Today the children spent the day in an amazing Ancient Greek workshop. They started the morning with an assembly where our workshop leader told the children about different Ancient Greek myths and had them act out exciting parts of the story. We learnt that the city of Troy was in fact burnt to the ground and was found to be covered in a layer of ash. After our assembly, we took part in three fun activities. One where we went head to head with each other playing a board game of Athens v Sparta, this activity taught us the skills warriors would need; perseverance, patience and being able to think two steps ahead. Another included using the classroom and capitalising on the Ancient Greek information boards to answer questions of a fascinating quiz….we learnt so much. Did you know the brand Nike is named after an Ancient Greek Nike who was the god of victory? The wings have also been flipped on their side and now look like ticks! Finally some Maths, we used our problem solving skills to create a rectangle using different shapes…it was really tough but we persevered. This helped us gain a deeper understanding of the complexity of some of the Maths problems the Greek philosophers helped the world solve. We ended the day all together as a year group and went head to head in a warfare game, learning about the skills and equipment of the hoplites (soldiers). Have a look at the pictures to see how immersed the children were in their Ancient Greek Day.

In 5P, we adore our opportunities in the week for ‘reading for pleasure’. As you can see here, the children are completely lost in their books – it’s evident to see that their love of reading is flourishing!

Children working in pairs to edit their work, including up-levelling their word choices and ensuring they have included our targets (time fronted adverbials, modal verbs and persuasive language).

A special and thoroughly enjoyable first week of Arts Fortnight, where we are exploring the Ancient Greek myth of Icarus. With our celebration on Friday afternoon, I won’t say much more – enjoy these fantastic photos of the class collaborating and creating together.

This week in 5P the children, during History, explored the concept of democracy, comparing the present day to Ancient Greece. This fed in to our big question this half term – ‘is democracy always fair?’. This lesson was filled with opportunities for class debate, thought chains, freeze frames and opinion polls.

Above, you can see the children further exploring our model text, Theseus and the Minotaur, during our Writing lessons. Here, pupils decoded and collected important and exciting features in the text.

In Maths, we contained with our place value unit. The photos show the children’s initial work looking in to the powers of 10. 5P thrived during their independent work due to this initial paired discussion using manipulatives.

What an amazing first week it’s been. It has been a joy spending time together as a class, with every child being on the recognition board, if not multiple times – well done 5P! We’ve hit the ground running with our Ancient Greece unit for our Autumn 1 term. On the first day, the children enjoy Arithmetic Olympics – working in groups as part of an Active Maths session linked to Ancient Greece.

The children thoroughly enjoyed our first Science lesson in Y5. Here, we investigated the properties of everyday materials, using our Scientific knowledge and vocabulary to identify similar and different properties amongst the materials.

As part of our Stranger or Neighbour unit, the children have been exploring and learning about the experiences of those who migrate, both forced and voluntary. This has complimented our reading of ‘The boy at the back of the class’, which follows the life of a child refugee starting at a new school in England. To symbolise the journey of those who migrate, the children are creating collaborative pieces of Art around a feather and wing.

During Our Writing lessons, we have been investigating our new model text, ‘The First Day’. In order for the pupils to pay close attention to the literary tools in the text, 5P headed to the Dance Studio to act out the model text. Here, the children paid close attention verb choices, speech, ‘show not tell’ language and the position of characters in relation to frontier adverbials/prepositions.