"Do everything in love” 1 Corinthians 16:14

 

Learning to love, loving to learn

Welcome to Year 5!

Our staff

Mrs Haslam is our class teacher and a number of teaching assistants provide support on a regular basis. 

The following information tells you a little more about the coming term in Year 5 and your child's learning. However, if you have any queries or questions please don't hesitate to contact us.

sara.haslam@st-marys.halton.sch.uk

General information

• Please tie back long hair and only wear stud earrings if you have pierced ears.
• Please have a bottle of water at school every day. This can be refilled as necessary.
• Please bring a small school bag, reading book & diary every day.
• Please return your homework on or before Wednesday for marking. Homework will be sent out on a Friday. If you are absent on Friday, please make sure you ask for it as early as possible the following week so you have time to complete it. 
• All school uniform needs to be labelled with your name but particularly jumpers and cardigans.
• A full PE kit should be in school at all times, consisting of black shorts, white t-shirts and trainers. Jogging bottoms/leggings can be added as the weather gets colder.

PE is timetabled for Wednesday and Friday.

 

Summer Term 2026

 

Our Christian Values

During the first summer half term, our school value is HONESTY. 

Ephesians 4:25 says: "Therefore each of you must put off falsehood and speak truthfully to your neighbor, for we are all members of one body" 

Love of reading

We will continue reading There's a Boy in the Girl's Bathroom by Louise Sachar as our class reading book. We will also read The Last Wild during guided reading lessons and continue with this through our reading for pleasure time when we have finished this.

English

Our weekly routine will continue to include learning writing skills, spelling and grammar, handwriting and guided reading sessions. Daily reading at home continues to be essential and we would ask that you question your child regularly on the book they are reading to develop a deeper understanding of a range of texts, to develop new vocabulary and strengthen writing skills. Please make a comment in their reading records too.

Writing

During the first half of the Summer term, we are exploring The Paperbag Prince by Colin Thompson to develop our writing skills. We will use this to inspire us to write persuasive texts and information writing.

Reading

Our Guided Reading texts this half term is The Last Wild by Piers Torday and Pollution by The Literacy Company. We will explore the use of inference as well as our retrieval skills. We will also learn about summarising, identifying themes and conventions and identify and evaluate the impact of author language choice. 

Spelling

We will use Pathways to Spell as part of our English lessons to develop spelling strategies and learn spelling rules, as well as the essential Y5/6 words.

Maths

As mathematicians, the children will learn through concrete experiences moving onto pictorial and abstract methods as their confidence builds. They will also be expected to use their learning to reason about maths and solve problems. 

During the first half of the Summer term, we will continue our topic on Fractions. This will include adding, subtracting and multiplying fractions. The BBC Bitesize resource is an excellent way to support children with this: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/topics/zpwbqyc

We will then move on to Decimals and Percentages. In this topic we will learn about converting between decimals and fractions, recognising thousandths alongside tenths and hundredths, rounding decimals and solving problems. 

Science

As scientists, we aim to develop our knowledge and understanding, scientific skills and measuring and recording abilities. During the Summer term we will be studying the topic of Space, where we will learn that the Earth and other planets orbit the Sun, the Moon orbits the Earth, all three are roughly spherical and Earth’s rotation causes day and night as well as the Sun’s apparent movement across the sky. To enrich our learning in Science, we will visit the Planetarium at Liverpool World Museum on 7th May for a workshop called CAPCOM GO!. We will also study Forces, learning that objects fall to Earth due to gravity, moving surfaces experience forces like air resistance, water resistance, and friction, and mechanisms such as levers, pulleys, and gears can amplify force.

Geography

Our Summer term geography topic is Trees. We will study and compare the world’s biomes—especially forests—while using fieldwork to analyse local environmental changes and identify suitable areas for tree planting. We will use mapping skills, including keys and scales, to locate forests globally and understand patterns of change at local, national, and global levels.

RE

For RE we will continue to use the Questful RE planning. This half term we will focus on the question: 

How did the news of Jesus resurrection spread around the world?

The aim of this unit is to: 

• • provide children with an opportunity to gain greater understanding of the lives and resilience of the early Christians.
  • to realise the significance of the life of St Paul and the concept of mission.
  • to learn basic facts about how Christianity spread throughout Britain.  

We will explore through these key questions:

• What happened next after Pentecost?
• How did the news of Jesus’ resurrection spread around the world?
• What is a mission?
• If Paul wrote a letter to the church today, what would he say?
• What motivates you to keep going when things are difficult?

PE

Our PE will explore cricket, rounders and athletics. 

Art and DT

Our Art this term focuses on Art and Religion, considering how different religions express faith. This will enable us to explore colour, light and dark contrasts. We will explore, develop and print patterns used in Islamic art.

PHSE

In PHSE, we will follow the Heartsmart scheme. The focus is 'Fake is a Mistake!' exploring honesty. 

Music

As musicians, we will be using Charanga to explore different music genres and new terminology. This term's topic is Brazillian Samba Drumming. In this topic we will develop ensemble and instrumental skills by performing samba rhythms accurately and expressively, demonstrating awareness of pulse, dynamics, and coordination. We will also compose and perform original Call and Response sections, integrating learned patterns into full samba compositions.

MfL

As linguists, we will learn how to read, write and say more numbers. We will also learn about the preposition 'a', time, days of the week, verbs for leisure activities, il/elle as well as revising colour and describing the garden.

Computing

This term we will learn about Physical Computing, Selection in Quizzes and Privacy and Security. We will use physical computing to understand how conditions (if–then statements) control program flow, building on knowledge of repetition and selection in programming. We will explain what a strong password is and demonstrate how to create one. We will develop knowledge of selection by revisiting how conditions can be used in programs and then learning how the If… Then… Else structure can be used to select different outcomes depending on whether a condition is true or false. 

Homework will be sent out on Friday to be returned on or before the following Wednesday.  We expect this to take about 30 minutes.  Please come and see us if there are any difficulties or write a note on the piece of work. It is important to complete each piece as they will either build on taught skills or pre teach skills ready for the following week.