-Saxons this term. Having already read their class text, 'Viking Boy', the children will develop a greater depth of knowledge and key elements of Viking life whilst exploring details of the Anglo-Saxons. When 'Being Writers', the children will use 'Arthur and the Golden Rope' as a stimulus before using their enquiry knowledge to write their own information texts.
Year 5 will also be swimming this term, each class having the opportunity to practice and apply key skills.
As Theologians, Year 5 will use their knowledge of the Easter Story to reinforce the importance of the school values within their own lives. Of course, Year 4 will perform during the Easter service later in the term, a time for the school community to come together.
Oracy:
5BW's oracy target is -
Being Theologians:
5BW were lucky to have a visit from St. Stephen's Church to deliver their annual 'Easter in a Box' session. This involves a journey through the story of Easter. The children make predictions as to what each box contains and how this represents a different part of the Easter Story. Elaine (Our community chaplain) talks the children through each part of the story before an activity is completed to support the children's understanding. It is always interesting to hear the story represented in a different way and allow the children to be creative in expressing their understanding!
Being writers
On Tuesday, the children began looking at a book called 'The Arrival' which we will be using for our writing over the next few weeks. An important part of the story is where the father gives his daughter an origami bird to symbolise hope and give her something to remember him while his is away searching for a safer place to live. We used this part of the story as an opportunity to create our own origami which the children were absolutely awesome at! I am really looking forward to seeing the brilliant pieces of writing this unit will create!
Being Readers
This week, we celebrated world book day by dressing up as a variety of animals and engaging in lots of readingg related activities! 5BW began by sharing their costumes and the inspiration behind them before sharing the hall with 3HN to read some books that were recommended by the teaching staff. We also created our own class story where the children chose from different characters from their favourite books to make a hero and a villain! I was really impressed by how engaged the children were and the love of reading on show throughout the day!
Term 3
This term the children will focus on being Geographers in their enquiry, 'How are some children prevented from going to school?'. This will explore key place knowledge using atlases and allow the children to develop an understanding of the barriers many children face in education both in the UK and across the world. Research will be made of key facts and information before writing persuasive speeches to encourage every child to be given access to a good, quality education.
The children will be artists as part of their ambition, using their thoughts and emotions to produce a thought-provoking piece of work to illustrate some of the reasons children face these barriers in accessing school. A busy, fun-filled term ahead!
Being Artists
This week, the children completed their final pieces of artwork, which represented one or more reasons why children are prevented from accessing education. The children used the knowledge they had gained over the last term's enquiry and writing units, as well as techniques learnt in art lessons, to complete some wonderful, emotive pieces!
Being Athletes
This week, Year 4 and 5 were lucky enough to be treated to a fantastic cricket workshop put on by the Gloucestershire Cricket Foundation! The children (and of course Mr Wright) took part in a game of cricket dodgeball! The engagement in the session was amazing to see and there was also some fantastic sportsmanship on show.
Being Artists
During recent Enquiry lessons, Year 5 have been looking at a variety of painting and oil pastel techniques in order to support them in creating an emotive art piece. In the pictures below, the children were given a lesson to practice these different techniques and decide which they thought would be the most effective for the artwork that they will create later in the term!
Being Geographers
Year 5 have been incredibly busy so far this term. The children have started with lots of learning by 'being geographers'. This has involved using atlases to identify key locations whilst recognising key facts, figures and flags. We have also explored Google Earth to understand the proximity of these countries to the UK. As part of this, the children have been exploring key case studies of children from these countries and considering the barriers they face in accessing school.
Year 5 Learning Overview 2
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 actors
A fantastic local drama group were kind enough to deliver an engaging workshop in our classroom after performing a wonderful version of Alice in Wonderland to the school in the morning. The children were treated to a variety of games and activities which they all threw themselves into with great enthusiasm!
Being scientists
This week, we were being scientists by looking at the different parts of a plant. In order to do this, we dissected plants apart and labelled them based on our prior knowledge.
Year 5 Learning Overview 1
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.
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.
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.
Engage and Explore
Starting our enquiry, the children explored pictures of key individuals from yester year and guessed who they were. The 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.
We then moved on and 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.
