Art and Design

(Art alternates with DT)

Autumn - "I need space" - This unit focuses on understanding retrofuturism, developing skills in evaluating images and creating art through various drawing processes, including collagraph printmaking. It emphasises the development of pupils' independent artistic skills and their ability to generate, test, and refine ideas in their sketchbooks, leading to a final piece of artwork.

Spring - Painting with mixed media: Portraits - This unit involves investigating self-portraits by a range of artists. The children then use photographs of them-selves as a starting point for developing their own unique self-portraits in mixed-media.

Summer - Craft and Design: architecture - This unit investigates architecture through observational drawing, printmaking, and building design. We also explore architectural elements, looking into the work of Hundertwasser.

Design and Technology

(DT alternates with Art)

Autumn - "Textiles - stuffed toys" - This unit focuses on designing and creating a Christmas themed decoration, learning about templates, materials and techniques.

Spring 2 - Tbc

Summer - This unit delves into Cooking and Nutrition where the focus is looking at processes from farm/field to fork, understanding the nutritional values of a recipe and recipe adaptations. The term culminates with a DT cooking day!

English

Autumn - We start the new academic year looking at a variety of Autumnal Poetry to help create our own, before heading into murky depths of the Anglo-Saxon epic, ‘Beowulf’, to further develop rich and vivid vocabulary.
In whole class reading, we study and investigate a variety of texts to further develop our ‘reading for meaning’ begining with Holes by Louis Sachar and some information texts.

Spring - We head off into Spring at a gallop looking at the colourful, narrative poem ‘The Highwayman’ by Alfred Noyes (some keen students have already noticed that ‘The Highway Rat’ is based upon this!). Following on from this is a deeper delve into ‘Holes’ by Louis Sachar. These key texts will help to develop our oracy (as we practise performing) and descriptive language for writing. In whole class reading, we will continue to study and investigate a variety of texts to further develop our ‘reading for meaning’, starting with ‘The Gauntlet’ by Karuna Riazi.

Summer - We tread carefully into the World War 2 historical fiction ‘Rose Blanche’ which provides a contrasting yet hugely significant element to our History topic. Developing rich vocabulary through written and dramatic elements is our continuing focus.
Following on from this, the next genre is poetry from the World War eras and thence onto Non-Chronological reports and writing explanation texts.

French

Salut!

Continuing with our French linguistic studies, we will be learning about Francophone countries and their weather and tourist attractions. We shall also be learning the names of different items of clothing, holidays and travel, and numbers to 60.

Further into Year 5 through further practice we develop our listening , speaking, reading and writing skills, culminating in revisining, days, months, seasons and birthdays through songs, puppets and games.

Geography

(Geography alternates with History)

Our topics for each term are as follows

(each topic has a main question as well as ancilliary ones to answer):

Autumn - Rivers - What is a river?

Spring - Fairtrade - Why is Fairtrade fair?

Summer - Mountains - Why are mountains so important?

History

(History alternates with Geography)

Autumn - During the darkening days of Autumn we will be delving into the 'Dark Ages', which is the period after the Romans left the British Isles. Our main focus will be the ‘awesome’ Anglo-Saxons, and getting to grips with the sources available to understand if they really were just invaders.

Spring - In a new topic for St Francis, we look at the Kingdom of Benin (which is in present day Nigeria), during the period c. 900AD - 1300AD.

Summer - Our final history topic in the Summer term includes a localised look at how Braintree responded to the outbreak of World War 2 and its involvement in the war effort.

Computing

Throughout Year 5 we develop our knowledge and skills in the vast field of computing. We explore computer systems and networks, vector drawings and continue our work on programming by using Scratch 3.

A further focus includes to develop the use of condition blocks, forces and action blocks and the final topic includes video editing. Alongside each area we evaluate our choices and investigate for limitations and improvements.

Mathematics

In the Autumn term we will be focussing on: place value, the four operations and statistics. We will be using mathematical equipment and pictorial representations to develop our understanding of these concepts.

For the Spring term our topics include: multiplication, division, fractions, decimals, percentages and statistics.

During the Summer term our topics include: more fractions, percentages and decimals, shape, volume and converting measures.

Throughout the year regular practice sessions to work on our fluency and mental maths skills will also continue, as too will the fortnightly arithmetic test.

Music

Autumn 1 - We shall be exploring melody and harmony as well as singing and learning to play, improvise and compose some rhythms on the recorders and glockenspiels. Later in the school year, we shall be learning about composing and chords, creating our own compositions, then moving on to looking at differing musical styles.

During the final Summer term we will continue to develop our instrument playing using a range of instruments culminating in learning to sing the songs for our Summer Show alongside Year 6!

PSHE

PSHE Topics from 'Life to the full'

Autumn - Created to live in community

Spring - Created to love others

Summer - Created and loved by God (this term also inlcudes our RSE topics)

We also look at some additional unit which include: Parliament Week, Anti-bullying, Internet Safety Week, Fairtrade Fortnight and Joy of Movement.

Religious Education

At St. Francis we are begining to implement the RED (Religious Education Directory for Catholic Schools) - 'To know You more clearly' - More information can be found here: RED Catholic Schools

Autumn Term:

Branch 1 - Creation and Covenant

Branch 2 - Prophecy and Promise

Spring Term:

Branch 3 - Galilee to Jerusalem

Branch 4 - Desert to Garden

Summer Term:

Branch 5 - To the ends of the Earth

Pentecost, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, Confirmation, ‘Come Holy Spirit’ prayer, Mary and Discipleship and The Rosary.

Branch 6 - Dialogue and Encounter

Sacred texts of the Bible and links to Judaism Jewish beliefs expressed in the Shema prayer.

Class Worship

In Year 5 the children create and lead their own weekly class worship, and it is also our priviledge to read the Bible lessons for School Mass.

Science

The Autumn term focus looks the physics strand of Science, namely Forces and how they affect us and the world around us. This leads nicely into our topic for second half of the Autumn term when we will launch into our Earth and Space topic!

The Spring term focus will be the chemistry strand of Science. We learn all about Materials and their properties. This also includes investigating reversible and irreversible changes, how mixtures can be separated, and about solutions and suspensions.

Finally, the Summer term focus is the biology strand of Science. This includes learning all about Living Things and their habitats including the sexual and asexual reproduction of plants, how humans change during puberty, and the lifecycles of different living things.

For all topics we work scientifically through investigations to deepen our understanding of the three strands of science.

P.E

P.E. days for Autumn Term 2025

First half term:

Wednesday - P.E (Colchester United)

Friday - Dance (with Rachel)

Second half term:

Monday

Tuesday (Colchester United)

Please ensure named P.E. kits are in school, hair is tied back and earrings removed.

Other information

During the course of the school year, some of our lessons will be taught by experienced Colchester United members, some by our professional dance coach and others by the class teacher.

Our lessons include: dance, invasion games (e.g. hockey), striking and fielding skills, gymnastics, circuits, orienteering, and swimming. Swimming usually takes place in the Spring term but you will receive confirmation of this beforehand.