Year 5 - Victorians, forces and percentages

The Year 5 children have returned to school with enthusiasm and are looking forward to a busy term. Their trip to Ironbridge will allow them to immerse themselves entirely into life in Victorian times. They can look forward to dressing up as Victorian children and witnessing some Victorian discipline; children will be told they can be seen but not heard! For many, the trip may be their first time away from home and their parents. It will be an opportunity for everyone to spend time away with friends.

The children have already started on a variety of Coronation celebrations, all culminating in a dress-up day before the bank holiday and a host of engaging activities.

They can also look forward to an increased awareness of the Windrush generation as we celebrate the 75th anniversary of their ongoing contribution to British life.

In Maths there has been much discussion around the use of percentages in real life. Children appreciate that percentages are used to calculate discounts in shops, bank interest rates, rates of inflation and many statistics in the world of work, including balancing the risk of taking a certain course of action. Much debate has centred on the importance of Maths in understanding the financial aspects of everyday life.

Year 5 have been busy this week researching the life of King Charles 111 in English and are writing their version of his Coronation Speech. The children will present their “King’s Speeches” to each other during our Coronation Celebration day. We have also been immersed in our new novel “Street Child” by Berlie Doherty and discovering just how hard life can be in the Victorian era. We cannot wait to find out more about the adventures of Jim Jarvis and who the mysterious Barney might be!

In PSHE this half term, we are looking at Relationships. The first lesson of this topic focused on our characteristics, personal qualities, attributes and self-esteem. We thought about who we are in order to build an accurate picture of ourselves as a person in terms of our characteristics and personal qualities in order to build our self- esteem.

Have you heard of Bloodhound SSC? Well we are learning about the fastest car in the world and the different forces which propel it forward and slow it down. Unfortunately we don’t have our own super car but we are learning to use forcemeters to measure the resistance of friction. We have already learnt that increasing the weight of an item will increase the force needed to move it across a surface. Later this term, we will be investigating the force of gravity.