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Our Year 5/6 Curriculum
Year A
Branch One: Creation and covenant
In this branch, pupils will learn about Moses, focusing on two critical events in his life. In the first event in Moses’ life, the children will study his theophany, or ‘God manifestation’, where God reveals his name to Moses and Moses encounters God in the form of a burning bush. We will spend some time reflecting on the words and imagery of the revelation to Moses. Unlike the gods of mythologies, God does not reveal himself as having a ‘superpower’; God is God.
As a class, we will recognise that the Ten Commandments speak to us today, but we will also reflect on the context in which they appear in the Bible. We will learn that if the commandments say what people need to do to flourish, the virtues show people how to live out Jesus’ great commandment and lead a good life. The theological virtues of faith, hope, and love flow from welcoming the love of God and experiencing his loving goodness, or grace, the first part of Jesus’ summary of the law. The cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance help people develop reason, fairness, emotional resilience, and self-mastery habits. They are human virtues and, as such, are part of the development of people of all faiths or none as they learn how to flourish, thrive, and have a life supported by strong and caring relationships.
Branch Two: Prophecy and promise
In this branch, the children will learn about the Prophet Samuel and how he advises the people to rely on God (1 Sam 8:11-18). However, the people persist, and Saul becomes the first king. However, Saul does not prove to be a worthy king and Samuel sets out to find his successor guided by God. David is not chosen because of his power. He comes from humble beginnings, working as a shepherd boy in Bethlehem. These facts are important to the writers of the gospels who see the parallels with Jesus’ birth. When David is anointed the spirit of the Lord is ‘mightily’ upon him, language echoed in Isaiah (61:1) and in St Luke’s gospel as Jesus reads from the scroll announcing the beginning of his ministry (Lk 4:18). Though the children will not know the scriptural references, we will begin to make links with the language used to describe David and the language the gospel writers draw upon to show Jesus is the one spoken of in the Old Testament. David is a
shepherd and in the story of Goliath he speaks of rescuing lambs from the jaws of predators. David is the king who unites the tribes of Israel and conquers Jerusalem, though he remains a shepherd king, caring for his people, rather than the king who demands from his people (the
type of king Samuel warns about). In St John’s gospel (which we will look at next year) Jesus says, ‘I am the good shepherd’ (Jn 10:11) and describes how he nurtures, guides, and protects his flock. Pupils can play with possibilities about the type of king Jesus is and the type of king David is called to be. God makes a covenant with David and promises that one of his descendants will have the throne established forever, which connects to the covenant with Abraham and with the universal kingship of Christ for Christians. Knowing this, pupils can recognise the significance of Jesus’ birthplace and that Joseph is descended from David. As he dies, David urges that the people remain faithful to the law and the covenant. David is significant as he is seen as the great king of the past, the one who unites the people, led them to victory and established a centre of political power in Jerusalem.
(Information from The Religious Education Directory)
Autumn 1
During the first half term, the children will be reading Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. The children will look at a range of techniques used by the author and they will try to use these in their own writing. We will be focusing on including the following objectives in our writing:
– complex sentences using ing opening clauses
– relative clause sentences which use the relative pronouns who, which and that
– sentences which openers with simile starters (further stretch)
– a range of sentences which have been purposely used for effect
– examples where action, dialogue and description have been blended together either in paragraphs or within sentences.
Over the half term, we will build to writing our own adventure story using all the skills we have been practising as well as a newspaper report. We will then look at writing a survival guide and we will identify key features of instructional writing to help us do this.
Autumn 2
Linking to our History unit of World War 2, we will be reading a book called Letters from the Lighthouse by Emma Carroll. In this unit, we will include a range of short burst writing opportunities to allow the children the opportunity to write in different styles. We will explore a range of propaganda posters from the war and listen to radio announcements before writing our own. To finish off the unit, we will build to writing a formal letter to the Ministry of Defence – this will give us the opportunity to carefully select our vocabulary to ensure it is appropriate for the task.
All children in Year 5 and 6 will start the year off by focusing on place value. Year 5 will be working with numbers up to 1,000,000 and Year 6 will be working with numbers up to 10,000,000. Once the children have mastered their knowledge of place value, they will move on to deepening their understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. The children will be taught formal written methods but they will also be challenged to use their knowledge of number to access questions without relying on written methods. At St Anthony’s, we use practical resources to ensure that the children have a thorough understanding of each unit that is taught.
Module 1: Created and Loved by God
Created and Loved by God explores the individual. Rooted in the teaching that we are made in the image and likeness of God, it helps children to develop an understanding of the importance of valuing themselves as the basis for personal relationships.
Module 2: Created to Love Others
Created to Love Others explores the individual’s relationship with others. Building on the understanding that we have been created out of love and for love, this module explores how we take this calling into our family, friendships and relationships, and teaches strategies for developing healthy relationships and keeping safe both online and in our daily lives.
In our Geography lessons this half term, the children have been learning about the Kanto region in Japan. This topic links to our work on ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ in English. We have been learning about the human and physical features of the region. The children were very excited to find out that there is a Disneyland Japan! As well as this, we used our geography skills to research the region and then compare it to England. We finished the topic by creating travel guides to the Kanto region.
In Years 5 and 6, the children have two hours of Physical Education a week. The first half term, the children will be learning skills linked to Hockey in their outdoor session and they will be creating a dance based off Robinhood in their indoor session.
In the second half term, they will be focusing on teamwork and collaboration in their Orienteering unit and they will be sequencing moves in gymnastics to create a routine in pairs.
During our Science lessons, we have been learning about Earth and Space and how day and night are created. The children have created an investigation to find out how the length of shadows changes during the day and what this tells us about the relationship between the earth and the sun. The investigation was good fun and we definitely have a school full of budding scientists.
During the first half term, we enjoyed looking at a range of Japanese Art. We explored with colour mixing and created our own versions of Hokusai’s ‘The Great Wave’.
We then looked at Manga Art and researched and designed our own characters after researching the history of it.
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