The Grove Primary School

Year 5 have been learning about distant places: from the extremes of our Solar System in Space, to the ancient Inca civilisation of Peru, in South America. It has led to some fascinating learning about seasons, time zones, phases of the moon and the planets of our solar system – what an amazing astrological time to be looking up at the skies!

In our writing, we have been working on our fundamental sentence skills to ensure that our sentences are well-formed, accurate and fluent. This has required a personal focus from each child on their current writing target and has been consolidated through practice in their writing, including an explanation of the seasons in Science, and their ‘Alien Invasion’ newspaper report in English.

In our Art lessons, we have focused on the abstract work of artist, Peter Thorpe, and have used pastels and paint to create our own interpretations of the space landscape pictures. You may have seen these on display at our recent afternoon space celebration!

Early in the term, we enjoyed a space-themed day, which began with an educational visit from a representative from Bath Astronomers. He was able to provide us with an exciting planetarium experience, where we were immersed into the depths of space, and beyond! We also used Playdough to cut and shape spheres, following precise scientific instructions about size and order, to represent each of the planets of our Solar System.

Our learning in Geography has been centred around the Southern Hemisphere, with a particular focus on South America. This has provided us with the opportunity to find out about the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn, along with the geographical features and topography of Peru. Learning about the Incas has been especially interesting as their society and beliefs are so very different to what we practice today.

Another exciting thing this term has been our launch of Times Tables Rock Stars! The children in Year 5 have been pioneers of this brilliant maths programme and have shown such enthusiasm towards polishing their multiplication and division skills. There has been some healthy competition, not only between classes, but also between teachers and students!

It’s been a productive and enjoyable term and the children have continued to work hard and make pleasing progress! Super work, Year 5!