History - Baghdad 900 CE

Studying Baghdad in 900 CE challenges any current conceptions that children may have of the region and develops an appreciation of its significance as a centre for learning in world history. It offers an opportunity for children to compare the construction of Baghdad with other European settlements they have studied, for example the rebuilding of London after the Great Fire of London.

 In this unit children look at the location of Baghdad at a crossing point for traders and also its proximity to the River Tigris. Children will use their prior knowledge of what factors lead to settlements developing in particular locations to understand why Caliph Al-Mansur built Baghdad. Their understanding of rivers will help them to recognise the importance of the River Tigris. Children finish the unit with a powerful mental image of the waters of the River Tigris running black from the ink washed from books seized by the Mongols from the House of Wisdom.

During this unit, children are building on well-established substantive concepts of power, religion, civilisation and conflict. Again, as has happened throughout their history curriculum, they see people rise and fall, power change hands and a violent end to a golden age in the history of a city. They also have a chance to build on their ideas of scholarship and wisdom through looking at the focus on academic study in Baghdad in c.900 CE. In this unit the children will learn about how historians find out about Baghdad, using sources from the time including written accounts. The children will have opportunities to handle these sources and make interpretations.

Art and Design - Style in Art

This unit considers style in art by first considering how artists can use different techniques to alter their style. Children start by comparing different styles of brushwork demonstrated by Stubbs in Whistlejacket and by Munch in The Scream of Nature. They draw pears using contrasting techniques, creating visible marks in oil pastels in the manner of Van Gogh and smooth modelling using soft pastels in the manner of Stubbs. They go on to compare two radically different styles, rococo and modernism, analysing the differences they see in painting and chair design. This leads to a more detailed analysis of modernism, looking at abstract art of the 20th century and using their developing knowledge of colour theory to design and create their own abstract work using acrylic on canvas.

Computing - Systems and Searching

Pupils develop their understanding of computer systems and how information is transferred between systems and devices. The children consider small-scale systems as well as large-scale systems. They explain the input, output, and process aspects of a variety of different real-world systems. Pupils discover how information is found on the World Wide Web, through learning how search engines work (including how they select and rank results) and what influences searching, and through comparing different search engines.

Geography - Spatial Sense

This unit builds on children’s understanding of globes and maps. Latitude and longitude are taught to enable children to gain an understanding of how cartographers divide the world into segments to allow identification of locations using co-ordinates. Children will become familiar with the Prime Meridian line and will use co-ordinates to identify locations around the world. Children will also build on their knowledge of the Northern and Southern Hemispheres, from previous units, and will look at the Eastern and Western Hemispheres. Moving on with their understanding of maps from Year 4, children will look at scale again, and will use map scale to calculate distance between locations. Children will learn that relief maps show the height of land and will find out how on large scale maps, contours can be used to show land height. Children will draw a contour map for a locally relevant area of elevation.

Science - Materials

In this unit, children will will look at the most suitable material for thermal conductivity and will analyse different materials and their properties.  Children will move on to studying solubility; which materials are soluble and what it means to be soluble.

Children will then take their science learning on further to look at separating mixtures through sieving, filtering and evaporating. They will work scientifically to separate a mixture using a range of tools and methods.  They will learn about the scientist Jabir ibn Hayyan, who is thought to have invented a crucial tool for the distillation process; the alembic still. Reversible and irreversible changes will be studied as children deepen their understanding of dissolving, mixing and changing state.