Key Stage 2 · Year 5 · ages 9 or 10
Year 5 English: what your child learns
In Year 5 children read widely, compare themes, recommend books and learn poems by heart. They plan writing for a particular audience and purpose, and meet relative clauses (who, which, where, whose), modal verbs such as might and must, parenthesis with brackets, dashes or commas, and verb-making prefixes and suffixes such as re– and –ise. Spelling covers endings such as –able and –ible, and silent letters.
Guides for parents
Year 5 English
Relative clauses and degrees of possibility
What Year 5 children learn about relative clauses with who, which, whose, where and when, and modal verbs and adverbs that show how likely something is, with examples.
Year 5 English
Cohesion within and across paragraphs
How Year 5 children learn to make their writing hang together, linking sentences with pronouns and conjunctions, and paragraphs with time, place and number words.
Year 5 English
Parenthesis and commas for clarity
How Year 5 children learn to add extra information with brackets, dashes or commas, and to use commas so a sentence cannot be misread. Worked example and home ideas.
Year 5 English
Making verbs with suffixes and prefixes
How Year 5 children turn nouns and adjectives into verbs with endings such as -ate, -ise and -ify, and change verbs with prefixes. Worked example and home ideas.
Everything in the Year 5 English curriculum
The National Curriculum topics for Year 5, in the order the National Curriculum lists them.
Spoken language
- Active listening and collaborative discussion (Years 5 and 6)
- Arguing, hypothesising and evaluating viewpoints (Years 5 and 6)
- Public speaking, performance and register (Years 5 and 6)
Reading – word reading
- Morphology and etymology for reading new words (Years 5 and 6)
Reading – comprehension
- Reading widely and recommending books (Years 5 and 6)
- Themes, comparisons, poetry by heart and performance (Years 5 and 6)
- Inference, prediction and summarising (Years 5 and 6)
- Authors’ language, fact and opinion, and information retrieval (Years 5 and 6)
- Discussing, presenting and justifying views about reading (Years 5 and 6)
Writing – transcription (spelling)
- Prefixes, suffixes, silent letters and confusable words (Years 5 and 6)
- Using dictionaries and a thesaurus (Years 5 and 6)
Writing – handwriting and presentation
- Writing legibly, fluently and with speed (Years 5 and 6)
Writing – composition
- Planning for audience and purpose (Years 5 and 6)
- Drafting: grammar choices, narrative description and précis (Years 5 and 6)
- Cohesion and organisational devices (Years 5 and 6)
- Evaluating and editing for effect, tense, agreement and register (Years 5 and 6)
- Proofreading and performing compositions (Years 5 and 6)
Writing – vocabulary, grammar and punctuation
- Formal language, passive verbs and perfect forms (Years 5 and 6)
- Noun phrases, modal verbs and relative clauses (Years 5 and 6)
- Commas, hyphens, parenthesis, semicolons, colons and bullet points (Years 5 and 6)
Vocabulary, grammar and punctuation – English Appendix 2
Spelling – English Appendix 1
- Endings –cious, –tious, –cial and –tial (Years 5 and 6)
- Endings –ant, –ance, –ancy, –ent, –ence, –ency (Years 5 and 6)
- Endings –able, –ible, –ably and –ibly (Years 5 and 6)
- Adding suffixes to –fer words; using hyphens (Years 5 and 6)
- ei after c and the letter-string ough (Years 5 and 6)
- Silent letters, homophones and often-confused words (Years 5 and 6)
- Statutory word list years 5 and 6: accommodate to convenience (Years 5 and 6)
- Statutory word list years 5 and 6: correspond to hindrance (Years 5 and 6)
- Statutory word list years 5 and 6: identity to pronunciation (Years 5 and 6)
- Statutory word list years 5 and 6: queue to yacht (Years 5 and 6)