“Man cannot discover new oceans unless he has the courage to lose sight of the shore,” - Andre Gide.

The Year 5 team are very excited to launch a topic on exploration with the essential question- ‘Adventure awaits: but at what cost?’

This topic will be looking at the history of exploration, the significant individuals who pioneered global exploration and how their discoveries changed the world. The children will learn about the map skills needed by an explorer and the trade routes developed, which saw different goods and customs passed from country to country. They will learn about the ‘Age of Exploration’ and develop an understanding of why people so eagerly wanted to explore the globe and the implications this had for people everywhere.

Some highlights will include:

• Learning about Columbus’ discovery of America
• Developing painting skills of indigenous people to depict mood and emotion
• Plotting trade routes, explorers’ voyages and world wonders using      4-figure grid references

Along this learning journey, the children will pioneer their own version of the Pocahontas story and illustrate it with images that give visual clues within the narrative.

This will be an exciting topic, that will give each child an eye-opening experience into the world of exploration, how it shaped the world we live in now and how it affected the world historically. If you have any resources, artefacts, or expertise you wish to share, please feel free to contact a member of the team. 

Home Learning 

Every three weeks the children will be introduced to a new home learning challenge. These will be shared with you on Class Dojo. Each question will have a range of suggestions as to how they can share their understanding of each. They can select any way of demonstrating their understanding.

Across the term we hope that your child is curious enough to extend and deepen their learning and understanding further. Every two weeks each class will select a winning piece of work that shows innovation, creativity, depth of learning or original thinking.  

Please share any of their work on Class Dojo or bring into school with them.