Friday 5th May

Welcome to this week’s blog from Year 5F.

Maths – The children have been looking at how percentages might be used in real-life situations.

They have been answering word problems based around finding a fraction of an amount. For example…

JD Sports is having an amazing sale on all their trainers, 30% off the regular price. You find the Converse trainers that you've been wanting for the past year. They were £60 before the sale. How much are they now?

The question is asking you to find 30% of £60. The easiest way to answer this is to find 10% first which you do by dividing by ten…

£60÷10=£6

…then you need to multiply the answer to 10% by 3 and that will give you 30%...

£6x3=£18

Finally, you need to deduct 30% from the original price…

£60-£18=£42

So, the new price of the Converse trainers would be £42.

English – The children have continued looking at the spelling rules for

words with the endings ent…ence…ency. Also, they have continued with our topic called BATTLE CRIES. The children have written the final draft of their Battle Cry. They have also begun to write cue cards to help them perform their Battle Cry speech out loud. They will be filming each other performing them over the coming weeks.

Topic – The children have been finding out what life was like in Ancient Greece for the Athenians and the Spartans. They have looked at how very different life was in both of these city states. The Athenians valued education and all boys went to school. Whereas, in Sparta boys learned how to become great warriors from the age of 7. They remained in the Army until the age of 60, when they were finally allowed to retire. Athens had a great Navy, whilst Sparta had the strongest Army in the Mediterranean. Athens was a democracy, the men (but not the women) were each given a vote to choose their government. On the other hand, Sparta was ruled by two kings.

Science – The children have been thinking about the force called FRICTION. Friction is the force which slows things down. It happens when two surfaces rub up against each other. Last week, the children planned an experiment to see that if they changed the surface when pulling a shoe if it would affect the amount of force needed. This week, they have carried out the experiment. The surfaces they used were a classroom table, the classroom carpet and outside on the playground. They discovered that the rougher the surface the more force needed to move the shoe. Alternatively, the smoother the surface the less force needed to move the shoe.

Here is our CERTIFICATE WINNER for this week. She won for channeling her ‘Inner Warrior’ in her SPECTACULAR Battle Cry. Her inspiring words rallied the troops! She went on to be chosen for THE UPPER PHASE PUPIL OF THE WEEK and takes the trophy home till next Friday. A big well done to her from us all.

All that remains to say is have a fabulous weekend and we’ll see you again on Monday.

Finally, have your say.  Each week you will have a chance to decide on which new song we will learn in next week's whole school assembly.  Click on the link below to take part in an online vote. (Note -this is carried from last week's choices.)