Welcome to the Outstanding Otters Class page!

Come here to find out useful information and to see all the exciting things we have been learning in Year 5! 

A special end of year video for my Outstanding Otters! Miss Shepherd x

Our own mysterious stories

The class worked hard to use all the skills they learnt in our ‘Nowhere Emporium’ sentence stacking lessons within their own writing. They were so proud of the end results that they even created their own front covers. We can’t wait for you to see and hear our stories!

‘Wilota’ takes over Toyota!
On Friday 6th March, we enjoyed a class trip to Toyota at Burnaston. Throughout the day, we got an introduction into the world of manufacturing where we took part in an interactive workshop and experienced working in a team environment. We also learnt about Japan and its traditions, which included receiving a 'Daruma doll' as a symbol of perseverance and good luck (you can find this in the entrance hall). We developed our skills in the use of production hand tools and practiced applying our problem solving skills on a Lego production line - where the name ‘Wilota’ was established - and lots of 'Hands on' challenges.

A special mention goes to Brody for his winning design for the future: ‘The None Litter 2000,’ which removes litter from water and protects animals at the same time. It was a fantastic day and we learnt lots - to top it all off, each child even got a Toyota goody bag to take home!

Outstanding dancers!

During spring term 1, we were fortunate enough to have Isabel from Déda dance come in to teach us some ‘swing’ moves from the WW2 era. We built up lots of key dance skills and movement patterns over the term and then choreographed our own dances in groups. I was so impressed with the effort and enthusiasm that all of the children showed - make sure you get them to show you!!

The Shop from Nowhere...

We’ve finished our ‘Nowhere Emporium’ sentence stacking in class and are preparing to write our own mysterious stories. Can’t wait to see the results!

Spitfire sketches

We’ve been practising our sketching skills in class by drawing WW2 Spitfires. The class looked at pictures of Spitfires then sketched their own from a picture in their sketchbooks. We then had a go at improving our first attempt by following a step by step video. The results were amazing!

WW2 morning

On Wednesday 22nd January, a visitor named Mark came into school to teach us about our new topic, WW2. As well as sharing some amazing facts and stories from that era, he brought in some incredible artifacts from the war that we got to explore. We also enjoyed re-enacting an air raid, carrying out a ‘Home Guard Drill’ outside and working with real imperial money to calculate the costs of a shopping list of rationed food.

We had such a fantastic morning and learnt so much about WW2 – the class can’t wait to find out more!

A doorway to another place suddenly appeared....

On Monday 13th January, Miss Shepherd found a mysterious doorway inside of the Year 5’s cupboard. It’s known as ‘The Nowhere Emporium’ and we are going to use this as a focus for our writing in literacy. Watch this space from some FANTASTIC writing.....

Y5 Class Assembly

First week back in the new year and we couldn’t wait to share what we had learnt in our Autumn term. Well done to the class for an ‘OUTSTANDING’ class assembly!

Earth and Space projects

Year 5’s has produced some topic homework that is out of this world!! I’m so impressed with how hard the class have worked on their projects and their understanding of the Science topic.

How big is our Solar System?

Understanding how big our Solar System is can be quite difficult to understand - so to help us, we created an accurate scaled model in our playground using toilet paper!! Each toilet sheet represented 20 million km and we had to use a total of 225 sheets to show the distance of Neptune from the sun (4,498,252,900 km)!!! Of course, it had to be windy when we went outside so we had to work really hard as a team to make this work!

The planets in our Solar System

After learning about the planets in the solar system, we researched some interesting facts and had our first go at creating a double page fact file - I have to say that the finished products are OUT OF THIS WORLD!!!! 

Anglo-Saxon Shields - DT

As part of our Anglo-Saxon topic, in design and technology we have sewn our on Anglo-Saxon shields. We researched what the shields looked like and discussed their symbolic value along with connection to social status. From this, we created four designs and chose our final one to make. First, we made a template which we pinned to our fabric and then cut out. Once this was done, we worked hard on our sewing skills by using a running stitch or back stitch to join them together. We're really proud of the results. 

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory sentence stacking

We have finished our sentence stacking based on part of the 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory' story. After this, we did some freeze frames in class where we split the story into 8 plot points and acted them out. Then we planned our own story using the freeze frames to help us think about our story line, and have produced some fantastic narratives such as: 'Lola and the Lollipop factory,' 'Mazy and the Raffle Ticket' and 'Antony and the Animal Park.'

How many drops of water fit on a coin?

This week, we completed a science experiment and discussed what 'working scientifically' means. We made predictions on how many drops of water we each thought would fit on a 1p, 2p and 5p coin without spilling over. Once we did this, we took repeated readings to ensure we were conducting a fair test and recorded our results. Then we looked at the science behind it and attempted to write our own conclusion. We couldn't believe what we found and were keen to do this experiment outside of school to see if others would make similar predictions to us!

Anglo-Saxon homework projects

Come and see the amazing homework projects the Outstanding Otters have created in our art bay. Some fantastic work showing excellent understanding of our topic!

Art and Design week

We've had an exciting start to Autumn term 2 with Art and Design week. On Monday, we had an artist called Sophie Edwards come into class and taught us how to sketch portraits. She showed us some of her work then taught us how to draw David Beckham. We were very proud of the results! In the afternoon, we learnt about Gaudi (Spanish architect) and after looking at some of his work focusing on Barcelona's 'Parc Guell', we had a go at creating our own mosaics, known as 'trencadis.'

You can see the rest of our creations on Friday from 3pm...

What did Anglo-Saxons wear?

At the start of the term term, we talked about what we already know about Anglo-Saxons and what we would like to find out. One of the things we wanted to find out was what did Anglo-Saxons wear. We have discovered that, as shops weren't around in those days, Anglo-Saxons needed to use natural materials to make clothes and in class we used out own natural materials to dye threads. We found it very interesting to see how blackberries, red cabbage, turmeric and spinach changed the colour of our thread, and are all very thankful that we don't have to use this method for our own clothes!!

Root of the problem

We have put our problem solving and investigation hats on in Maths by trying to solve the 'root of the problem!' This involved solving visual problems and finding a rule to help us. Once we solved the problem for triangles (using carrots to help!), we moved onto squares and some of us even went on to find the rule for pentagons! Great work Y5!

When two Derby County players came to say hello to the Otters....

This term, we have enjoyed having Derby County Community Trust come in each week and teach us their 'Move and Learn' programme. As part of this, they combined practical sessions with classroom sessions, where we have learnt about nutrition and the importance of having a balanced diet and active lifestyle. We even had a surprise visit from two Derby County players; Shinnie and Ravas. 

Anglo-Saxons

In our topic lessons, we have been discussing the meaning of invaders and settlers. We have also researched place names in England and how some of these originated from Anglo-Saxon times.