2026 Begins!
After a well-earned rest, Year 5 have returned with a fantastic attitude to learning. Children have been focussed, engaged and have asked lots of questions about our new learning in different subjects. Below is a snapshot of our current learning journey. This way, you can chat to your child about their learning in school (and maybe continue this learning at home, too).
Writing
For the first three weeks, the children will be learning all about the features of a persuasive letter, ready to write their own. Our letters will be inspired by our class novel – Viking Boy (by Tony Bradman). Gunnar has sadly lost his father, who was unfairly taken from him by the evil Skuli. Gunnar needs to plea to the gods for his father to return, but will his (our) letters be successful?
Reading
We’ve been using the first chapter of our class novel as our focus text this week. The children have used retrieval and inference skills so far. These have helped us learn more about the characters and the parts they may play later on in the story.
Help at home: Please continue reading regularly at home. The children have regular opportunities to read aloud in class, so reading at home will only boost confidence further!
Maths
The children are currently learning short multiplication. So far, we’ve looked at different strategies to help calculate tricky multiplications: partitioning and column multiplication. Here is an example of partitioning:
17 x 3
10 x 3 = 30
7 x 3 = 21
30 + 21 = 51
Help at home: Please keep practising times tables regularly at home. This learning can be really slowed children if children can’t recall their times tables facts quickly. Times Table Rockstars is a great platform for some quick, effective practice.
Topic
This half-term, we’re comparing two periods of history that happened at the same time, but in different parts of the world.
The Vikings (their impact on the UK) and the Ancient Islamic Civilisation
So far, we’ve looked at who the Vikings were. Here’s some points from class research:
Viking was an old Norse word, meaning pirate raid – Emily M
The Vikings were farmers, explorers and fierce warriors – Elara
They originated from Scandinavia, which is made up of Norway, Denmark and Sweden. – Kiara
Science
This half term, we’re studying chemistry (properties of materials). Today, the children tested a variety of materials to see if they were electrical conductors or electrical insulators. The results were surprising to say the least!
Sculpting with Soap!
To conclude our art topic this half-term, Year 5 have been creating sculptures made from bars of soap. The children began by sketching a few real sculptures, made by our key artists (Henry Moore, Barbara Hepworth and Thomas Price). Then, the children used inspiration from each sketch to make a new sculpture of their own.
The children had a range of mediums to use: a spoon; a pencil, a paperclip; other piercing tools; and a wet paper towel. Everyone listened very carefully when the process was modelled by their teacher and followed each step well. Pupils really enjoyed this hands on task, and have gone on to make multiple soap sculptures each! Here are some images of the children carefully carving:
Help at home:
Some Year 5 children have already explored this activity at home with other family members. Maybe this is something you could do, too? Here’s a list of equipment you’ll need:
- soap
- pencil
- wet paper towel
- dry towel
- spoon
Topic Review
Today, Year 5 welcomed parents into our classroom to take part in a topic review. This half term, we have been learning all about art and sculpture, focussing on three key artists (Thomas Price, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth). The children discussed similarities and differences between the artists and their work:
Barbara Hepworth and William Moore are similar because they grew up going to the same art college and took ideas from each other.
Barbara introduced negative space in her sculptures and Henry adopted this idea. They are both very abstract.
Thomas Price is different because his work is very figurative as it’s based on real life and the human figure.
Then, the children had a go at sketching some work by our artists, looking for inspiration across different sculptures. Using this inspiration, we had a go at creating a mini sculpture of our own! The children worked carefully and you could really see their own ideas shining through, with little snippets of inspiration from our artists. Here are some of the results!
Help at home:
Next week, we will be sculpting using bars of soap! Please bring in some soap for this – we are hoping to have more than one go if possible.
Topic – Art and Sculpture
This half-term, Year 5 are learning all about sculpture. Since our trip to the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, the children have been reflecting on the sculptures and the artists behind the creations. We are focussing on three key sculptors: Thomas J Price, Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth. These artists show many similarities and differences within their sculptures.
‘Henry Moore and Barbara Hepworth are abstract artists and Thomas Price is more figurative.’ – Elara
‘ Figurative means making a reference to people and real life.’ – Lottie
‘Abstract is all shapes and things that might not make sense.’ – Kiara
‘All three artists are modern artists because they don’t make references to Ancient Greek or Roman styles.’ – Oliver
Over the next few weeks, the children will be tasked with creating their own sculptures, taking inspiration from the work they’ve seen so far. The children know the difference between being inspired by someone’s work, and just copying it. For example, Henry Moore was inspired by Barbara’s concept of adding negative space, so he adopted the idea into his own creations.
Help at home:
Talk about the three artists with your child. Which inspires them the most and why? What is it about their sculptures that you like? Which parts might you transfer into your own sculpture?
Living and learning: I know how to STOP bullying.
It’s anti-bullying week this week and the children have spent the day refreshing our minds on everything around bullying and how to prevent it. To begin, Year 5 discussed the definition of bullying in our school and the different roles that might come an incidence of bullying. At St James, we use STOP as an acronym to remember our anti-bullying policy. This stands for:
Several Times on Purpose
If children were to experience bullying, they should:
Start Telling Other People
From here, we discussed that it’s not only a victim of bullying that should follow this code – it’s anyone and everyone involved. Whether you are a victim, defender or simply a bystander, it’s everyone’s job to help prevent bullying.
The children then looked at some scenarios of made up school situations and had to discuss whether these were bullying behaviours or not. Once decided, the children then offered advice to all parties involved in the scenario. Year 5 did extremely well with this and all pupils were ready to input helpful ideas.
Year 5 have also started our daily friendship and support sessions today – these will happen each day before every break and lunch time to help maintain positive relationships. Today’s learning was: What makes a good friend? The task for the children was to use a positive friendship quality outside and many of them wrote down their examples in our friendship book.
Help at home: Today, we discussed why we don’t use the term ‘bully’ but we might use the term ‘bullying’. Discuss why this might be with your child and see if they can explain.
Answer: The term bully is used to define someone and it becomes part of their identity – we don’t want to be labelling anyone with a negative characteristic. Instead we might use the term bullying to describe words and/or actions instead.
Cross Country
Today, a whopping 52 of our KS2 pupils took part in the Leeds Easy Cross Country event. This event provides opportunity for young people to take part in a competitive running event, with routes through to Leeds and District finals. St James pupils conducted themselves really well on the trip and the high levels of perseverance/resilience from our children were definitely on show! Years 3 and 4 had a 900m race to complete, and the Year 5 and 6 pupils had a 1500m race. Every single pupil from St James ran and finished their races – we are so proud of everyone for this. Some pupils managed to get into the top 20 and may reach the finals in a few months! Here are some pictures of some pupils after their races.
Money Week
This themed week is all about money it’s been a really insightful week in Year 5. We started the week learning about different types of bank accounts and which ones were the best for saving and gaining interest on your money. We also became thrifty shoppers when we looked at the unit price of goods in a supermarket. The children had to calculate which products offered the best value for money. They noticed that sometimes buying the larger product, offered the consumer better value for money.
Through the week, we’ve also had some online workshops from Barclays and HSBC. Both of these were very useful and allowed pupils to pick up on some top tips when spending and saving money. It turns out lots of our Year 5 pupils are very good savers and use Christian values like perseverance and courage by setting goals to save towards!
Do you have a child due to start primary school in 2026?
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Training day – Arty Ideas
We thought you’d enjoy hearing a little about what went on during our recent teacher training day! Part of the day was dedicated to developing our art knowledge and skills with our resident art teacher, Mrs Boulton.
Teachers got hands-on with paints, pastels and even soap! There was plenty of colour, laughter, and even a bit of friendly competition as we experimented with new techniques and ideas for upcoming art lessons.
The rest of the day focussed on other important areas too, including maths and inclusion. It was a full, productive day – and we left feeling ready and excited for the next half-term!
Writing: The Eye of the Storm
To end a fantastic first half-term, Year 5 finished our latest piece of writing: The Eye of the Storm. This piece was inspired by a video about a traveller heading towards an eery light in the sky. Our goal was to describe the setting and character to a reader who hasn’t seen the video.
As a class, I am so pleased and proud of their outcomes. A class (who at the beginning of the year stated they struggle with creative ideas) have proved themselves wrong and have shown how good their creative minds can be. The vocabulary is superb – the children took time to substitute words for better synonyms to boost their writing to that next level. Their use of figurative language, such as alliteration, similes and metaphors is amazing. Reading 21 pieces has been an absolute pleasure and I’m really looking forward to Year 5’s next writing adventure in November! Here are some examples of our writing:
Help at home:
Please keep reading regularly at home with your child. More reading means more access to new vocabulary. As you can see from the writing above, new vocabulary unlocks doors to creative thinking and brilliant pieces!