Welcome to Year 5 – Hawthorne

Miss Mason

Learning Update

Our Year 5 class have had a busy and engaging term, particularly in Literacy. We have been reading Kaspar: Prince of Cats by Michael Morpurgo, a story about a young bellboy named Johnny Trott who befriends a mysterious cat called Kaspar at a grand hotel, only to find their lives changed by the tragic events of the Titanic. The children have explored the story in depth by using emotion graphs to track how Johnny’s feelings change throughout the narrative. In their writing, they have been developing their grammar skills by using commas to give reasons, as well as the conjunction “when” to create multi-clause sentences. They have also been learning to use the perfect form (a verb tense that shows an action has been completed, often using words like “has,” “have,” or “had”) to add clarity to their writing. As part of this, pupils wrote thoughtful letters in role, imagining themselves as Johnny writing to the mother he has never met, and as Lizziebeth writing to thank Johnny for helping to care for Kaspar.

In Maths, Year 5 have been focusing on statistics, developing their skills in presenting and interpreting data. This has included plotting graphs using information from tables and interpreting these tables to answer a range of questions. They have also explored two-way tables, which organise data into rows and columns to show how two different categories are related. Using these, the children have been challenged to apply two-step methods to work out missing values, using the information given to them to solve problems logically and accurately. They have also been learning about perimeter and area, including how to calculate these for compound shapes, which are shapes made by combining two or more simple shapes such as rectangles. The children used their knowledge of addition to find the total perimeter by adding all the outer sides, and multiplication to calculate the area by breaking the compound shapes into smaller sections, helping them to solve problems step by step with increasing confidence and accuracy.

In History, Year 5 have begun their new topic, Groundbreaking Greeks. This project teaches the children about developments and changes across six periods of ancient Greek history, with a particular focus on the city-state of Athens during the Classical age and the lasting legacy of ancient Greece. As part of their learning, the children created a chronological timeline, starting with the Early Civilisation period (around 3000 BC) and ending with the Hellenistic period (around 30 BC). They also explored key facts about each period, helping them to understand what life was like for people at different times and making connections to aspects of their own lives today. In addition, the children used artefact sheets to order items chronologically and used computers to research and find missing information about each one. They examined the materials the artefacts were made from, the time period they came from, their uses, and included a description or picture of each item. Their challenge was to use this evidence to answer the question: “What do these artefacts begin to tell you about life in the different periods of ancient Greece?” Using this knowledge, they then chose their favourite artefact and created a detailed fact file about it.

In Science, Year 5 have started their new topic on Properties and Changes in Materials. This project teaches the children about the wider properties of materials and their uses. They learn about mixtures and how they can be separated using processes such as sieving, filtration and evaporation. They also study reversible and irreversible changes, using common indicators to help identify when a change cannot be undone. To begin the topic, the children created their own glossaries of key vocabulary, including words such as hard, stretchy, absorbent, electrically conductive and magnetic. They then applied this knowledge by carrying out a small experiment using a range of everyday materials to test and identify which properties each one had.

In the following weeks:

• Literacy- Write a newspaper 

• Maths- Shape (measuring angles)

• Science- testing thermal conductivity, thermal insulators 

• Art- Create an installation (Nature Art)

Summer Term 2025

Links to Summer Term learning are in the process of being uploaded.