History

Baghdad c.900 CE

Children look at the location of Baghdad as a crossing point for traders due to its proximity to the River Tigris. Children will understand why Caliph Al-Mansur built Baghdad.  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.

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.

Design & Technology

Cams Toys

Children will make a toy which moves up and down using a cams mechanism.

Geography

Spatial Sense Y5

Each year our geography curriculum begins with a ‘Spatial Sense’ unit that explicitly teaches geographical skills such as locating places on a map, positioning items on a map, using symbols in a key, interpreting scale, reading climate graphs, identifying locations using co-ordinates, interpreting population data, identifying elevation on relief maps and more.

The spatial sense units for each year group are positioned at the beginning of the year to explicitly teach skills which will then be used in context throughout the rest of the year as children apply those skills to learn more about people, places and the environment.

Science

Materials

In this unit, children will revisit the concept of conductivity. They will look at the most suitable material for thermal conductivity and will analyse different materials and their properties. After revisiting this knowledge, 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.