Year 5 Blog 2024/25

 The children were so excited today as they were introduced to the Formula 1 Challenge which will commence after the holidays. Noah , who works at GKN, came in to talk to the children about the 4 roles: Team Manager, Design Manager, Graphics Designer and Manufacturing Engineer. The children were given lots of advice from different employees at GKN on how to work as a team as well as what each role would entail. Following on from this, the children were asked to choose their top two roles. The teams and roles will be announced shortly. So looking forward to yet another fantastic STEM opportunity. 

 Reverend Dion, Emma and Dave came in to talk to us about the Advent of Christmas and how we should be thankful for all we have at Christmas time (as well as every other day). Moreover, we need to thank God for all we have as he is always with us: Emmanuel. 

 Thank you to all the children in UKS2 who took part in last night’s Carol service at All Saints Church; it was truly a magical atmosphere bursting with Christmas joy.  Thank you to All Saints Church for hosting us and making the atmosphere more distinct.  For those of you who were not able to make it, I have attached the programme.  

 Last week during RE, the children enquired as to what interpretation means. They then compared two stories about the birth of Jesus, one found in Matthew and the other in Luke. The explores what the different interpretations meant to Christian’s and then they debated as to whether one was more important than the other. Then, they looked at how we as individuals can interpret different things to others. Using the pictures below was a nice way of seeing this. Finally, the children applied their knowledge about a scenario in a playground. 

  This week, the children have embarked on a journey writing instructions how to steal Christmas. They have looked at different vocabulary as well as recapping: fronted adverbials, chronological order and parentheses. They have made a cracking start and I can’t wait to see their completed instructions next week. 

  In our final week of this monotype printing unit, year 5 printed over the top of last week's wonderfully collaged work. Our final pieces, a response to a poem (The Ghost in The Garden), look superb. 

  Today we were really lucky that Peter J Murray visited us. He talked us all about his 20 anniversary of his original series of ‘Mokee Joe’. He talked us through how and why he became an author; it was surprising that he was actually a maths teacher before he was a author.   He then spoke in depth about the characters of Mokee Joe and how he developed them all. The children were so engaged and loved hearing Peter retell some of the Mokee Joe story.  

 In English, the children have been using a picture book: The Dam, as a text driver, which is actually set in Northumberland. They researched about the area to see where it is located, what there is to do there, the history of the location and what the area looks like. Using all of the information, they then wrote an informal travel blog. 

 This week the children enjoyed performing their dances they have been working on over the last few weeks. 

Today we considered how we use decorations to mark special occasions. Whilst we acknowledged that we don't always decorate for a festival or event, often some people will. We then explored how Buddhists will use decorations to mark a special festival they have in December. Bodhi Day marks the day that a wealthy prince in India,  Siddhartha Gautama, reached Enlightenment and became the icon we now know as Buddha.  The traditional way to decorate on Bodhi Day is to put colored lights and strings of beads through the branches of a fig tree to symbolize how we are all united: from the smallest ant to the largest tree. This is a revelation that Siddhartha came to as he reached Enlightenment and passed on in his teachings.  In acknowledgement of this way of decorating, we made our own string of beads that we can  string through the branches of a tree, maybe even a Christmas tree. However, much to everyone's excitement we used edible ingredients as beads, so I wonder how ma...