3 minute read
Year 5
This year’s cohort of Year 5s have impressed from the start, particularly for their abilities to work in teams, all working cohesively together and just being a thoroughly lovely lot of children, eager to learn and do the right thing.
This shone through at Cobnor at the beginning of the Autumn Term, whilst tackling the challenges of outdoor learning. There were many highlights for the children: sailing their own boat, building and racing rafts, canoeing and the challenging climbing wall. Two nights away from home can sometimes be a bit daunting, but there was no evidence of this and just weary, a little grubby, but very smiley faces on return! Both classes visited Selborne Study Centre to support their science topic on plant life cycles. Exploring plant life, the children undertook flower dissections and used microscopes to observe plants in beautiful detail. They also hypothesised the ideal growing environment for ferns and ascended the zigzag path to test their hypothesis.
Following the scientific theme, later in the term, the children continued the Year 5 tradition of going to the Senior School and becoming ‘Science Gophers’ for the afternoon. In their goggles and lab coats they all looked very much the part and loved the opportunity to take part in ‘real-life Science’. There was much fizzing and bubbling and going up in a puff of smoke! Luckily the same number of children were sent home as had attended at the beginning! The Spring Term brought other wonderful learning opportunities and one of these was linked to the children’s History topic on the Tudors. A theatre troupe of five actors from ‘The Young Shakespeare Company’ brought a touch of summer to January in the guise of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. The children participated in every act with all taking a role of some sort. It brought the story to life and everyone left the studio buzzing with excitement. There could not have been a better way to introduce Shakespeare to young people.
In Music the children had communal rehearsals for the Petersfield Music Festival, travelling to three different venues to meet with all the other schools involved. Despite the final concert sadly being cancelled due to the impending lockdown, the children gained a greater understanding of choral singing and practised a breadth of songs from classical through to Louis Armstrong.
As the Spring Term drew to a close and school was forced to close, the children fully embraced their home learning experience. The teachers were impressed by their efforts from home and topics like space in Science and the Aztecs in History were being covered remotely via Firefly and Seesaw, as well as continuing with their Maths and English in live lessons and gaining a sense of togetherness in live class ‘meets’.
It was a wonderful reward for all that hard work and resilience working from home when Year 5 were able to return to school for the last three weeks of term. Working in three year group bubbles allowed the children to forge new friendships with their peers and experience different teachers. They spent the mornings studying core subjects like English, Maths and Verbal Reasoning and the afternoons covering more specialist teaching subjects like Art, French and Computing. The afternoons gave the children the opportunity to explore their imaginations during ‘creativity time’. This culminated in two afternoon performances and presentations across the bubbles.
The time back at school enabled the year to close on a high of enthusiasm and smiles and although it is not something to be repeated, the appreciation of being in school after such a long time away was clearly visible across the year group. Albeit a different and challenging year, the Year 5s have had much success academically and personally and left the year ready for a well-deserved break and fully prepared to face the next adventure, Year 6!
