Buzzards' Class Story
23.02.2026 Shackleton
In Year 5, we will be learning about the famous explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his incredible journey to Antarctica. We will explore who Shackleton was, why he wanted to explore the Antarctic, and the extreme challenges he and his crew will face during the Endurance expedition. We will learn about the harsh Antarctic environment, including freezing temperatures, dangerous ice, and long periods of darkness. We will discuss how these conditions will affect the crew and the important leadership qualities Shackleton will show, such as resilience, teamwork, and determination, which will help everyone survive. As part of this topic, we will study newspaper reports to understand how journalists present information. We will learn about key features such as headlines, subheadings, quotations, eyewitness accounts, and chronological order. We also will explore how facts and dramatic language are used to engage the reader. We will use our historical learning to write our own newspaper reports about Shackleton’s expedition. We will plan, draft, and improve our writing, making sure our reports include accurate facts, clear paragraphs, and exciting language. We will think carefully about how to report events in a clear and informative way, just like real journalists.
12.02.2026 What a waste
In Year 5, we have been learning about the environment and why it is important to take care of our planet. We focused on waste, where it comes from, and how too much waste can harm animals, oceans, land and people. We compared different types of waste, including plastic, food waste and packaging, and discussed what happens when waste is not recycled properly. We explored ideas such as reduce, reuse and recycle, and talked about how the small choices we make every day can help protect the environment and discussed why waste is a serious environmental problem and why change is needed. As part of our learning, we were visited by Carymoor Environmental Centre, who helped us deepen our understanding of waste and sustainability. During the visit, we learnt what happens to our rubbish after it is thrown away, how landfill sites work, and how we can make more environmentally friendly choices in our everyday lives. We learnt how writers use facts, statistics and emotive language to influence people’s behaviour and practised organising our ideas into clear paragraphs and writing in a way that would inform and persuade others to care for the planet. We then wrote a letter to our local MP, persuading him to do more to protect the environment. We planned, drafted and improved our writing carefully, suggesting practical ways to reduce waste at home and at school, such as recycling more, wasting less food and choosing reusable items... showing how small changes can make a big difference!
07.02.2026 Materials and their properties
In Year 5, we have been learning about materials and the properties they have. Materials are what objects are made from, such as wood, metal, plastic, glass, fabric and rubber. We discovered that each material has special features that make it useful for different jobs. We learnt about properties like hard, soft, flexible, rigid, waterproof, absorbent, transparent, opaque, magnetic and conductive. For example, we found out that glass is transparent, metal is strong and sometimes magnetic, and fabric can be soft and absorbent. We also explored how materials can be grouped and sorted by their properties. This helped us understand how scientists choose the best material for a purpose, such as using metal for cooking pans or plastic for bottles. During this topic, we investigated ways to separate materials, including filtering, sieving and using magnets. We also looked at how materials can change. Some changes were reversible, like melting and freezing, while others were irreversible, like burning. By the end of our learning, we were able to describe different materials, compare their properties, and explain why certain materials are used for specific objects — just like real scientists!
