Positions of Responsibilty:

Eco Council: Awele & Sophia

Online Ambassadors: Ho Ching & Rosie

Star and our Reading Log

In Year 5, we have a class book dragon called Star, who loves to visit each child's home and see what they're reading that week. He enjoys being read a variety of fiction & non-fiction books, comics and graphic novels!

Children will get Star and the reading log on a Monday (to be returned on Friday), or Friday (to be returned on Monday). While the children have Star and the Reading Log, please record books read or recommended, favourite authors, reading habits and included drawn or printed pictures!

We look forward to seeing all of the Reading adventures Star gets to go on this year!

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Wednesday 5th March 

This half term, we have started reading 'Cogheart' by Peter Bunzl, an alternative Victorian era adventure with mechanimals and airships! 

The story begins with Lily in a girls boarding school, learning how to be a proper lady - which we imitated by practising walking around with books balanced on our heads! 

For World Book Day on Thursday 6th March, we have worked in groups to create all of the elements of the front cover to decorate our door! 

Monday 3rd March

We took part in the online section of the Year 5 Maths Challenge this afternoon! There were 3 rounds of extremely tricky Maths questions to answer, including an estimation round, to get added to the 'Perplexing Puzzles' we completed last week. 

Everyone tried hard to answer the questions and work as a team to solve the problems. Well done everyone!

Thursday 27th February

Today we did the first part of the Herts Year 5 Maths Challenge - Perplexing Puzzles! Everyone tried really hard to solve some complex puzzles, working as a team, and applying our mathematical knowledge. Well done to everyone!

Tuesday 11th February 

We have started our Anglo Saxon day at St Albans Cathedral with our food workshop! First we learned about different food that the Anglo Saxons grew and ate. Then we started our cookery workshop, by making herb butter and apricot & honey conserve. 

Friday 7th February

This morning, we were visited by Colette from HCC, a Travel Officer, who taught us about Road Safety, particularly around Distractions such as our phones when walking near roads. We timed children walking through cones, both without a 'phone' (ipad) and with one. We noticed that the children on their phones took much longer to walk through the course and that lots of them also made errors!

We ended the session by thinking about ways to stay safe near roads and while using technology. Check google classroom for information about making a 'Road Safety' Poster.

Wednesday 5th February

We were lucky enough to visit St Albans Cathedral to see the moon installation and the visiting Planetarium from the University of Hertfordshire. This recapped our learning on 'Space and Earth' from Autumn term Science. We got to see a spectacular view of our Solar System, zooming into the Sun, Planets and Moons, learning new facts and remembering our learning. We were super impressed by the insightful questions the children asked at the end of the session too!

Tuesday 21st January 

For our DT topic of Frame Structures, we learned how to roll paper to increase its strength. We then used the ruled up paper to explore how to create a structure, such as a house, tent or pyramid. 

We learned what strategies worked well, and what we will need to improve for our designs and final products over the next couple of weeks.

Tuesday 21st January

In English, we are currently researching topics and facts about the Anglo Saxons for our non-chronological reports. 

We have used a mixture of non-fiction books and the internet to write notes on our chosen topic - including health & medicine, weapons & war, clothing, crime & punishment, sports, and food & drink! 

Over the next week or so, we will use our notes to create grouped paragraphs with topic sentences, before presenting these as double page spreads.

Wednesday 15th January

We have been reading and learning the poem 'The Jabberwocky', making our own versions imitating the structure and creating portmanteau words. Today we performed our poems to the class in small groups! 

Wednesday 8th January

We have started the New Year with a new PE topic- Dance! Today we watched versions of the Hand Jive and partner dances, learned to perform it ourselves and created our own freestyle section. Take a look at the videos to see us in action!

Monday 16th December

We have finished our English writing topic on 'explanations' which we related to Wallace and Gromit's Cracking Contraptions! We had a great time creating our own inventions and writing in detail about the causal relations between the individual elements of the machines.

Take a look at our pages from our new Class book!

Friday 13th December

Today was our Ancient Egyptian day to bring our History topic to life! It was wonderful to see so many children in Egyptian clothing or accessories, using their homework masks and ankhs as well! Miss Honour, Mrs Mitchell-Fox and Ms Wimbleton were impressed by the class' focus and determination to make their activities as best as they could be - for this reason, we will be completing some other Egyptian themed tasks next week, including painting our canopic jars. Today, we made canopic jars from clay and sarcophagus from paper. Their designs are brilliant!

Thursday 5th December

We have been reading and analysing the text 'Journey to the River Sea' by Eva Ibbotson in our Whole Class Reading sessions this term. It is a great adventure book about an orphan, Maia, who moves to the Amazon and has many adventures alongside her governess, Miss Minton, and new friends, Clovis and Finn. 

At the end of the book, we created double page spreads to share the plot, characters and what we enjoyed - take a look at the photos for examples!

Wednesday 4th December 

We had great fun in our final Gymnastics lesson of this term, as we got to go on the wall bars in the hall, as well as some of the other equipment!!

It was wonderful to see children trying their best, overcoming reservations about heights or balances, and having fun!

There was some excellent vaulting on low and high versions, strength shown with climbing the ropes, and lots of spinning on the bars!

Wednesday 27th November

We have been practising a range of Gymnastics moves and skills, in both unison and cannon during our PE lessons this half term. Our unit is 'Paired Composition' so we have worked with a variety of partners to practice and perform short sequences to show off our incredible gymnastics skills.

Please watch the videos to see our final pieces, which we performed this afternoon!

Friday 22nd November

Today we performed our class assembly, which shared our knowledge and learning about Rivers (from Geography) and Ancient Egyptians (in History). The children had learned their lines well and gave the dances their best effort and enthusiasm! Well done to everyone for their excellent performance!

Monday 11th November

Since coming back from half term, Year 5 have approached our new English topic of 'War Poetry' with respect and maturity. We began by reading and listening to a variety of war poems, discussing their content and symbolism. We then learned about the style of poems, Cinquains, which are 5 line poems following the syllable pattern 2-4-6-8-2. Children created their own impactful cinquains based on war poetry, and on Monday they presented these alongside a piece of artwork.

Monday 4th November

Today we started our new Science topic, Forces! We shared some of the knowledge we already have from previous years, and then focused on Air Resistance. We thought about what objects have Air Resistance working on them and how this might differ depending on weight and surface area.

To show our learning, we made parachutes from a sheet of paper to test air resistance! We added paper clips to give the paper different weights and some of us adapted the design to see how this would affect the parachute. 

Friday 18th October 

Today we went out to our local river for a Geography Field Trip to the River Ver. We explored the features of a chalk stream, looking at the river at different points to see if we could spot the fast flowing water, pebbled riverbed and plant life along the banks. The keen eyed amongst us spotted lots of local wildlife, including a crayfish, a heron, enormous brown trout, shoals of fish and lots of ducks & geese! 

Tuesday 15th October 

We have ended our unit on drawing and painting in Art by trying to imitate the Fauvism style. The last couple of lessons have been in our sketchbooks as practice, but today we got to scale up our images onto A3 paper. 

We've had great fun trying to use bright, vibrant colours and a variety of brush strokes. Take a look at the photos to see out works in progress!

Friday 11^th October

This morning, we were visited by Laura from Chilterns Chalk Streams Project, who gave us an informative talk all about Chalk Streams and our local river, the River Ver.

We learned about the source of the River Ver- in the Chilterns- as well as other local Chalk Streams. Laura was able to share lots of knowledge and facts about the features of chalk streams and the wildlife that lives in or near to them. Year 5 shared their excellent vocabulary in naming features of rivers and asked lots of pertinent questions to extend their learning.

We ended the session with a quiz on how to save water and help to keep our chalk streams healthy- where every group scored 5/5! 

Tuesday 1st October 

We have been studying colour and lines in Art this half term, experimenting with different brush strokes and colour contrasting. Today we looked at colour wheels, before embarking on trying to imitate Fauvism techniques.

Take a look at our photos to see our excellent examples!

Our Autumn Term Reading Goal:

As a class, we decided to set ourselves the target of reading (and recording!) 350 books collectively before the Christmas holidays! 

We have made an excellent start in the few weeks we've been at school - check out the video to see how many we've read so far, and the types of books!

Monday 16th September 

Our Science topic for this half term is Earth and Space, and the children have been sharing some fascinating facts about our Solar System today!

Last week, we learned that the Earth, Moon and Sun were spherical, and wrote to the Flat Earth Society to explain how we know.

Today, we identified the planets in our Solar System and used non-fiction books to discover facts about each one. 

Thursday 12th September 

We have started our Y5 Maths with place value, spending lots of time saying, writing and comparing large numbers - now up to 7 digits! Everyone has engaged well with explaining the value of different digits and showing these in different ways. 

Take a look at how we used counters and place value charts to help us add and subtract powers of 10.

Tuesday 3rd and Wednesday 4th September:

During the Staff INSET Day on Monday 2nd September, Miss Honour and Mrs Zawadzka attended a Drumba Workshop, as we are launching this as a whole school initative this year! Year 5 were the first class to use our brand new equipment and fully embraced the co-ordination, stamina and agility needed to complete the tricky musical and physical combination of drumming!

We will use Drumba occasionally across this term, but are looking forward to the official St Peter's launch in November!

First Week of Term, Autumn 2024

Miss Honour and Mrs Mitchell-Fox have been very impressed by the way the children have approached their behaviour, responsibilities and learning on their first week in Year 5. They have all made a great start to life in Upper Key Stage 2, focusing well in lessons, being polite to all staff members and volunteering for numerous monitor jobs in the the classroom.

The following images are from our PSHE and Welcome to Year 5 activities - keep checking back with this page for more updates throughout the year!