Australian Curriculum Overview
English
In Year 5, students communicate with peers and teachers from other classes and schools, community members, and individuals and groups, in a range of face-to-face and online/virtual environments. Students engage with a variety of texts for enjoyment. They listen to, read, view, interpret and evaluate spoken, written and multimodal texts in which the primary purpose is aesthetic, as well as texts designed to inform and persuade. These include various types of media texts including newspapers, film and digital texts, junior and early adolescent novels, poetry, non-fiction and dramatic performances.
Mathematics
Understanding includes making connections between representations of numbers, using fractions to represent probabilities, comparing and ordering fractions and decimals and representing them in various ways, describing transformations and identifying line and rotational symmetry. Fluency includes choosing appropriate units of measurement for calculation of perimeter and area, using estimation to check the reasonableness of answers to calculations and using instruments to measure angles. Problem Solving includes formulating and solving authentic problems using whole numbers and measurements and creating financial plans. Reasoning includes investigating strategies to perform calculations efficiently, continuing patterns involving fractions and decimals, interpreting results of chance experiments, posing appropriate questions for data investigations and interpreting data sets.
Science
In Year 5, students are introduced to cause and effect relationships through an exploration of adaptations of living things and how this links to form and function. They explore observable phenomena associated with light and begin to appreciate that phenomena have sets of characteristic behaviours. They broaden their classification of matter to include gases and begin to see how matter structures the world around them. Students consider Earth as a component within a solar system and use models for investigating systems at astronomical scales. Students begin to identify stable and dynamic aspects of systems, and learn how to look for patterns and relationships between components of systems. They develop explanations for the patterns they observe.
HASS
The Year 5 curriculum focuses on colonial Australia in the 1800s and the social, economic, political and environmental causes and effects of Australia's development, and on the relationship between humans and their environment. Students' geographical knowledge of Australia and the world is expanded as they explore the continents of Europe and North America, and study Australia's colonisation, migration and democracy in the 1800s. Students investigate how the characteristics of environments are influenced by humans in different times and places, as they seek resources, settle in new places and manage the spaces within them. They also investigate how environments influence the characteristics of places where humans live and human activity in those places. Students explore how communities, past and present, have worked together based on shared beliefs and values. The curriculum introduces studies about Australia's democratic values, its electoral system and law enforcement. In studying human desire and need for resources, students make connections to economics and business concepts around decisions and choices, gaining opportunities to consider their own and others' financial, economic, environmental and social responsibilities and decision-making, past, present and future.
Health and Physical Education
The Year 5 and 6 curriculum supports students to develop knowledge, understanding and skills to create opportunities and take action to enhance their own and others' health, wellbeing, safety and physical activity participation. Students develop skills to manage their emotions, understand the physical and social changes that are occurring for them and examine how the nature of their relationships changes over time.
The content provides opportunities for students to contribute to building a positive school environment that supports healthy, safe and active choices for everyone. Students also explore a range of factors and behaviours that can influence health, safety and wellbeing.
Technologies (Digital)
In Year 5 and 6, students develop an understanding of the role individual components of digital systems play in the processing and representation of data. They acquire, validate, interpret, track and manage various types of data and are introduced to the concept of data states in digital systems and how data are transferred between systems.
They learn to further develop abstractions by identifying common elements across similar problems and systems and develop an understanding of the relationship between models and the real-world systems they represent.
When creating solutions, students define problems clearly by identifying appropriate data and requirements. When designing, they consider how users will interact with the solutions, and check and validate their designs to increase the likelihood of creating working solutions. They evaluate their solutions and examine the sustainability of their own and existing information systems.
Music
In Years 5 and 6, students learning Music further their understanding, explore and use of rhythm, pitch, dynamics and expression, form and structure, timbre and texture in music. They extend their understanding and use of aural skills as they sing and play independent parts against contrasting parts and recognise instrumental, vocal and digitally generated sounds. Students explore meaning and interpretation, forms and elements of music as they make and respond to music.
Dance
In Years 5 and 6, students develop their understanding and use of performance or technical skills to communicate intention for different audiences. They identify a variety of audiences for different arts experiences as they engage with more diverse artworks as artists and audiences.
In Dance, students extend their awareness of the body as they combine movements that use body parts and actions with those involving body zones and bases. They extend their understanding and use of space, time, dynamics and relationships including performing in groups of varying sizes.
Students extend their use of various combinations of fundamental movement skills and technical skills, developing competence, body control and accuracy. They explore meaning and interpretation, forms and elements of dance, including the use of space and energy in dances as they make and respond to dance.
Media Arts
In Years 5 and 6, students develop their understanding and use of performance or technical skills to communicate intention for different audiences. They identify a variety of audiences for different arts experiences as they engage with more diverse artworks as artists and audiences.
In Media Arts, students develop their use of structure, intent, character and settings by incorporating points of view and genre conventions in their compositions. They extend their understanding and use of time, space, sound, movement, lighting and technologies.
Students identify the variety of audiences for which media artworks are made and explain the purpose and processes for producing media artworks. They explore meaning and interpretation, and forms and elements including structure, intent, character and settings as they make and respond to media artworks. Students consider the ethical behaviour and role of communities and organisations in regulating access to media artworks.
.Languages
In Years 5 & 6, students use Japanese with peers and the teacher for a widening range of purposes: asking and responding to questions, exchanging information, expressing ideas and feelings, performing, responding to learning experiences, and interacting with Japanese language resources. They are developing greater fluency and accuracy in communication. As they draw on a growing range of vocabulary resources and grammatical structures, their pronunciation, intonation and phrasing improve. They begin to use Japanese more spontaneously when interacting with one another, and use an increasing range of body language and gestures. Shared tasks provide a context for purposeful language experience and experimentation. Focused attention on language structures, literacy skills development and exploration of cultural elements of communication are conducted at least in part in Japanese. Learners use digital media to support their learning in increasingly independent ways, such as exchanging resources and information with other Japanese speakers. In doing this, they may access music and media resources.