For the first half term, Armstrong will be led by the following members of staff

After the half term break, Mrs Smith will be returning from her maternity leave to be the lead teacher for the remainder of the academic year.

Information for parents/carers

Autumn Term Information

Y5 Medium Term Planning Overview [Autumn Term 2025]

Subject Knowledge Organisers

Geography - What was life like in the Alps?

Science - Properties and Changes

Week Beginning 6th October and 13th October

Over the past two weeks, our English lessons have been filled with myth and imagination as we explored non-chronological reports inspired by the Norse Gods featured in Arthur and the Golden Rope. The children began by identifying the key features of this text type, then conducted research on either Odin or Thor. Using their findings, they wrote their own reports, applying the features they had learned to create informative and engaging pieces.

In Maths, we’ve continued our Maths Mastery journey. We’ve been focusing on square numbers, extending our understanding from 12×12 all the way to 20×20! Alongside this, we’ve strengthened our skills in addition and subtraction using column methods, tackled word problems, and explored fact families to deepen our understanding of how operations are connected. We’ve now moved on to multiplication, where we’ve been working with multiples and identifying patterns.

In Science, our investigations have centered around materials and heat. We explored how heating affects different substances and tested whether the changes in state were reversible or irreversible, sparking curiosity and thoughtful discussion.

Our Geography unit on the Alps concluded with a comparative study between Alpine regions and our own town of St Neots.

A highlight of these two weeks was a special visit from an Olympic Paralympian! The children were truly inspired by his story and took part in activities to raise money for charity, showing great enthusiasm, teamwork, and community spirit.

Week Beginning 22nd and 29th September

Over these two weeks, in English we have planned our own adventurous story based on Arthur and the Golden Rope.  We used the concepts from the published story to write an innovative version based on characters and events of our choice.  We looked at cohesion as well as figurative language, varying sentence starts and additional description.  In maths, we started looking at the four number operations - mainly addition and subtraction.  As always, previous content has been consolidated plus focusing on multi-step problems incorporating our mastery approach to learning.  Our geography lessons have allowed us to immerse ourselves within the local area and compare it to Innsbruck (a city along The Alps).  Children have also completed computing, art, music and RE lessons as well as our regular PE with Mr Franco and Mrs Bailey on a Wednesday afternoon.

Week Beginning 8th September and 15th September

Over these two weeks, in English children have spent time looking at 'Arthur and the Golden Rope' - always a popular text at Winhills!  We have been identifying features of adventure stories (which a quest) as well as focusing on high quality sentence writing - using expanded noun phrases as well as figurative language.

Examples of phrases from the class:

• ....frozen, wet and beautiful icebergs slowly danced across the surface of the still, calm water....
• ....the vast green and gorgeous mountains hover over you like massive skyscrapers....
• ....white fluffy clouds peacefully walked across the sky above our heads...

In maths, children have worked on place value while consolidating content already covered in previous years.  We have looked at roman numerals, numbers to one million as well as comparing numbers and comprehending numbers in different forms (e.g. part-whole model, bar model, place value grid, gettegno chart).

In science, children have completed investigations focusing on properties of materials.

Week Beginning 1st September

Welcome back to the Autumn Term, children are now in Year 5!!

This week, the main focus was a gentle return to school with the theme of 'building relationships with one another'.  We completed many activities that were interactive and children having to work with a number of different peers during the week.  We looked at class rules as well as class expectations.  Children completed problem-solving tasks as well as a stand-alone art activity.  All staff who worked in Armstrong class all commented on how the children have quickly settled into school again and on their positive aspirations for the coming year.

Our normal curriculum, as well as homework, will commence next week.