Year 5

My name is Mrs Campion and I am the year 5 teacher. I really enjoy linking our lessons to our termly topic; hopefully, the children will enjoy this too.

SPAG

The teaching of spelling, grammar and punctuation (SPAG) forms an important element of the teaching of reading and writing in primary school. The SPaG element this term will involve using coordinate and subordinate conjunctions and their clauses, dialogue and parenthesis. We will explore how these can engage the reader and vary our sentence structure.

It is also of great importance that the children are able to identify word classes within sentences.

Literacy

This term, the children will be reading Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone and developing key comprehension skills, including prediction, inference, summarising and explanation. They will write their own narratives, first from Ron’s perspective during the troll incident and later from Hermione’s viewpoint in the wizard’s chess challenge. Toward the end of the term, the focus will shift to understanding the features of procedural texts, where the children will write clear potion‑making instructions using adverbs, imperative verbs and their SPaG targets.

Topic

This term’s topic is science‑based and inspired by the world of Harry Potter, with themes of “alchemy” and “herbology”. The children will investigate a variety of everyday materials, exploring their properties, how they can change, and how different mixtures can be separated through practical, hands‑on experiments. They will also learn to identify reversible and irreversible changes, using evidence from their tests to understand why certain materials are suited to particular purposes. Alongside this, the children will study how plants grow, reproduce and survive by examining their life cycles, key parts and the conditions they need to thrive.

Maths

Dame Dorothy Primary School is proud of its strong mathematical standards, and each morning begins with a focused mental maths session. It’s important that children arrive promptly at 8:45am so they can take part in this valuable fifteen‑minute practice, which reinforces key number facts and times tables. All pupils have a TT Rockstars login and are expected to complete ten minutes of practice three times a week.

This term, the children will begin by adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators before moving on to written methods for multiplication and division, including dividing with remainders. We will end the term by developing their understanding of decimals and percentages.

Spellings

Spellings will be sent home every Monday, with a test each Friday afternoon. We will be working on the following throughout the year:

homophones
synonyms/antonyms
root words, prefixes and suffixes.
application of spelling rules
Year 5/6 curriculum spelling list of high frequency words

ICT

This term in Year 5 will be learning how to use iMovie to create and edit their own videos, including working with green screen effects, adding soundtracks and voice‑overs, and linking scenes together to produce polished, professional‑looking projects.

Alongside this practical work, the children will continue to build their understanding of online safety. They will learn how to judge whether a website is trustworthy by looking at features such as secure addresses (https), reliable sources, and appropriate content. We will also explore how search engines work and how to use them effectively and responsibly.

Music

Y5 have bi-weekly music lessons. They are taught a range of musical terms and are expected to use them when talking about musical examples that they listen to. They learn to play the ukulele and learn to accompany singing as well improvise melodies. They continue to develop their compositional skills by composing music using the first five notes of a scale. In lessons they will begin to notate their compositions using notes from major and minor scales. They take part in weekly singing sessions and introduced to singing in harmony.

PE lessons are on a Tuesday afternoon. Please make sure your child can remove any earrings they may be wearing otherwise they will not be able to take part which is a national curriculum requirement. We will be taking part in tennis this term with expert teaching from our PE coaches. Please note, it is essential that your children have suitable footwear for PE sessions. Trainers must be worn. The children need to have water bottles in school to keep hydrated during their PE lessons.

This term, we have tennis and then dance.

A few reminders

This term in Year 5, children will receive weekly spellings every Monday, which should be practised at home in preparation for the spelling test on Friday. Throughout the week, they will also work on spelling rules and vocabulary in class to support their learning. Each weekday, children will bring home a short 5–10 minute mental maths task to be completed for the following day. They also have a TT Rockstars account and should be using it at least three times a week for a minimum of ten minutes each session. As our maths focus this term is multiplication and division, strong multiplication fluency is essential for your child’s progress.

Children are expected to read at home regularly, and reading diaries will be checked every Monday. We ask that children read at least four times per week. Reading at home is crucial in Year 5, as it builds fluency, strengthens decoding skills, and develops a natural understanding of sentence structure and vocabulary. It also boosts confidence, deepens comprehension, and supports learning across the curriculum.

Effective communication between home and school is vital, and working together ensures the very best outcomes for the children.

Please also ensure your child brings their own water bottle to school each day.

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