WELCOME TO YEAR 5 MACAWS

Macaws are known for their intelligence; they thrive on activities designed to challenge them. They are resourceful, curious and have big ideas. Being part of the upper years team, Macaws are able to gather knowledge and apply this to their daily learning.

THIS TERM'S THEME

'One World, One Heart.'

In Year 5, we will develop our story-telling skills. We will understand how ancient civilisations have impacted on the world we live in. We will discuss out roles within society and recognise safe choices. We will develop our understanding of our solar system and the impact of gravity.

P.E AND DANCE DAYS

PE and Dance for Macaws will be on a Thursday. Please ensure your child comes to school with the correct kit, which is clearly labelled. For more information about kit requirements, please visit our 'Physical Education & School Sport' Page. 
We will ensure that PE kits are sent home at the end of every half term.  

HOME LEARNING DAYS

Home learning will be sent home on Fridays and should be returned to school on Wednesday. Home learning should be completed to the best standard possible and Mathletics and Times Table Rock Stars should also be completed weekly. We celebrate the efforts of Mathletics and Times Table Rock Stars in our assemblies with special class shout outs and certificates.  

UPCOMING EVENTS

Tuesday 16^th April 2024 – First day of Summer Term

Thursday 18^th April 2024 – Rocksteady Assembly and Workshop

Tuesday 23^rd April 2024 – RNLI Water safety assembly

Monday 6^th May 2024 – Bank Holiday

Monday 13^th May 2024 – Thursday 16^th May 2024 – Bikeability

Thursday 16^th May 2024 – PA Sports Festival for Macaws - Cricket

Monday 20^th May 2024 - Thursday 23^rd May 2024 - Bikeability 

Friday 24^th May 2024 – Last day of Summer 1

Monday 27^th May 2024 – Friday 31^st May 2024 – Half Term

Monday 3^rd June 2024 – First day of Summer 2

Friday 7^th June 2024 – World Ocean Day

Monday 24^th June 2024 – Friday 28^th June 2024 – RSHE Week

Wednesday 24^th July 2024 – Last day of Summer Term

MEET THE TEAM

Image coming soon

If there are any issues or concerns, please feel free to come in and see your teacher (Miss Noble) or alternatively please contact a team leader (Mrs Gidley).

pnoble@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk

rgidley@whiterockprimaryschool.co.uk

ACADEMIC YEAR 2023/2024

SUMMER TERM

Summer Term Curriculum Map

Thursday 2nd May 2024- Spanish

Year 5 have had so much fun in Spanish this week. We have been learning school subjects (las asignaturas). We played lots of interactive games to practise giving an opinion about a school subject. iQue maravilloso! Can you say these opinion words at home! 

 Me encanta

Me gusta 

No me gusta

Detesto 

Thursday 25th April 2024 - Dance

We have been creating dances based on the actions of being at sea on a pirate ship. This week, we worked with a partner to create a dance of 3 or 4 pirate moves, which we then performed in unison. We had to include different levels for each and make sure the moves all linked together with smooth transitions. Some of the moves we included were climb the rigging, man overboard and steering the boat, but there were many more we could have chosen from. Can you work out the moves we have included from the photos below?

Wednesday 24th April 2024 - Maths

In Maths today, we learnt how to order and compare decimals up to 3 decimal places. To begin with, we recapped how to compare two two-digit numbers and used representations on place value charts to help us. We then moved on to looking at fractions with one decimal place. We thought about the value of the digits, which helped us to identify which number was greater. In pairs, we played a game using decimals. We needed to create inequality statements using greater than, less than or equal to. We used the following stem sentences to help us:

I need to start by looking at the column with the                place value. 

If the digits in the              column are the same, I need to look at the               column. 

To end the lesson, we wrote a decimal on our boards and created a human number line to order our decimals. To make it tricker, we needed to do this without talking. We were all able to identify where our decimal numbers needed to be placed. 

Thursday 18th April 2024 - Music

White Rock had a great start to their Thursday today! Tom from Rocksteady Music school came in and taught us about singing and playing instruments. We know all about electric guitars, bass guitars, drums, electric keyboard and vocalists. We learned the chorus to Queen's 'We Will Rock You' and some of us were actually chosen to be part of Tom's band! 

(photos to come shortly)

SPRING TERM

Spring Term Curriculum Map

Thursday 21st March 2024 - Physical Education

Macaws have been learning Basketball this half term, working hard to improve their dribbling, shielding, passing and shooting. This week they brought all those skills together with the addition of a defender in 2v1 attacking scenarios. This developed good levels of communication between team mates and highlighted the need for movement off the ball to find space to receive a pass. It was great to see so many excellent baskets scored!

Wednesday 20th March 2024 -  Ukulele performance

This half term Miss Pacey has been teaching us to play the ukulele. First, we learnt about the origins of the instrument, from Hawaii, and its uses. We learnt about the anatomy of it and the different parts, including the fretboard and sound hole. We enjoyed learning 3 chords and using the strumming and plucking techniques to play songs, including Avicii's Wake Me Up.

We hope you enjoy our performance.  

Friday 15th March 2024 - British Science Week

This week is British Science Week. In Year 5, we completed a pattern-seeking enquiry to find the answer to the question below.

Can the tallest people do more star jumps in 30 seconds?

In groups, we made predictions and planned out how we could answer the question. Once we had collected our data, we presented our data on a scatter graph.  

Thursday 14th March 2024 - RE - Humanist Speaker

We were lucky enough to meet with Humanist, Tim Perches, online today. He explained that Humanism is a non-religious way of answering the big questions and said there are 3 things that matter to Humanists. The first is to ask questions. Asking lots of simple questions but also it's good to ask those big questions to deepen our understanding and get answers. There are tools that can be used to get good answers - reason, evidence and Science. Other faiths use these tools too. The second is being kind - always. The third is to enjoy life, which means having fun and finding the good in life.  

We learnt that Humanists don't believe in anything divine, such as a god, or that there is no life after death. Humanists don't worship a holy book, they don't wear any specific religious clothing or eat any special foods. Freedom, respect and tolerance are important to Humanists. As with religions, Humanism has a symbol, which is called 'The Happy Human'. We were very inquisitive to find out about what celebrations Humanists celebrate. Tim told us that 'Humanist Day', mid-summers day, is a day to get together with other

Humanists. Darwin Day, the birthday of Charles Darwin, in February another important date for Humanists. 

Tim shared this scenario with us to get us thinking: Imagine you are in a shop looking at the sweet shelf and you are trying to decide which ones to buy. Your friend comes up to you and said, "The assistant isn't looking and there aren't any cameras. Let's steal them." You say, "No, that's wrong." Your friend replies, "Ok, why is it wrong to steal the sweets?" He asked us to think about what we would say in response to this question. Some of our responses were: it's bad, you could get told off and caught, it's not nice, you could get arrested and it's not the right thing to do.

Thursday 7th March 2024 – Reading

Today, we celebrated World Book Day at White Rock. We dressed up as our favourite book character, or as ourselves.  After a whole school assembly, we created a whole class story where we all contributed just one word. We had some very interesting twists! Following this, we watched 'The Masked Reader' and had a go at guessing who the masked readers were. Some were trickier than others to guess. In the afternoon, we had some time to read to and listen to Year 1 reading their favourite story book. What a great day!

Thursday 7th March 2024 - Gymnastics

This half term we are learning Gymnastics and this week we have been using different travelling moves. In our warm up we had to travel in pairs, with one of us being the leader and one of us following, copying their travelling move. We then changed leaders and repeated the activity. It is important to stretch in Gymnastics, so we used the 'Stretches for Gymnastics' sheet to choose stretches we thought would help us with today's lesson of travelling, including arm circles and down dog for when we travel with weight on hands. Our main activity today involved travelling from a corner of the mat to a different corner, then repeating this using a different travelling move. We had to do this with our partners in synchronisation (meaning at the same time) and then we did it in canon (one after the other).

Tuesday 27th February 2024 - Swimming

This week was our second swimming lesson at Brixham Swimming Pool. We have already gained in confidence when entering and exiting the pool. Over the next few weeks, we are going to be working on improving our strength and technique when in the water. 

For information - No swimming on Monday 4th March or Tuesday 5th March. Y5 Swimming sessions will resume on Monday 11th March (for Merlins)  and Tuesday 12th March (for Macaws & Magpies). 

Wednesday 21st February 2024 - Writing - Dragonology immersion

This week we have begun our next Writing Journey. Our new text is called Dragonology, which contains non-chronological reports about dragons. We received a task from Dr Ernest Drake (see video below) and were given a collection of artefacts found in Torbay. Using our inference skills, we completed an annotated sketch showing what we thought the dragon may have looked like. We thought about the size, shape and features of the dragon, as well as its habitat, diet and form of attack. 

Tuesday 6th February 2024 - Computing - Safer Internet Day

Today was Safer Internet Day 2024! We started our day by singing our Safer Internet Day song in assembly and Mr Passmore shared some top tips about keeping safe online. In the afternoon, we completed some fun activities about staying safe and why it's really important to always tell an adult if there is something we feel uncomfortable with online! Have a look at the pictures below of us in assembly and having a go at our activities! 

Friday 2nd February 2023 - Home Learning - Computing - Safer Internet Day

This week, we have been learning a song called, 'Who do you share your details with?'. We have listened to this song in our Computing lessons with Miss Noble to support our learning about how to be safe online. As a year group, we will be singing and performing the song to the rest of the school on Safer Internet Day on Tuesday. You have been provided with a copy of the lyrics. The video link is below. 

Tuesday 23rd January 2024 - Science - Wonderstruck 

We went to Brixham College to watch the Wonderstruck Science show. The first thing Peter told us was to NEVER do this at home as it is VERY DANGEROUS!

First, we looked at how air moves. Peter blew air at us from a bucket, but because we couldn't see it, he added some smoke from his smoke machine to show us how the air travelled. Next, he created a rocket using a burning reaction. He said we needed three things – fuel, a flame and oxygen.  Once he’d shown us, he put on a larger one with a backpack. We thought he would take off...but he didn't! This was because the force of gravity was stronger than the up thrust. After this, he showed us a bed of nails. Because the force is spread across so many nails it will not go through his skin. Miss Tyrrell got to put a smaller bed of nails and a concrete block on top of him and then break the block. 

Lastly, we were given instructions to make a rocket. We then made our own rockets and tested them out in the school hall. We were surprised how far some of the rockets went! We all had a fantastic day. 

Wednesday 17th January 2024 - Maths - Fluency

In Year 5, we are currently practising our 4 times table, using our knowledge of the 2 times table to help us. Here are some songs that can be used to support learning the 4 times table. 

Friday 12th January 2024 - Art - Hokusai

This week, we have started our new Art unit. To begin, we completed an elicitation task to show what we already knew about cool and warm tones. We used watercolours to paint a simple seascape line drawing. We remembered not to use too much water when using the watercolours and some of us had a go a mixing colours.  

Thursday 11th January 2023 - Dance

In Dance this term, we are using Hokusai's The Great Wave as inspiration for our dances. We have studied the picture, selecting different parts of it to 'paint' using a variety of body parts. For example, we could use our elbow to paint the wave at the top of the picture. This week, we worked in groups to include different formations when performing each section we had chosen.

Wednesday 3rd January 2024 - Reading - Class Story

Our class story for the Spring Term is Kensuke's Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. Some of us have already enjoyed reading some of his books. We made some predictions based on the blurb, the title and the images on the front cover. We are looking forward to finding out what happens...

Wednesday 3^rd January 2024 – Bikeability

Today, Michelle from Bikeability came into school. She took assembly and got us to think about why it is important for us to learn how to be safe on the road, when we ride our bikes. Michelle talked to us about what to expect if we take the course and we watched some videos to show what the children were doing, from signalling, shoulder checking and completing a u-turn.

If you would like to sign up, there is an online form which has been sent, via email, to parents/carers.

AUTUMN TERM

Autumn Term Curriculum Map

Monday 11th December 2023 - RE - Faith Speaker

Today, Year 5 met with faith speaker, Rania, on Teams. She spoke to us about the foundations of Islam, prayer and routines. We found out about the Ka'bah, which is a stone building located in the centre of the Holy Mosque in Mecca, Saudi Arabia. The Holy Mosque has a capacity of 3,000,000 people! Rania told us about the prayer routines, showed us some of the prayer mats that are used and explained the rituals followed around Ramadan by children and adults. We had lots of interesting questions, which Rania was able to answer. We all learnt lots about Islam, which will help us with our topic, "What does it mean to be Muslim in Britain today?"

Thursday 7th December 2023 - Reach Outdoors - Indoor Climbing

Over the last two weeks, Macaws have had so much fun climbing at Parkfield. They had a fantastic time learning new vocabulary, knots and skills.  Everyone challenged themselves to climb higher than they did in Year 4. Macaws worked together in small teams, demonstrating excellent teamwork and leadership skills, and offered encouragement and support to those who found it tricky. Look at how high some of us went!

Wednesday 6th December 2023 - 'Free to be me' - Learning Celebration - Teach the parent

Today, we held our learning celebration for this term's topic, 'Free to be me'. We set up a selection of activities in the Year 5 classrooms and on the mezzanine, which we had enjoyed taking part in throughout this term. We visited each activity with our adults and taught them what we had learnt.

Thank you to all the parents and carers who attended the Year 5 learning celebration today. It was fantastic to see you all getting involved with the activities. Don't worry if you couldn't come, here are some photos to show you what we did. 

Friday 1st December 2023 - Music

This week in music, we have been learning how to play a ‘C’ and ‘Bb’ (B-flat) note on the recorder. We learned to play our recorders to the melody of an orchestral song called ‘Dreaming of Mars’. Have a listen to our amazing performances!

Thursday 23rd November 2023 - Science

In Science, we have been looking at classifying information using a Carroll diagram. Researchers and Scientists might use Carroll diagrams to make sense of what we already know about a certain subject or phenomenon. They are used to group things based on similarities and differences.

We started by looking at how a flowering plant has male and female parts. This enables pollination and reproduction to occur. We now know that these are found on the inside of the flower. Using our understanding, we created a Carroll diagram to answer this question:

Do all flowering plants have the same structure?

Look at our finished Carroll diagrams!

Friday 17th November 2023 - BBC Children In Need

This week, White Rock Primary School have been celebrating BBC Children in Need 2023. We have been raising money for charity by buying Pudsey ears, pin badges and wristbands. Today, we all came in non-school uniform and took part in a Children in Need activity session with the Year 6 Sports Captains. We also had the opportunity to guess how many sweets were in a jar. We are looking forward to finding out how much money we have raised! Take a look at our pictures of us raising money!

Monday 13th November 2023 - Anti-Bullying Week

Today marks the start of Anti-Bullying Week. This morning, we listened to Mrs Tomkinson's assembly and listened to Andy and The Odd Socks singing this years new song, 'Make a noise'. Lots of us wore our odd socks to encourage people to express themselves and to celebrate individuality. 

Thursday 9th November 2023- Spanish

Year 5 have been having lots of fun in their Spanish lessons with Senorita Head. The children have learnt how to say what colour eyes and hair they have in Spanish. (los ojos y el pelo) We played GUESS WHO in Spanish to practise the key vocabulary.

We also made some Se Busca posters. iQue fantastico!

Tuesday 7th November 2023 - History

In our History learning this week, we have been learning about what it was like to be a solider during WW1. After watching a few informative videos about a typical day for a soldier, we completed a daily timetable. We labelled the parts of a soldier's uniform. 

Friday 3rd November 2023 – PSHE

This week, in PSHE we have been thinking about friendships. We discussed four key questions:

• Do you like all your friends in the same way?
• Do you like doing the same thing with all of your friends?
• Do you tend to see some friends only in certain situations?
• Would you want to see all of your friends all the time?

We realised through our discussion that we all tend to have friendships at different levels, and this is ok. We do not want to be best friends with all of our friends. Some of us have many friends, while some prefer to have one close friend.

We completed a diagram to help us understand the relationships we have with our friends. We didn’t need to use anyone’s real name if we didn’t want to.

This was our task:

Thursday 2nd November 2023 - Dance

In Dance, we have been looking at photographs of different people from World War II and thinking about how they were feeling at that time. Having chosen two photos each, we then created a solo dance using specific dynamics to portray the feelings of those in our chosen photos. The dances are very emotive.

Thursday 19th October 2023 - Geography

This term, our Geography topic has been 'Global Warming and Climate Change.' In our learning today, we thought about what plants and animals we might find in arid regions around the world. Using iPads and webpages, we researched how cactuses, camels, kangaroo rats and sand foxes have adapted over time to enable them to survive in the arid regions. We made notes of our findings on post-it notes. 

Wednesday 11th October - Year 5 Mandarin club

The Year 5 children who attended after school Mandarin club had lots of fun during this week's session. The children learnt how to say "My name is" in Mandarin Chinese.

我叫 (wǒ jiào). 

The children sang a Chinese song and also re-capped numbers 1 to 10. 

At the end of the session, the children made some Chinese plates and wrote the key vocabulary on them. 

Wednesday 11th October 2023 - Speaking and Listening

This week we have begun our next Writing journey, which is poetry. The text we are using to inspire our our poem is 'The Lost Words' by Robert Macfarlane. The text contains poems about elements of nature. We took part in an activity where we used our senses to describe what we could see, smell, hear, taste and touch. In our groups, we looked at a photograph (swimming pool, beach, fairground, farmyard and town centre) and individually explained what our senses were 'sensing'. The rest of the class then tried to guess what photograph we were describing. 

Friday 6th October 2023 - Writing - Biography

Today we completed our biography writing on a famous person of our choice. To help us with the structure of our writing, we used our text structure charts and our class shared write on Anne Frank. We included expanded noun phrases to add description, third person pronouns to avoid repetition and sub-headings to tell our readers what the paragraphs are about. Have a read of some of our writing...

Tuesday 26th September 2023 - European Day of Languages

Today we celebrated European Day of Languages with Senorita Head. We began the day with a whole school assembly, where we sang a few of our favourite songs that we have been learning in our Spanish lessons. We enjoyed listening to some of the Year 6 children telling us all about themselves in Spanish. Senorita Head reminded us of the benefits of learning a second language. In the afternoon, Senorita Head taught us how to say 'hello' in Russian (privet), Polish (czesc), French (salut) and German (hallo).

Thursday 14th September 2023 - Sports Aerobics

Year 5 have started the year with learning Sports Aerobics in their dance lessons, which is a high energy fitness activity. Today, they enjoyed working in a group to choose four of the steps, adding different directions and formations to their routine.

Tuesday 19th September 2023 - Paddleboat Theatre

We were very lucky today and had a visit from Paddleboat Theatre. They put on a Murder Mystery themed show about the many crimes of Constance Shadows. During the show, the lead investigator, Rufus Capers, was wrongly accused for murdering Constance Shadows. With our help, Aggie, his assistant, released Rufus from prison and it was discovered that Constance Shadows had escaped through a secret door in the Mayor's Manor House during his party!

Thursday 15th September 2023 - Reach Outdoors - Coasteering

Today Macaws had a go at Coasteering, which is a combined rock and water activity. Wearing sturdy footwear, wet suits, buoyancy aids and helmets, we began walking along the coastal path from Fishcombe Cove to Churston Cove. We got used to being in the water and then began the climb over the rocks to our first jump. We then completed a shallow jump, before swimming back to Fishcombe to complete one final jump. We learnt some scrambling techniques and how to jump from heights into the sea safely. We had a great time!

Play the slideshow to see some action shots!

Tuesday 12^th September 2023 – Reading Roundabout

Today, we had someone from the School Library Service come into our classroom to share the new books we’re getting for our school library. The books were separated into six different genres: Realistic Fiction, Wild About Animals, Laugh Out Loud, Thrills and Chills, Magical Adventure, and Fascinating Facts.  We spread the books out on the table and had a look at the covers. We then checked out the blurb and read parts of the book to see if we liked it. Each of us created our own list of books we’d like to read this year. It was such good fun to share books together and we are excited to have some new books to choose from!

Friday 8th September 2023 – Back to school

Macaws have enjoyed their first week back at school. We’ve settled in really well and enjoyed lots of different subjects, such as Roman numerals in Maths, Biographies in Writing and starting our class reader –‘Street Child’.