Autumn Term

To celebrate the end of term, the whole school performed in a Winter Concert. Year 5 rehearsed 'Silent Night' for weeks before the concert with our singing teacher, Jenny. Children sang as a whole class, in groups, in duets and we even had two soloists brave enough to sing in front of the whole school community alone. They were fantastic! As part of the festive celebrations, children also took part in a festive lunch, party games, a visit from Santa, and much more! 

At the end of the term, we performed in our annual school 'Winter Music Concert'. Children worked so hard in their Music lessons all term, and it culminated in a wonderful performance of 'Yellow Bird' played expertly on the guitar. Take a look at our performance. 

Each year group, in Autumn, takes part in their own Geography Bee- this is a special quiz designed to test the children's knowledge of the term's Geography learning. Children are encouraged to revisit knowledge regularly, create their own revision tools and play lots of memory and recall games. This term, Year 5 learnt about key physical features around the world. It is important to understand these facts as it helps children's contextual knowledge of globally significant places and it improves, and widens,  their locational knowledge. 

Researching Physical Features Around the World: 

Mountains, Rivers, Volcanoes, Biomes, Climate Zones, Landlocked Countries, Temperature

Creating Memory Aides- Revisiting and Reviewing Knowledge

Flashcards, Memory Games, Top Trumps, Retrieval Exercises, Mapping Tasks

Final Geography Bee Winners

Year 5 visited the British Film Institute to learn more about bullying to celebrate Anti-Bullying Week and to support our learning in Life Skills. We watched different clips from a number of films and took a deep dive into what we saw and how it related to bullying. We learnt about the difference between being a bystander vs being upstanding and how we can use our power for good. Throughout the workshop, our students made confident, inspiring and thoughtful comments to not only each other, but to the whole auditorium which was full of lots of other schools. We were very proud of their contributions and were impressed with how much new knowledge they also learnt throughout the day. Take a look at our visit and some of the comments about what we learnt. 

This week, we blasted off our new Science topic, 'Space' in style. Year 5 visited the Science Museum to explore the newly opened 'Space Gallery'. Here, we saw famous artefacts like the Apollo 10 command module, a 3 billion year old piece of Moon rock, and Tim Peake's iconic spacecraft- Soyuz. We watched a special 'Rocket Show' where we learnt all about Newton's Law of Motion; we became human rockets and watched an ethanol rocket take off in front of our very eyes. Finally, we visited the fantastic 'Wonderlab'- an interactive gallery where we took part in over 50 eye-opening experiments. Take a look at our fantastic visit. Thank you as ever to the adults and parents who volunteer their time to accompany us on trips- we couldn't do it without you!

Year 5 were responsible for hosting this year's Harvest Celebrations. We performed in a special show which explained the importance of this festival and what it symbolises around the world. We also, with the help of the rest of the school, collected and organised food donations in which we then donated to 'The Renewal Project' in Newham- a charity that acts as a food bank to our local community. Thank you again to all of our community for showing such generosity with their donations- it means a lot and shows our children what care, community spirit and generosity looks like!

WDPS Food Bank Collections Ready to Be Taken to Newham Food Bank

Thank you everyone for your generous contributions!

Organising and packing up the generous donations given by our WDPS community.

It's time for the Year 5 2025 Harvest Assembly...

Learning our lines for our assembly- we are working hard to project our voices loudly and to pronounce our words clearly. 

Back for our fifth year of celebrating Hello Yellow, Year 5 took part in a whole-day of looking after, and learning about, our mental health and well being. 

We started the day by taking some time to play and explore with our friends- we felt relaxed, calm and ready for the day. We played with playdough, made up songs, did some colouring, created art, played cards and chatted with friends. 

Later, we had a whole school assembly with Ms Zoric, learning about how to help other people with their mental health. We talked about it being difficult sometimes to talk to other about their feelings, but decided that even though it was hard, it was very important to try! We finished up the assembly with some mindful colouring together- we were calm, happy, rested and feeling yellow. 

After that, we learnt all about doing 'challenging' things and reflecting on how it makes us feel. We learnt some Morse Code, which was new to us, and had to decipher secret messages- we talked about the fact that we found some of it easy and some of it hard; we discussed different strategies we'd used to overcome the challenging parts and how it felt to finally figure out the code which was 'The Farm Is A Trap'. 

How did you feel when solving the Morse codes?

"It was easy until the flickering lights message." Yusuf I 

"I was kind of confused because I wasn't used to using Morse code." Ali

What were the difficulties in completing the challenge?

"When the lights flickered, I thought that was a message but I couldn't work it out. After watching it a few times, I realised the flashers WERE the code. " Hamdan

How did you deal with these difficulties?

"I concentrated and focused on the lights, then I looked at the resources that Ms Zoric gave us, and realised I could work it out." Lacey

Next up, we learnt all about having a 'Fixed Mindset vs Growth Mindset'. We watched a video of 2 children who were having a challenging time in their Maths lesson. One student had a fixed mindset whereas the other student had a growth mindset. We noticed differences between how the 2 children approached the lesson, how they talked about themselves and to themselves, and how their bodies reacted differently. We gave Lucas, who had a fixed mindset, some advice to change his thinking to a growth mindset. 

What advice would you give to Lucas to change his fixed mindset into a growth mindset?

We ended the day playing lots of games and activities- all designed to support our mental health. Some games helped us feel calm, some activities encouraged us to think about what makes us happy, some activities prompted us to make someone else feel happy and valued, some activities helped us to be reflective of ourselves and some activities prompted us to just reeeeelax. All in all- we had a successful, mindful and fun Hello Yellow 2025.  

We visited the British Museum at the end of our learning journey. We visited the Ancient Greece exhibitions and galleries and were amazed to see so many artefacts depicting what we'd been studying in our classroom. We spent lots of time looking for evidence of Theseus and the Minotaur and were very excited when we found some pottery with them on and a map of the Palace of Minos and the Labyrinth! We used tablets with augmented reality technology whilst exploring the Parthenon Gallery- we could actually see what the Parthenon would have looked like if it was right in front of us. Children took part in a hunt for clues around the gallery and revisited key facts about Ancient Greece. A fun, fact-filled day for Y5!

Here at WDPS, we place importance on our children learning values that will prepare them for life. Children apply for roles such as Peer Mediator, Junior Librarian, School Council and/or Eco Ambassadors. These roles are designed to learn the importance of responsibility, team-work, organisation, problem-solving, public speaking and sharing ideas respectfully, amongst many more skills. 

"You have very important responsibilities- we help make the school better." Ali 

"Future leaders help people, like at playtime- if people are arguing then peer mediators help them become friends again. Assembly monitors help out the whole school like when they set up the Influential People Assembly." Hamdan

"The teachers trust us to have different responsibilities. I'm an assembly monitor- I take responsibility for setting up the technology." Saarah

Art & Design is when we learn about exercising our artistic choices and reflect upon the works of influential artists. 

It is important to learn about Ancient Greek art because it provides us with an insight into life in Ancient Greece. 

Music is a subject where we learn about the art and science of sound, and where we learn to play different musical instruments (including our voices).

It is important to learn the guitar as it is a skill that you can continue to develop and which also has many transferable skills. 

P.E. is when we learn about technical movements/skills, improving our fitness, the rules of games, being competitive and working collaboratively.

It is important to learn about Gymnastics because it is important to build our strength, balance and flexibility safely.

Progression to L-Shape Handstand to Forward Roll

Progression to Balanced Cartwheel

Progression to Handspring Vault

Progression to Back Bend 

Consolidating Gymnastics Shapes

History is when we learn about the past and how we interpret the past, and the impact on the present day. 

In History, it is important to learn about the Ancient Greeks because it helps us understand how their ideas and innovations continue to impact our world today.