To start off our 2^nd summer term, Year 5 have been immersing ourselves in our new topic on Victorians by using the street child in literacy to inspire a balanced argument about whether they think Jim should try and escape his workhouse or not. We have noted down the positives and negatives and created a conscience alley to help him make up his mind. 

Also, we have had coaches visit from the Three Horseshoe Bowls club, who have come in to teach us how to play Bowls. On Wednesdays, we have been going out and taking part in a number of activities to improve before visiting the green in a couple of weeks. 

Year 5 had a brilliant day at the Rugby Festival that was held at the rugby club. They spent the morning completing a number of different games which helped to build up their skills. These activities were run by sports leaders from local secondary schools. In the afternoon, we got the opportunity to play games against our own school before taking part in a fun tournament against other schools. 

In science, we have started our life cycle topic. This week we found out about the different parts of the plant and how pollination happens. We found it interesting that plants have both female and male parts. We then went outside and looked at the plants growing in the allotment and found the parts of the plants we had learnt about. 

Year 5 have been fully engaged in  The Highwayman poem. We had a great lesson completing research about Highwaymen. We even found out that the famous Highwayman, Dick Turpin, escaped from the local Justices of the Peace through a secret passage at the Roebuck Inn in Stevenage. We have enjoyed getting outside for our experience days and writing similes and metaphors using nature in the school grounds. As we have been re-creating our own poems, we have been able to make good use of these.  

In Science, we have been answering the learning question 'How does the position of the Sun in the sky change?' We set up our own experiment to track the sun throughout the day and recorded the shadow of a stick to help us understand what is happening. 

In Science, Year 5 used their knowledge of materials and their properties to try and sort a number of different items. We used magnets, sieves and tweezers to remove some of the items. We also discussed the use of dissolving to help to separate the salt that was in the mixture. 

As part of National Story telling week, we enjoyed writing our own stories based on the book The Journey. It was great fun sharing these with year 2.   

In Literacy, we have started a new unit based on non-chronological reports. We started off by looking at the layout and structure of the texts. Then, we enjoyed watching a documentary about emperor penguins. We found out lots of fascinating facts, and we are now using these to write our non-chronological reports.

Since coming back from our break, Year 5 have been taking part in boxing sessions led by a boxing coach. We have been practising our skipping skills and been working hard on the pads to improve our skills.

In science, we have been looking at the properties of materials. We took on the role of Roebuck surveyors and checked the materials and buildings of areas around the school. We made note of why different materials which would have been chosen to do different jobs. We then assessed whether the materials had been weathered and if they were still fit for the purpose.

This week we visited West Stow, an Anglo Saxon museum, to investigate how people in this era would have lived. 

We got to handle and interrogate different objects that were found at the site and replicas of tools and equipment that they used. The cow jaw bone drew a lot of attention with some at first thinking it could have been a person. We then looked around the museum and looked at things such as swords, shields and clothes (we even got to try some of them on!) 

After lunch we visited the village. We went round in groups looking at how they were built and what materials were used. We found out that sometimes up to 10 people would live in a house with only one room and one fire. At the end of the day we all gathered in the 'Great Hall' and our group leader gave us some extra background information on the site and we got an opportunity to ask her questions about what we had experienced. 

We had a great day out and it was fun to actually see and experience how the Anglo-Saxons lived.