By Mrs Whomsley (Head of Year 5) 

Year 5 has been busy over the past few weeks developing a range of skills as part of our Unit of Inquiry People provide services and goods based on community wants and needs and available resources.  This work is in preparation for a final challenge next week in which they will construct a model transportation device they have designed aimed at delivering a service to a community in need.

In a workshop at the start of term, we studied how farmers of Rwanda are limited by the infrastructure and resources available in their country. However, there are companies that offer services to enable the people of Rwanda to overcome the limitations of their surroundings and, as a result, they are able to grow and expand their businesses. This sparked the curiosity and creativity of the Year 5 pupils to identify other communities on a local, national and global scale who might be in need.

During our learning, we have investigated how industries balance supply and demand of goods and services as well as finding out more about how businesses operate. We have explored manufacturing processes over time, gaining insights into how raw materials are turned into finished products, which meet strict quality control checks.

As part of this we have been developing our woodwork skills, learning to manipulate materials to bring ideas to life, with our mathematical work on nets of shapes providing possible solutions for building the ‘bodies’ of their devices. This hands-on experience has empowered students to translate their creativity into tangible solutions. Furthermore, our scientific investigation into forces has provided an understanding into how we can make an effective and stable design that is suited to the infrastructure of their community.

Each part of this term’s inquiry work is preparing our future engineers for next week’s build challenge and we cannot wait to share their creations!