Year 5
Curriculum Coverage
Language + Questioning = Communication
These three words sit at the heart of our curriculum.
Children need to have:
- a good grasp of language
- be able to question and reason
As a school we use Talk for Writing skills to help develop pupils retelling and language skills. The aims of this is that, if we can talk the story and act out the story, we can write the story.
Autumn Term - Reading Stimulus
This term we have been reading ‘Wolves in the Walls' by Neil Gaiman. When Lucy hears noises from behind the wall she tries to warn her parents that there are wolves banging about. But her parents don't listen. When the wolves finally take over the house and Lucy and her family are evicted to live in the garden, her parents realise perhaps they should have listened. But Lucy is no shrinking violet and pretty soon she has the wolves out and the family back in the house. So what was that noise Lucy heard coming from behind the wall?.
The text has inspired us to develop atmosphere, mood and tension in our own writing.
They will also be reading 'Beowulf' by Michael Morpurgo. In fifth-century Denmark, a murderous monster stalks the night, and only the great prince of the Geats has the strength and courage to defeat him. Beowulf's terrifying quest to destroy Grendel, the foul fiend, a hideous sea-hag and a monstrous fire-dragon is the oldest surviving epic in British literature. Artfully retold and magnificently illustrated, this companion volume to Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is made instantly accessible to children by a formidable children's book partnership.
Autumn Term
Reading
In addition to our main class texts of The Wolves In The Walls and Beowulf, Year 5 have been keen to read texts linked to our Science unit, Earth and Space. In Reading Detectives, and as part of Black History Month, we read about the lives of two very influential women. ‘Counting on Katherine’ is the story of Katherine Johnson, the mathematician who calculated the flight paths for NASA’s first Apollo Moon landing. We also read the biography of Mae Jemison, the first African-American woman to travel in space.
As part of our Reading Enrichment sessions, we have enjoyed reading ‘Curiosity’ a story told from the point of view of the Mars rover and ‘When We Walked On The Moon’ a text all about the problems and successes of the six manned Apollo Moon landings.
Spring Term - Reading Stimulus
Welcome back to a new year in Year 5! This term, we will be reading The Nowhere Emporium by Ross Mackenzie. Through this text we will be refining our setting descriptions to describe them precisely as well as further developing characterisation skills through character actions and dialogue.
‘The Nowhere Emporium is open for business. Bring your imagination’.
Be prepared to learn about The Book of Wonders and the magical world of the Nowhere Emporium.
English – Writing
Year 5 are developing their stamina for writing and have already completed a range of genres in fiction and non-fiction linked to our class texts. This has included: setting descriptions; characterisation paragraphs; building tension within a narrative; diaries; non-chronological reports and newspaper reports.
They wrote and presented their non-chronological reports on the theme of wolves to link with our main narrative text.
Summer term Reading Stimulus
Floodland by Marcus Sedgwick.
Imagine that a few years from now England is covered by water, and Norwich is an island.
Zoe, left behind in the confusion when her parents escaped, survives there as best she can. Alone and desperate among marauding gangs, she manages to dig a derelict boat out of the mud and gets away to Eels Island. But Eels Island, whose raggle-taggle inhabitants are dominated by the strange boy Dooby, is full of danger too.
The belief that she will one day find her parents spurs Zoe on to a dramatic escape in a story of courage and determination that is handled with warmth and humanity.
