Year 5 Curriculum News 

Term 3, 2025 

We hope you had a rejuvenating break! Get ready for an amazing term ahead! 

We are diving deep into our unit of Inquiry on ‘How we express ourselves’ where we investigate the power of influence and gearing up for learning about our parliamentary system in ‘How we organise ourselves’. 

We have a lot of other fun activities lined up including the House Athletics Carnival, Book Week, Year 5 Wellbeing incursion, Parliament Process incursion, Student Led Conferences, School Disco and the Beaumaris Secondary school production of ‘Puffs’. It sure will be a busy and unforgettable term! 

Units of Inquiry 

How we express ourselves

Factors within our environment influence the way people express themselves.  

Lines of inquiry: 

• The ways we are influenced by communication

• How social interactions influence people’s engagement

• The difference in language between opinions and feelings and factual reporting or recording

How we organise ourselves

Government systems impact the citizens of a country. 

Lines of inquiry: 

• Government Systems  

• The role and responsibilities of governments 

• The development of laws 

• The Election Process 

Reminders

Year 5/6 Sport Program 

This term the focus for Friday sport will be on athletic skills and events in preparation for our House Athletics Carnival as well as teamwork and sportsmanship. Further details will be provided regularly in Compass. 

Homework and Student Diaries 

Weekly homework tasks will continue to be set this term reinforcing the expectations around independence, time management, organisation skills and presentation of bookwork. 

Homework catchup will be offered on Fridays during recess or lunch for students who choose not to complete the required tasks. We remind parents to regularly check in with their child’s progress at home and initial their child’s diary on Thursdays. 

As a reminder, student homework books and diaries are to be returned to school on Fridays unless a prior arrangement has been made with your child’s classroom teacher. 

Literacy 

Writing 

During our Writers Workshop and Daily 5 Work on Writing sessions, students will be learning more about the different ways they can organise their writing through experimentation with different genres structures. They will be improving their ability to use complex sentences and add more detail in their writing.  

Reading 

We are making progress with reading strategies using the CAFÉ reading comprehension framework this term. Students will continue to develop their ability to: identify implied meaning when reading; will use the skill of finding the main idea to summarise texts; determine between fact and opinion and bias and prejudice to deepen their comprehension of texts; and will be asking questions throughout the reading process to clarify their understanding. 

In small groups, we will be exploring a range of mentor texts to assist student’s further comprehension, making connections and drawing conclusions from the author’s clues. 

Students will also be investigating non-fiction books from our school library related to the units of inquiry to locate information. 

Spelling 

Students will expand their vocabulary through our weekly SMART Spelling focus words as well as unit of inquiry specific vocabulary. Students will be encouraged to access their dictionary, thesaurus and related online word lists to provide more interesting word choice in their writing.   

Speaking and Listening 

Being an attentive listener is a skill we expect students to demonstrate by listening carefully and respectfully when their teachers or peers are speaking. 

Students will continue to build their confidence when speaking in front of an audience as they collaborate with others in small group projects relating to our units of inquiry. We will continue working on our DaVinci Projects next term as an optional activity for students who would like to further explore an area they are interested in. 

Students will be encouraged to informally present their project to their class to improve their public speaking skills. 

Numeracy 

Number 

This term we will continue to revise concepts in number including identifying and describing factors and multiples, investigating strategies to solve addition and subtraction of fractions with the same denominator, mathematical algorithms involving branching and repetition, multiplication and division to find unknown quantities, and comparing, ordering and representing decimals. 

During our problem-solving maths lessons students will be exposed to open-ended questions requiring critical thinking to solve worded questions encompassing place value, fractions, decimals, percentages and applying the four processes. 

Algebra 

Students will continue to make connections between multiplication and division as inverse operations and find the unknown values in numerical equations also using multiplication and division using knowledge of number properties.  

Measurement  

Using concrete materials students will engage in hands on experiments and activities exploring units of measurement, including metric unit conversion, and will compare 12- and 24- hour time systems. 

Statistics  

Students will collect and represent statistical data relating to our unit of inquiry ‘How we organise ourselves’, graphing numerical variables and interpreting information about our system of government. Students will also explore the mean, median, mode and range of a set of data. 

Inclusive Approaches 

In Term 3, our wellbeing program will be explored within our ‘How we express ourselves’ unit of inquiry. 

Students will continue to discover cultural and personal strengths within our Resilience, Rights and Respectful Relationships lessons. Our Cyber Safety lessons will discuss the impact of peer pressure and how this plays a part in influencing our decisions, as well as recognising the positive impact of spreading kindness online. 

Students will also have the opportunity to participate in our Body Education incursion sessions which encourages our students to focus on the importance of respect within relationships and promotes diversity and difference. 

Whole-school Focus on the PYP Learner Profiles 

July – Risk-takers 

We approach uncertainty with consideration and determination; we work independently and cooperatively to explore new ideas and innovative strategies. We are resourceful and resilient in the face of challenges and change. 

August- Balanced  

We understand the importance of balancing different aspects of our lives - intellectual, physical, and emotional to achieve well-being for ourselves and others. We practice mindfulness to create a calm and relaxed environment.

September- Open-minded  

We show appreciation for our own cultures and personal histories. We respect the values and traditions of others. We seek and evaluate a range of points of view.  

Special Events 

• 21 July – Term 3 begins 
• 29 July Year 5 Science incursion 
• 30 July and 1 August Carton Respect incursion  
• 5 August - Curriculum Day
• 8 August – School Disco 
• 19 & 20 August – Student-Led Conferences 
• 16 – 23 August – Book Week 
• 21 August – Beaumaris Secondary School production ‘Puffs’ 
• 27 August – House Athletics Carnival 
• 5 September - Father's Day Stall
• 9 September – Parliament Process incursion 
• 21 September – Last day of Term 3 (early dismissal at 2.30pm)