Year 5 Term 1

August to December

Last updated

2 July 2025 at 03:18:21

What's out there? 🔭 🚀

This term, Year 5 learners will launch into an exciting journey through space and global exploration. In Science, students will investigate the forces of gravity, air and water resistance, and explore the planets of our solar system. This will be enriched by a cross-curricular focus on sustainability, where they will examine the causes and consequences of global warming. Geography lessons will compare Brunei and North America, with a focus on physical and human characteristics, biomes, mapping, and data interpretation. Their class reader Orion Lost will inspire imaginative Sci-Fi narrative writing, where students will craft stories with vivid vocabulary, cohesive paragraphs, and dynamic dialogue. They will also produce non-chronological reports about the planets, using formal structure and technical detail. In Art and Design, students will engage in space-themed projects, designing and building jigsaw puzzles and paintings, while in Computing they will explore Canva and build basic coding skills.

Mathematics will cover a wide range of key skills, beginning with place value and extending into the four operations and fractions. Students will compare, order, and round numbers up to one million, tackle multi-step word problems, and develop a strong understanding of factors, primes, and multiples. In Fractions, they will work with equivalence, conversions, and operations involving both proper and improper fractions. The term will conclude with participation in the Barvember Challenge—encouraging creative problem-solving through bar modelling. With enrichment through languages, PE, PSHE, and Music, students will be encouraged to apply their learning across contexts, developing confidence, creativity, and resilience throughout the term.

Maths 🧮

Place Value

Numbers to 10,000
Numbers to 100,000
Numbers to one million
Compare and order to 100,000
Compare and order to 1,000,000
Round to 10, 100 and 1,000
Round within 100,000
Round within one million
Counting in powers of 10
Negative numbers

Addition & Subtraction

Mental strategies
Add whole numbers more than 4 digits
Subtract whole numbers more than 4 digits
Round to check answers
Inverse operations
Multi-step problems, compare calculations and find missing numbers

Multiplication & Division

Multiples and common multiples
Factors and common factors
Prime numbers
Square and cube numbers
Multiply and divide by 10, 100 and 1000
Multiples of 10, 100 and 1000

Fractions

Find fractions equivalent to a unit and non-unit fraction
Recognise equivalent fractions
Convert improper fractions to mixed numbers and vice-versa
Compare and order fractions less than 1
Compare and order fractions more than 1
Add and subtract fractions with the same denominator
Add fractions within and more than 1
Subtracting fractions and mixed numbers

Barvember

Towards the end of Term 1, all students are invited to take part in Barvember Maths challenges. Find out more here.

Science 🧬

Forces (Physics)

Friction
Air resistance
Plan - parachute experiment
Investigate - parachute experiment
Evaluate - parachute experiment
Plan - water resistance
Investigate - water resistance
Explore gravity
Use small forces for greater effects

Space (Physics)

The Solar System
The planets
Modelling
Motion of the Earth and planets
The Solar System - ideas over time
Planet Earth
Night and day
The Moon

Global Warming (Sustainability) ♻️

What is global warming?
What are the impacts of global warming on living things?

Reading 📖

📗 Orion Lost

Author: Alastair Chisholm

This compelling science fiction adventure is set aboard the Orion, a large spacecraft which is transporting people from Earth to a new planet, twenty six light years away. Life on the ship quickly becomes routine for thirteen year old Beth, who attends school, meets new friends and makes an enemy out of Vihaan, the Captain’s arrogant son.

After months of uneventful space travel, the craft is unexpectedly attacked and all adults are incapacitated. Beth is informed by Ship, the Orion’s central interface hologram, that she is now Captain. Although it is a role she has dreamed of since the age of five, the reality of commanding a ship is overwhelming. She appoints Vihaan as second in command, but his obvious scorn for her authority fills her with self-doubt.

If they are to survive, they must put aside their differences and work together to fix the damaged ship and navigate to safety. However, they are surrounded by dangers, from meteor storms and ruthless space pirates to the terrifying, mysterious alien lifeform known as the Videshi.

Full of twists and turns, this thrilling futuristic journey into the unknown will have readers on the edge of their seats.

Reading age: 9+

Writing ✍️

Sci-Fi Narrative

Identify what makes a good story
Basic features of a sci-fi narrative
Developed narrative with focus and cohesion
Links between paragraphs and adverbials
Past perfect tense to link events
Writing statements in a story
Extended simple sentences
Compound sentences
Relative clauses with commas and dashes used for additional detail including omitted relative pronouns
Extended compound sentences
Story planning
Editing planning
Create individualised story
Writing story from plan
Adding dialogue to a story
Action, dialogue, and description used to move events forward
Writing dialogue
Upgrading language
Adverbs and modal verbs for possibility
Include advanced language within writing
Performance of writing
Looking at feature of writing
Editing and publishing
Apostrophes for contractions, single and plural possession.
Fully punctuate speech
Commas to avoid ambiguity and clarify meaning
Commas to mark clauses
Use ellipsis
Commas to mark parenthesis
Use brackets and dashes for parenthesis
Descriptions of characters, setting, and atmosphere are developed through precise vocabulary choices e.g adverbs, adjectives, precise nouns, expressive verbs and figurative language.

Non-fiction writing: planets

Features of an information text
Planning and writing an information text
Creating a success criteria
Comparatives and superlatives
Relative clauses
Non-Chronological Report with paragraphs
Organised into sections with appropriate headings and text type features
Range of conjunctions and appropriate word choices
Appropriate use of pronouns and nouns
Relative clauses with commas and brackets to add information
Structured paragraphs linked with adverbials
Use bullet points to list information
Commas after an adverb starter
Commas to avoid ambiguity and clarify meaning
Commas to mark clauses
Use ellipsis
Commas to mark parenthesis
Use brackets and dashes for parenthesis

Across the curriculum 🌏

Overview: Brunei compared with North America

North America: human and physical characteristics

Curriculum Objectives & Expectations

Name and locate some of the countries of North America and their main human and physical characteristics
Collect information about a location and draw clear conclusions
Describe how the physical features of a location affect the human activity in a location
Use a range of geographical resources to give detailed features of a location
Collect and analyse statistics and other information in order to draw clear conclusions about locations
Biomes
Mapping
Interpreting graphs and bar charts
use of databases
Use of graphs to display data
Inference and deduction of data
Use maps, atlases and globes to locate counties

Key Vocabulary

Populous, sparsely, landlocked, landmass, settlements, land use, economic activity, trade links, rives, mountains, cities, lakes, oceans.

Art, Design & Technology 🎨 👷

Physical Designs

Designing and building space themed jigsaw puzzles
Space painting

Computing

Create using Canva tools
Basic coding skills

PSHE 😀 🫶

Personal, Social, Health and Economic education

Families and friendships: Managing friendships and peer influence

To know that friendships can change over the years and how to manage these changes
That it is common for friendships to experience challenges
Strategies to positively resolve disputes and reconcile differences in friendships
That friendships can change over time and the benefits of having new and different types of friends
About peer influence and how it can make people feel or behave
The impact of the need for peer approval in different situations, including online strategies to manage peer influence and the need for peer approval e.g. exit
strategies, assertive communication
How to recognise if a friendship is making them feel unsafe, worried, or uncomfortable
When and how to seek support in relation to friendships

Safe relationships: Physical contact and feeling safe

What is consent
How to ask for, give and not give permission for physical contact; to identify what physical touch is acceptable, unacceptable, wanted or unwanted in different situations
How it feels in a person’s mind and body when they are uncomfortable
That it is never someone’s fault if they have experienced unacceptable contact
How to respond to unwanted or unacceptable physical contact
That no one should ask them to keep a secret that makes them feel uncomfortable or try to persuade them to keep a secret they are worried about
Whom to tell if they are concerned about unwanted physical contact

Respecting ourselves and others: Responding respectfully to a wide range of people; recognising prejudice and discrimination

To recognise that everyone should be treated equally
Why it is important to listen and respond respectfully to a wide range of people, including those whose traditions, beliefs and lifestyle are different to their own; what discrimination means and different types of discrimination e.g. racism, sexism, homophobia; the impact of discrimination on individuals, groups and wider society
Ways to safely challenge discrimination
Harassment
To identify online bullying and discrimination of groups or individuals e.g. trolling and
The impact of discrimination on individuals, groups and wider society
Ways to safely challenge discrimination
How to report discrimination online