St Margaret'sC of E Primary School

Curriculum  »  Science  »  Year 5

In Year 5, our children enjoy hands-on, practical Science learning and we focus on the following working scientifically skills:
  • planning different types of scientific enquiries to answer questions, including recognising and controlling variables where necessary
  • taking measurements, using a range of scientific equipment, with increasing accuracy and precision, taking repeat readings when appropriate
  • recording data and results of increasing complexity using scientific diagrams and labels, classification keys, tables, scatter graphs, bar and line graphs
  • using test results to make predictions to set up further comparative and fair tests
  • reporting and presenting findings from enquiries, including conclusions, causal relationships and explanations of and degree of trust in results, in oral and written forms such as displays and other presentations
  • identifying scientific evidence that has been used to support or refute ideas or arguments

Forces
Intended outcomes for this unit:

  • Children will be able to explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object.
  • They will identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction, that act between moving surfaces.
  • Children will be able to recognise that some mechanisms, including levers, pulleys and gears, allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.

Living things and their habitats
Intended outcomes for this unit:

  • Children will be able to describe the differences in the life cycles of a mammal, an amphibian, an insect and a bird.
  • They will be able to describe the life process of reproduction in some plants and animals.

Earth and space
Intended outcomes for this unit:

  • Children will be able to describe the movement of the Earth, and other planets, relative to the Sun in the solar system.
  • They will describe the movement of the Moon relative to the Earth.
  • Children will be able to describe the Sun, Earth and Moon as approximately spherical bodies.
  • They will use the idea of the Earth’s rotation to explain day and night and the apparent movement of the sun across the sky.

Animals including humans
Intended outcomes for this unit:

  • Children will be able to describe the changes as humans develop to old age.
  • They will learn about some of the changes experienced in puberty.

Properties and changes of materials
Intended outcomes for this unit:

  • Children will be able to compare and group together everyday materials on the basis of their properties, including their hardness, solubility, transparency, conductivity (electrical and thermal), and response to magnets.
  • They will know that some materials will dissolve in liquid to form a solution, and describe how to recover a substance from a solution.
  • Children will use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated, including through filtering, sieving and evaporating.
  • They will be able to give reasons, based on evidence from comparative and fair tests, for the particular uses of everyday materials, including metals, wood and plastic.
  • Children will be able to demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible changes.
  • They will be able to explain that some changes result in the formation of new materials, and that this kind of change is not usually reversible, including changes associated with burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.