St Joseph's Catholic Primary School and Nursery

Feast Day 29^th April - 'Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire'

Class Teachers - Mrs Westall & Mrs Garner

Teaching Assistants - Miss Shepherd

One of our key focuses in Year 5 is preparing children for the transition into Year 6.  We teach them English and Maths based on the National frameworks and cover other subjects using our Creative Curriculum.  We actively encourage our children to use independence and creativity across our range of subjects.

“On Tuesday 24^th January, our Year 5s enjoyed a fascinating visit to the West Berkshire Museum. We were treated to an interesting talk on where the Anglo-Saxons came from and the children had the opportunity to handle artefacts discovered from the age. Encouraged to use their detective skills, they successfully attempted to deduce what the objects were and how they would have been used 1400 years ago.

In addition to this, the children had the chance to experience writing with runes, exploring the exhibits in the museum, dressing in Anglo-Saxon clothes and clay printing with replica stamps from the time.  The excitement and chatter on the walk to and from the museum would definitely suggest the children had a very rewarding morning.” Mrs Garner

On Thursday, we went on an exciting trip to Rushall Farm. We travelled by coach and arrived just after 10 oclock. When we arrived we split into two groups and then went to our activities.

 Group 1 went to do pond dipping, where we found lots of different wildlife, that lived in the pond. Some of the things we found were water beetles, water scorpion, tadpoles, pond skaters, pond snails, leeches and Shrimp. The other group went on a tractor ride, to a safe area of the river Pang, where they were learning about the features of a river - sketching in detail the meander, using technical vocabulary and marking these on our sketches. We then swapped groups and completed the same activities.

After lunch, which we ate on the picnic tables, we had a challenging time, putting on our waders! These kept us dry in the river and also made us concentrate really hard to learn how to balance and walk in them, as they were slightly big for some people!

After we were successfully kitted up, we went on a longer tractor ride, to the Bradfield college. Where we walked to the deeper section of the river. We learnt how to measure the depth, width and the velocity of the section of river – using poles, tape measures and an orange!

We then explored the river looking to see what lives in the river, using our nets - we even caught some fish!

We had a fantastic day, where we learnt many new skills, fell over in the water ( not on the plan) and had a fun time, discovering new species.

Reading & supporting homework

We encourage children to become successful independent learners in order to prepare the children for year 6.  Children are encouraged to manage their own time in relation to homework and to use their creativity and imagination when carrying out the tasks.  

For Maths games, have a look at Woodlands Junior and BBC Bitesize.

Alex Y5 -'' The fire engines were very nice. They showed us all the gear, like the 'claws of life' and they showed us gigantic snippers to cut open car doors. We got to wear some of their uniform.We got to have a picture in front of the fire truck. They taught us about fire alarms and they showed us a heart beat sensor that shows the heat in everything to see if is cold or warm''

Y5 have been looking at sustainablity. They have planted lots of vegetables

Alex Y5 - ''We planted cress, potatoes, onions, radish and we cut open a big pepper in half and we put half of it inside of a pot and filled it up. We didn't know if it was going to work but we hope it will grow and help climate change.''

On Thursday, Year 5 visited the Newbury Museum to coincide with their current history module the Anglo Saxons. The children were able to look at some ancient artefacts from the period and had to guess the material and what it may be have been used for. The children were then split up into groups and took part in some exciting activities within the museum including Anglo Saxon dress up, treasure hunt, clay printing and ancient rune reading! It was a lovely trip, worth getting soaked in the rain for on the way back to school!

“This week in Year 5 we did many interesting things! We did a fun tennis session on PE, working in partners practising throwing and tossing a tennis ball with a racket. We also did research on Poland, comparing Poland’s weather with the UK on a weather chart. Later in the week we did D&T which was very tricky, but we all tried hard and eventually did it well. We used paper to make cubes, using glue to stick the sides of our cubes together. Later on we will make them out of wood.” Rose, Y5

We have some very talented artists in Year 5 well done Avyaktha and Aneesh