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Year 5 Blog

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  • Latest news in Year 5.

    Published 22/03/25, by Andy Mari

    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. 

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  • Latest news in Year 5

    Published 08/03/25, by Andy Mari

    It has been a very busy week in Year 5. We have been learning two songs with students from the University of Hertfordshire. Sycamore have learnt a song based on the Amazon rainforest and Juniper learnt one about the Grand Canyon. We are looking forward to performing these to the rest of Key Stage 2 on Friday.

    In Science, we have continued to learning about space. This week we found out how the planets move in our solar system. We went outside to map out the orbits of each planet. This helped us to see how each planets orbit time would differ. 

    We were lucky enough to get a visit from the ducklings that have been in the Nursery for the last two weeks. 

    World Book Day was packed with different activities. We enjoyed trying to find out who was behind each book in the 'Masked Reader' quiz. Also, we had some great conversations about our favourite books and used this to create our own reading river. 

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  • Latest news in Year 5.

    Published 17/02/25, by Andy Mari

    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.

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  • Latest news in Year 5

    Published 03/02/25, by Andy Mari

    Over the last 2 weeks, Year 5 have been investigating materials and their properties in science. We looked at the question 'are all liquids runny?' 

    We got a number of different liquids and ran them down pieces of cardboard and used our observational skills to decide which were the most and least viscous of them. 

    We got a bit messy but managed to do a great job and come up with a class ranking. In literacy, we have been doing some performance poetry. Looking at reading a poem fluently and to a beat, adding in some actions and adding some flair to the performance. We finished the week by putting the performance together to make our own video. 

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  • Surveyors on site at Roebuck!

    Published 19/01/25, by Andy Mari

    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.

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  • Latest news in Year 5

    Published 16/11/24, by Andy Mari

    Last week, we enjoyed a fantastic assembly by the author and illustrator MP Robertson. We then had a workshop with him and were taught how to draw a dragon. The results were amazing!

    As part of our Mini Police session this week, Year 5 have impressed everyone with their phonetic alphabet knowledge. Most children could say their name using the language that  the police use and some could recall the whole alphabet. We also investigated different types of bullying. 

    As part of Remembrance Day, we learnt about famous soldiers from World War I and II and found out facts about them. We then used these facts to create a memorial fact file poppy. 

    In science, we have planned and carried out an experiment to find out how the shape of a plasticine ball affected how quickly it fell through water.  We found out that if it had a bigger surface area there was more water resistance acting on it and therefore it fell slower although some of our results were inconsistent.  

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  • West Stow visit in Year 5

    Published 31/10/24, by Andy Mari

    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.

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  • Latest news in Year 5.

    Published 13/10/24, by Andy Mari

    Year 5 are enjoying their unit based on the book Cosmic. We started the unit with an experience day. During this lesson, we went out into the car park and used superlatives to try and sell the cars! We had great fun trying to convince other members of the class that our car was the best. 

    In Science, we have been busy finding out more about forces. We have been looking at the difference between mass and weight. We then carried out our own experiment where we used scales and newton meters to gather evidence and compare the measurements, to see if there was a link. We also had a fun lesson with bubbles. We were looking at what makes something move and the forces that act upon the object.

    In art, we are focusing on portraits. We used a printed image of ourselves and used it to draw a continuous line drawing portrait. After we did this, we used tracing paper and created a poem that followed the outline of our portraits. 

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  • Welcome to Year 5!

    Published 15/09/24, by Andy Mari

    Year 5 have made a great start to the year. We are really enjoying our summer reading book Kick and we are now finding out more about child labour and making clothes ethically. This week we have started writing a persuasive letter to a famous footballer, John Stones, asking him to make certain his sponsored kit is manufactured in a Child Labour Free Zone. 

    In science, we have started our unit on forces by looking at how different forces may act on objects. We carried out a number of experiments and found some interesting results. One of our favourites was a bottle filled with rice. We inserted a pencil into the bottle and had to push it in and out of the rice continually. Eventually, we were able to hold the bottle with just the pencil. We think this happened because the little pockets of air between the rice started to reduce as the pencil was pushed in and out. As the grains of rice got pushed closer together, there was a lot less air between them. The grains were also rubbing against each other and friction allowed the pencil to get ‘stuck’ in the rice. 

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  • Victorians in Year 5

    Published 15/06/24, by Andy Mari

    Year 5 dived straight into their history topic this half-term with a trip to the British School Museum in Hitchin. We began our day learning about the great hall and how many children would have been taught by just one teacher, 800 children to only 1 teacher in the early days. We then explored the old headmaster's house and spent time in each room discussing how life would have been different in those times for the people living there – including the lack of electricity, heating and running water! We looked at the creative ways they kept the bed warm, washed and dried their laundry and discussed what the pots were used for under the bed! We discussed the difference in the lives of the poor and rich and how life would have differed for boys and girls. Later we were transported back in time and took part in a Victorian style lesson learning the 3 R’s (reading, writing & arithmetic). The children completed their work using slate and pencil and then tried out the ink - dipping their pens in the pot on the table.  Some of our left-handed children even tried writing with their right hand as they were told, 'The right hand is the right hand to write with!'. To make the experience as authentic as possible, a child was selected to wear the dunces caps and we even had one caning (well, a very good actress that made it seem believable anyway!). We finished our day with a PE lesson – drills in the yard – and then played with Victorian toys. All in all a fantastic day filled with memorable experiences and crammed full of learning.

     

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  • Latest news in Year 5

    Published 11/05/24, by Andy Mari

    Year 5 have had new topics coming in from all angles! (You'll see the pun later) 

    In literacy, we have started our new literacy topic based on the book kick where we will be writing a letter to a professional sportsperson to try and persuade them to wear clothes with a label that show their clothes come from child-labour free zones. We have completed our research and will begin starting our writing process. 

    In maths our new topic, you guessed it, is angles! 

    We have been looking at the different types of angles and have been practising using a protractor to measure the angles accurately.

    Take a look at our books and us practising using our protractors. 

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  • Designers in Year 5

    Published 27/04/24, by Andy Mari

    Since returning from Easter, Year 5 have continued our maths topics, focusing on decimals. We have been looking at rounding, adding and subtracting decimals of up to 3 digits. Next week we will be starting our new topic by looking at percentages. 

    We also started a new narrative in literacy based on the Michael Morpurgo book 'I believe in unicorns'. We have enjoyed our sentence stacking lessons based on the book and are going to be writing a similar story based on a special place of our own. 

    In Year 5 we have some talented artists! We have been looking at architecture as part of our new topic in art and have been sketching some observational drawings of houses. Take a look at some of our wonderful work!

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