Last week, each Year 5 class entered a team to the HFL Hertfordshire Year 5 Maths tournament. This is an annual event designed to test even the best mathematicians across schools in Hertfordshire. There were four rounds including a memory round, estimation and some very, very difficult general Maths questions!

All three teams did very well and scored higher than the average, which is a testament to how hard they worked in their teams. I am also delighted to say how Spruce team (Kyan, Ploy, Skye and Lucas) even managed to qualify for the finals, which will occur later in the month. Well done and Good luck!!

Last Monday, Year 5 were lucky enough to have a Nurse come in and teach us all about some VERY important life skills. We learnt about how we could safely help someone who was unconscious or even had stopped breathing. The children were very sensible in learning what to do in various different situations, how to use CPR, put people in the recovery position and also how to use a defibrillatord. It was mentioned in The Comet newspaper at the link : https://www.thecomet.net/news/23350811.stevenage-schoolchildren-learn-cpr-help-dipps-charity/ .

Last week, Year 5 celebrated their learning from this term’s topic of ‘Shooting for the Stars’ by taking part in the very exciting Borrow the Moon Project!

We began our day by learning the history behind the race to land on the moon. We learnt about the key events, including the race between the USSR and the USA, which eventually led to astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin being the first people to set foot on the moon.

Our next task was to discover how the moon orbits around the Earth and rotates on its axis. We also learnt about the phases of the moon and how the perceived shape of the moon changes throughout the month due to the shadow cast by Earth onto the moon.

In the afternoon, we became meteor scientists as we observed REAL meteorites and sorted them according to their properties. We were then able to identify what type of meteorites they were, some of them were even magnetic. We felt so lucky to be able to hold something from space in the palm of our hands!

At the end of the day, we had an amazing opportunity to see lunar samples, these are rocks that have been brought to Earth from the moon! We all had a fantastic day and learnt so much too!

We have started our Modroc planets project in Year 5 this week. We had to plan our planet - thinking of the textures on the surfaces and how we would replicate this with our model. I love how different they are all going to look. Then they had to dampen the Modroc and layer a balloon that most were able to blow up. 

Sorry if any of the children came home with some of the modrock on themselves. I assure you we took every measure possible to avoid this! It is lots of fun and a satisfying Art skill to learn.

I know you look forward to seeing the finishes designs!

This week saw the police heading over to Fairlands Primary School.  Fear not, they were not here to arrest anyone!  Over the next 6 weeks, year 5 are taking part in a police awareness course run by the Hertfordshire Police Force.  Today the children learned how a police officer takes notes at the scene of a crime.  They were also given a high vis police vest to wear during the lesson.  They certainly looked the part.

We have also continued to delve into the beautiful Midnight Fair book.  This week we have been planning a recount of events from the perspective of one of the animals and the children have come up with some wonderful ideas and expressions.  We have been concentrating on starting our sentences with fronted adverbial and including an expanded noun phrase.  See if your child can give you some examples!

Over the next few weeks, in our English lessons, we will be focussing on the book The Midnight Fair. Today, we took inspiration from the artwork in the book to create collages, using a range of materials and they turned out beautifully!

Hello Year 5 !!

What a sight this morning to wake up to! I know you are all devastated that you are unable to come to school today, but do not worry, we have tried to cheer you up by setting some learning on Google Classroom!!

Please logon when you get a chance, (inbetween the snow fun obviously) to see the lessons we have set. Please enjoy the snow today and keep safe!

See you soon,

Year 5

In Spruce Class, we turned our classroom into a WW1 trench. We even opened all the windows and had the sounds of what it would have been like for those fighting in the trenches. We will use this inspiration to help us create some amazing descriptive writing.

This afternoon in science, we continued our learning about different Forces, by looking in particular at water resistance. After a brief conversation about what it is, where we can see it in everyday life and why it might be useful, we completed a short experiment to test it!

Groups were chosen and tasked with setting up and completing the experient. It was fantastic to see how independent all groups were in collecting results, ensuring a fair test was completed and like with every experiment.. a large amount of problem solving! 

They ended up shaping Salt-dough into different shapes to test how long it took for them to sink. The longer it took to hit the bottom, meant there was more water resistance present. Next lesson, we will spend further time understanding and conclusion our results.

In Poplar Class this week, we have been doing our own research in groups to find out about scientists who invented new materials. The children worked on iPads to use search engines to find their information and presented in poster form in their groups. We researched the following scientists: Ruth Benerito, Spencer Silver, Leo Baekland, Harry Brearly and John McAdam.