Merton Bank Primary School

Welcome to Year Five

The Year Five classroom is a warm, fun and welcoming place to be where lots of fast pace, exciting and challenging learning takes place. We aim for all lessons to be interactive, enjoyable, and memorable and the children are encouraged to show independence from the moment they enter the classroom. Year Five pupils are given lots of responsibility and are expected to take ownership of their effort when learning. Class responsibilities, in the form of monitors, are established early on in Year Five – the children love these jobs and fulfil their jobs well. With support from teachers and family at home, the children will work hard on their goals and achieve to their own true potential. Year Five is alive with reading and we take every opportunity to read and thoroughly enjoy our termly texts. Children are supported to grow a love of reading, becoming readers who read for pleasure and purpose. Mental health and well-being are high priority in Year Five so we work hard to support the children to be happy and incorporate lots of humour and class jokes into our time together, wherever we can. We promote positive self-talk and resilience and guide children through any difficulties they face.

Our school day

Doors open 8:45am, registration closes at 8.55am.  Your child must be in school by 8.55am.

The school day ends at 3:15pm

Your child will enter and leave school via the Roper Street Gate entrance.

Safeguarding is high priority at Merton Bank so please understand we may need to check if someone else is picking your child up.  Please always inform the office if someone new is collecting.  Thank you for your understanding with this.

Important things to remember for a successful year ahead:

You may wish to provide a healthy snack for your child to eat at 10:40am playtime. Lunch will be at 12:20pm.

Each child can have their own water bottle on their desk, please provide these with their name on.

PE This term (Spring 1) we have PE every Monday and Wednesday – please ensure that your child attends school on these days in their PE kit.  On these days children must wear the following PE uniform: white polo shirt/ t-shirt, black shorts and trainers/pumps. We expect high standards of PE kits, please contact one of the team if you require any support.

Autumn Term Learning:

Spring Term Learning:

Summer Term Learning:

Take a look at some of the exciting learning in Year 5 during Autumn Term 2023

English -Writing

This term, Year Five have thoroughly enjoyed all of our wonderful Writing challenges! Formal and Informal letters, adventure stories, diary entries (written in the first person), poetry writing and descriptive writing are just some of the wonderful genres and styles we have explored during Autumn term. The children particuarly excelled when writing about Autumn as the description, emotive language and wonderful detail the children presented was just magical! Year Five are confident when using similes, metaphors and personification and enjoy using these features, whenever they can, within all areas of learning!

Science - Our Science this term was out of this world!

Year Five have adored our Earth and Space topic during Science lessons this term! We have been amazed and excited by the facts we have learnt about the planets, Earth, Sun and moon and how they are positioned and move in Space. The children also really enjoyed learning about the different phases of the moon by carving Oreo cookies to represent each different phase. This sweet treat certainly aided learning around a very tricky concept! Well done, Year Five!

History - The Ancient Maya

During Autumn Two term, Year Five have learnt all about the Ancient Maya! We have studied and researched all about the ancient Maya ruins (which still stand today) and what we can learn from them, about the Ancient Maya civilisation. The children particularly enjoyed learning about the ancient Maya writing system (which features detailed hieroglyphs) and writing their own names in this way.

Take a look at some of the exciting learning in Year 5 during Spring Term 2024

PSHE - Crucial Crew Trip

Year Five thoroughly enjoyed a trip to Crucial Crew this Spring term. The children enjoyed eight different workshops, all with an important safety message. The children moved from activity to activity and were greeted by enthusiastic, expert staff and came home with a Carbon Monoxide alarm. The children explored road safety and investigated a road accident scene—spotting all the mistakes and risks that the cyclist had made! They also learnt all the dangers surrounding rivers and canals and how to make an effective phone call to the emergency services! Year 5 also learnt all about the dangers of CO and the importance of a healthy diet and looking after our teeth.

PSHE - How can friends communicate safely?

Year Five explored that there are different types of relationships (e.g. friendships, family relationships, romantic relationships, online relationships) and how they impact their own lives. They also discussed how to recognise if a friendship (online or offline) is making them feel unsafe or uncomfortable; how to manage this and how to ask for support if necessary. Year Five also explored how to respond safely and appropriately to adults they may encounter (in all contexts including online) whom they do not know. Also, how to recognise different types of physical contact; what is acceptable and unacceptable and strategies to respond to unwanted physical contact. We also discussed about seeking and giving permission (consent) in different situations and where to get advice and report concerns if worried about their own or someone else’s personal safety (including online). Year Five discussed ways in which the internet and social media can be used both positively and negatively. The children also considered things that are appropriate to share and things that should not be shared on social media and all the rules surrounding distribution of images.

English - The Malamander

Year Five have been enjoying their class text – The Malamander - during Spring term. As well as reading and enjoying the chapters of the book, the children have answered various questions about its content and enjoyed using highlighters to help them achieve some superb answers by text marking! The mystery of the Malamander has sparked up some amazing writing within the Year Five classroom too! Amazing character descriptions of their very own Malander creatures caused a flurry of imagination, creativity, and intrigue amongst the children as they shared their ideas and sketches amongst themselves. Year Five also enjoyed creating Newspaper articles showcasing the contrasting settings we are shown within the book and ensuring the features of a typical newspaper were apparent throughout! The children can’t wait to find out what happens at the end of this book – this title truly has sparked a genuine ‘reading for pleasure’!

Maths - Fluency fun and fractions!

Year Five continues to tackle Multiplication, Division, Addition and Subtraction problems and challenges during their daily Math’s fluency sessions as well as several Place Value linked tasks. Perhaps the biggest and most challenging topic of this term has been Fractions! The children have been faced with the task of understanding equivalent fractions, ordering, and comparing fractions and being able to add and subtract them. They have also mastered the technique of converting between Mixed numbers and Improper fractions and completing reasoning challenges based upon these too. Year Five have also enjoyed the Area and Perimeter unit of Maths and have used the skills they have mastered, during their Fluency sessions, to help them!

Take a look at some of the exciting learning in Year 5 during Summer Term 2024

English

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

This term, we have been getting stuck into our new book 'Percy Jackson and the Lightening Thief'. It's linked to the Greek Gods, which is something we looked at a little in Y4. So far, Percy is coming to terms with the fact he does in fact have superpowers!
As well as getting stuck into Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief, Mrs Richardson also bought us the next in the Highland Falcon book series which is 'Kidnap on the California Coment'. Mrs Richardson bought it so we can enjoy reading it for pleasure as a class because we loved the Highland Falcon Thief so much!

Maths

Position and Direction and Decimals and Percentages

It's been a busy term, with lots of maths involved! We've been looking at decimals and percentages which links to our fractions units which we look at it Spring. We've noticed how if you remember fractions knowledge, you can use it to help understand decimals and percentages because they all link. How cool is that! We have also been looking and position and direction and using the phrase 'along the corridor and up the stairs' to help remember which axis to look at first. We know if we look along the X axis first, we are along the right lines when it comes to answering questions about coordinates, translations and reflections.

Science

History

Art

Portrait Sketching

In Art this term, we have been looking at sketches from the artist 'Amedeo Modigliani'. We discussed some features of the artist's drawings and decided to focus on the elongated aspect of the faces that he draws. We looked at how to draw faces through a step-by-step guide and attempted to draw self-portraits using the new skills which we had learned.

DT

Computing

Stop Motion

This term, we have been exploring Stop Motion creation. We learned that Stop Motion is a series of 'frames' (images) taken and played closely together to make it look like a video. We explored taking different frames and how these frames need to be taken in the same position and still, so that the video when playback is seamless.
We got to design our own space theme stop motion, create parts of the animation with playdough and then film our stop motions! This was definitely one of our favourite topics in Computing this term.

RE

Geography

PSHE

Cells Experience Day

Although not linked to our PSHE for Summer Term 2, we have explored PSHE through an activity day. The day consisted of learning about the criminal justice system and how the choices we make can impact our future. We heard 1st hand experiences of how individuals and families had been directly impacted by someone else's choices, as well as hearing 1st hand how individuals themselves have experience prison. The day was focused on supporting us to make the right choices, so that we can present anything like this happening to us in the future.

PE

 Invasion Games 

Following on from our previous sport, Hockey, we then went on to exploring Football. Both of these are invasion games, which means we have to understand different attacking and defending skills to invade the opponents space. As well as gaining new skill and knowledge of the different sports, we were lucky enough to explore Football in more detail with Connor, from Everton in the Community. Connor worked with us to also help us build our self-esteem and resilience through playing football and developing our teamwork skills. Thanks Connor!

Music

MFL

Personal information and nouns

 This term, we have been exploring going to the seaside but as well as this, we have been recapping how to say some personal facts/information about ourselves. We've remembered specific phrases from the beginning of the year to help us guess some new Spanish phrases, either through recognising the word as a cognate or thinking about what the topic is to help us have some sensible guesses. We've had to research new words/phrases to translate information before writing similar information about ourselves.

SMSC

Cowley High School Transition Day

 This term, we were lucky enough to experience a transition morning at Cowley High School, one of the local high schools in the area. We got to experience a tour of the school, a taster French session and ask any questions to previous pupils and Y7 to get a better understanding of what high school will be like and prepare for further transition activities next year in Year 6. Our favourite room was in the 6th form college, the animal care room. We got to see a variety of animals and learn more about how Cowley can be a high school and college option.
We also got to meet Cowley's dog, Gatsby. We all agreed he was adorable.
Message from Miss Heaton - 'I was so proud of Year 5, it was a pleasure to take them on this trip and they demonstrated all our Merton Bank values. They were a credit to our school!'