A Busy Start to 2026!

We’ve had a busy and exciting start to 2026 in Year 5! The children have been working hard across all subjects and have really enjoyed getting stuck into some practical and creative learning.

This week in maths, we have been learning about negative numbers. The children explored how to read, compare, and calculate with numbers below zero. They applied their knowledge to real-life problems, such as measuring temperatures in winter, reading thermometers, and working out temperature changes over time.

Some of the children even challenged themselves with word problems involving both positive and negative numbers, helping them understand how numbers work in the real world.

In literacy, we have started our new unit on instructional texts. For our first lesson, we gave the children a fun challenge: build a bridge using only the materials provided — with no instructions!

The children had to plan carefully, work as a team, and test their designs, thinking about which materials were strongest and how to make their bridges stable. This activity helped them understand the importance of clear instructions and step-by-step explanations, which will be the focus of their writing over the next few weeks.

It was wonderful to see so much creativity, problem-solving, and resilience, with bridges of all shapes and sizes being built in the classroom!

In science, we began our unit on forces. The children learned about the different types of forces, including push, pull, friction, gravity, and magnetic forces.

We explored how forces affect objects in everyday life. For example, the children tested how friction slows objects down, how gravity pulls objects toward the ground, and how push and pull forces can move things in different directions. They also had the opportunity to experiment with forces in action, observing what works and why, which made the learning very hands-on and memorable.

It’s been a fantastic first week back, full of creative thinking, teamwork, and exciting experiments. The children have made a great start to 2026, and we can’t wait to see all the learning, exploring, and growing that will happen over the rest of the term!