Friday 6th February 

Maths this week has been all about decimals. The children have been ordering decimals and rounding decimals to the nearest tenth, hundredth and thousandth. They also solved a range of problems involving decimal numbers.

In English, we have moved onto autobiographies. There’s no one better than Sir David Attenborough to focus on, when learning the features of autobiographies. Whilst learning about his fascinating life, the children learnt about tense. This included, simple past, simple present, past perfect and present perfect tenses.

The children have enjoyed looking at different types of graffiti and street art. We looked at the main locations where street art exists and why it exists there. We then used images of buildings to practise our own street art. We did this using parts of nature (like tree) as part of our pictures.

Kestrels class have enjoyed their first week of swimming! They’ve got 1 more week of swimming to go.

 

Friday 30th January

This week in English, we have been writing our own newspaper reports about the four women from Hidden Figures and their contribution to NASA and the moon landing. The children wrote their orientations first, followed by the body and conclusion. They had to include both direct and reported speech, fronted adverbials and relative clauses.

In maths we have been converting units of length. Converting mm to cm, cm to m and m to km. We even looked at converting metric to imperial measurements. We then looked at solving word problems involving length.

The artwork in project this week has been fantastic fun! We have been looking at artist Keith Haring and we were inspired to do artwork similar to his. The highlight was designing Keith Haring styled art onto cloth bags!

 

Friday 16^th January 2026

RE this week was amazing! On Tuesday, we spent the day visiting different places of worship. First, we visited the Hare Krishna temple in Watford. We sat and listened to live music, stories and even got to pat some cows! Then, we visited the Mosque, where we learnt so much but the Islamic faith. Finally, we went to the Jewish Synagogue. We looked at the torah, a range of Jewish artefacts and even tried blowing on a horn. All 3 places of worship were extremely accommodating and the children learnt so much.  

In maths, our focus this week was division. We used partitioning and a range of other methods to solve division questions. This proved to be much easier for those with a solid understanding of their multiplication facts. We focused on using bus top method to divide with remainders.

In English, we continued with our book ‘Hidden Figures’ and used reading VIPERS skills to answers a range of comprehension questions. We also looked at the characters and the adversities they had to overcome in order to succeed. We learnt about role models and what traits a good role model should have.

 

Friday 9^th January  2026

It’s been a great start to the New Year. We’ve braved the cold this week and even managed to go out for PE.

In maths, we have been learning about angles. We revised acute, obtuse and right angles before we moved onto measuring and drawing angles.

We started a new book in English. It’s called Hidden Figures and it’s about the amazing feats of 4 extraordinary women that worked for NASA. We learned about segregation and how difficult it was being a black woman in the 1960s.

In project, we started our new unit called Urban Pioneers. We learnt about street art and graffiti. We had fun trying to write out name in graffiti too!

Our indoor PE this half-term is gymnastics-Taking Flight, which focuses on jumping. We looked at a 2 footed vertical jump. Our outdoor PE topic is Hockey. We looked at how to correctly hold a hockey stick, how to pass and how to dribble.

 

 

Friday 19^th December

In English, the children completed their Dreamgiver stories. These were edited and improved, before they were published in their best handwriting.

In maths, we focused on subtraction. We revised estimating to check answers and looked at a range of methods for subtracting. The children used formal written column subtraction and solved word problems using subtraction.

We did a range of Christmas themed activities this week, which the children thoroughly enjoyed. The highlight of the week was certainly performing our Christmas carols!

 

Thursday 27th November

The children worked extremely hard this week with their checkpoints! We were most impressed with the effort shown and the consideration of their classmates.

Although it was cold, we still managed to get our 2 PE lessons in. The children are doing a fantastic job of learning a Greek dance and posing as Greek soldiers. We worked on our passing, running and tagging for rugby. Nothing warms you up more than running around with a rugby ball.

In science this week, we conducted a fair test to test the strength of different types of paper. We did this by seeing how many stones or marbles it could hold before breaking.

In project, the children built their cams and made changes to solve any problems they encountered. They attached their cams and created their creature that will go on top.

 

Friday 14th November 

Maths has been all about multiplication. We revised multi-digit with a single digit multiplication, multiplication strategies and word problems involving multiplication and division. We investigated factors by creating factor bugs and factor trees.

In English, we finished reading Hamlet and the children wrote fantastic soliloquy as Claudius. We also looked at personal and impersonal writing. We discussed the motives each character and the choices they made.

In Science, we investigated heat insulators. We tested these by recording the temperature of porridge in a range of containers that we had built insulation for. The containers we placed out into the cold.

There has been lots of designing and building in project this week! The children designed and built a working cam that moved a follower up and down. They tried their prototypes using a range of different cams. Then they built their cams out of clay.

 

Friday 7^th November

This week we started our new unit on Shakespeare. We started the week learning and performing scenes from Macbeth and have now moved onto learning about Hamlet. We are focusing on Hamlet, A Shakespeare Story by Andrew Mathews. We have been learning about the main characters, their motivations for their choices and we have been making inferences of these choices.

Maths has been all about mass. We have been converting grams and kilograms. We also looked at comparing imperial to metric units. The children solved word problems based around mass and used digital scales to estimate and weigh a range of objects.

Our new Science unit is called Material Consultants. We looked at various objects and grouped them according to a range of traits. Were they magnetic? Were they flexible? Were they opaque or translucent?

PE this term focuses on Greek inspired dance and  tag rugby. We were introduced to what Rugby and Greek dancing looks like before we moved like Greek Gods and did catching and passing for rugby.

 

 

Friday 24th October  

In English, we have been identifying the features of newspaper reports. As reporters, we came up with interview questions and wrote them as direct speech and as reported speech. The children then wrote a newspaper article about the events from The Barnabus Project story.

Maths this week has been all about decimals. The children have been ordering decimals and rounding decimals to the nearest tenth, hundredth and thousandth. They also solved a range of problems involving decimal numbers. It was also fantastic having parents in for our maths lesson this on Wednesday!

Science was all about the heart and blood. We learnt about the function of blood and the different types of blood. We also did a heart rate experiment, where we measured our heart rate whilst resting and then compared it to our heart rate after rigorous running. But the most fun part of the lesson was making hearts out of clay!

In RE we learnt about the freedom of religion. Meaning that in the UK, religious freedom is the right to choose what you believe in and which religion you follow or even the right to not follow any religion, to change your religious beliefs and to follow your religion.

 

 

Friday 17^th October 2025

Maths this week has been looking at implementing a range of mental and written  strategies for addition. We used number lines and rounding to help add and check answers. We then moved onto large multi-digit addition.

In English this week, we finished writing our Barnabus Project sequels. We  then published them. These will be used as our first writing assessment. It was fantastic having parents in for our English lesson on Wednesday, where we looked at features of newspaper reports.

In project, we finished, tested and reviewed our board games, that were based on WW1.

In RE, we looked at the importance or artefacts in a number of different religions. We looked at how artefacts are used in a range of religions.

In science, we simulated the digestive system by mashing up different foods and feeding them through stockings. Gross! We wrote a detailed description of how the digestive system works and how nutrients and water are transported.

 

Friday 10^th October 2025

This week year 5 did their assembly. It was the first time that we did a whole year assembly, rather than 2 separate class assemblies. The children had a great time and we hope you enjoyed it.

This week in English, we have been writing sequels to the Barnabus Project. The children used their own plan, character design and setting design they created previously and wrote their own story set after the Barnabus project. They had to include, character and setting descriptions, dialogue, paragraphs and relative clauses.

Maths has been all about position, coordinates and translation. We translated a range of polygons and created a number of shapes by plotting points on a grid. The children learnt that the X coordinate goes before Y and we remember this because of their order in the alphabet.

In PE, we used the skills that we’ve learnt recently to play a number of dodgeball matches. We also created some fantastic counter tension balances for gymnastics.

 

Friday 3^rd October 2025

In English, we have continued with our story; The Barnabus Project. We wrote detailed character descriptions about Barnabus and a detailed setting description. The children had to include expanded noun phrases and figurative language.

Maths has been all about fractions. We compared factions, ordered them created equivalent fractions.

In RE we learnt about the significance of prayers in a number of different religions. We also discussed how prayers are done, where they are done and why.

In project we learned about Walter Tull and his contribution to the war. Walter Tull was one of the first Black professional footballers in the UK. He played for Tottenham Hotspur and Northampton Town in the early 1900s, a time when racism was widespread and opportunities for Black athletes were extremely limited. HE was also the first ever black army officer!

 

Friday 26th September 2025

In English, we have started our narrative writing unit on the fantastically illustrated book: The Barnabus Project. After reading the story, we did a deep dive into the main character; Barnabus. We inferred information about his personalty from things that he does. We also did reading comprehension based on the Barnabus Project.

In maths this week, we started our streamed maths classes. Maths has focused on a range of multiplication techniques. We multiplied by 10s, 100s and 1000s. We multiplied large numbers by 5 but to do this we multiplied by 10 and then halved our answer.

In project, we learnt about the important role that women played during WW1. We also looked at differences between men and women's roles to compared to during WW1.

Spanish was quite tricky this week, learning masculine and feminine adjectives, which is quite different to how we describe nouns. Friday's Spanish day was fantastic fun! It was great seeing all the children in their Spanish colours and we did a range of fun Spanish activities. Their Spanish post cards turned out great!

 

 

Friday 12th September 2025

It’s been a great 1^st full week back. Everyone has settled into year 5 extremely well and it has been a pleasure getting to know the children.

In maths, we have been looking at place value. This has included, reading and writing large numbers, ordering numbers and finding missing numbers. Next week, we look at counting in 10s, 100s and 1000s.

In English, we have been using Little Red Riding Hood to look at sentence structure and we have also used it for descriptive writing. The children had to describe the woods, as well as describe the wolf. Then, they wrote a diary as Little Red Riding Hood.

Fallen Fields is the name of our project unit and it is all about World War 1. This week we about the advancements in technology that was used and created for the war. This focuesed on weapons, communication and transport. 

Science is all about the human body and the changes humans go through as they age. We had fun trying to guess baby pictures of staff members.

Music focuses on a song that we’re sure you know… Bon Jovi’s Livin’ On A Prayer. This week we listened to the song and tried to work out what instruments were being used and even how the hair styles looked in the glam-rock era.