6/7 – What should my child be able to do? Year 5 / UKS2 Maths

This is part six (Year 5 / UKS2) of a seven part series detailing what your child should be learning in each year group in primary school. We receive numerous questions from parents wondering what their child should know based on their age or year group. So, we decided to start a blog series detailing some of the core maths curriculum elements for each year group covering Reception – Year 6. Find our earlier blogs for reception here, year 1 here, year 2 here, year 3 here and year 4 here. We also provide you with some useful activities you can be doing at home with your child. This series will try to pull together information from numerous different sources in a concise, easy to understand way.

As always, it’s important to note that teachers are happy to help parents who want to be involved in their child’s education. Your first point of contact if you have any questions, worries or concerns should be the teacher. They will also have a huge amount of resources that they will be more than happy to share with you! One of the most important maths resources you should ask for is the ‘Calculation Policy’ of the school. This will outline and give you a better understanding of the calculation strategies taught in each year group.

Year 5 / UKS2 Maths Curriculum Goals

By Year 5, your child should have a solid understanding of the basic maths skills and be confident with basic maths calculations. These involve but are not limited to one- and two-step problems and using addition, subtraction, multiplication and division in various forms. In Year 5, the difficulty of some topics will continue to increase specifically fractions, decimals, mental arithmetic, and geometry. This is to prepare the students for end of KS2 SATS exams. At this stage, your child will be practicing their mental arithmetic, as well as using written and practical methods to help them solve calculations.

Statistics

  • Solving comparison, sum and difference problems using information from line graphs
  • Completing and interpreting information in tables, including timetables

Geometry

  • Finding angles around a point, on a straight line and within a right angle
  • Drawing and measuring angles and identifying lines of symmetry

Measuring

  • Converting between units of measurements
  • Calculating with amounts of money
  • Telling and writing the time using the 12 and 24 hr clock and solving problems involving converting between units of time
  • Working out the perimeter / area of shapes

Fractions and decimals

  • Comparing, ordering, adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator
  • Converting from numbers to fractions
  • Multiplying proper fractions and mixed numbers by whole numbers
  • Rounding decimals to one and two places to the nearest whole number
  • Comparing numbers with up to three decimal places
  • Beginning to understand and know percentage and decimal equivalents of 1/2, 1/4, 1/5, 2/5 and 4/5

Calculating

  • Adding and subtracting with numbers up to four digits using column addition and subtraction
  • Multiplying three-digit numbers by one-digit numbers
  • Adding and subtracting with numbers up to four digits
  • Identifying factors and multipliers of different numbers
  • Identifying prime numbers
  • Dividing four-digit numbers by one-digit numbers
  • Multiplying whole numbers and decimals by 10, 100 and 1000
  • Solving problems involving all four operations

Number and place value

  • Counting in steps of 6, 7, 9, 25 and 1000
  • Recognising place value of each digit in a four-digit number
  • Counting forwards and backwards with positive and negative numbers
  • Rounding any number to the nearest 10, 100 or 1000

Home activities:

Continue to try to link your child’s maths activities to real-life practical tasks involving maths- time, money, map reading, distance travelled etc.

Keep practicing times tables – automatic recall really does help at school and with homework. Practice in the car or on the way to school, set your child a challenge etc.

Continue to create opportunities for your child to handle money and work within a budget. If your child has weekly pocket money, encourage them to save and work out how much they will have in two, three or four weeks.

Resources:

The schoolrun.com is a great source for other information.

Some really fun and interactive games for year 5 pupils and best of all they are free!

If you are a parent of a Year 5 / UKS2 child and need some advice or you are worried about your child’s current progress, feel free to reach out to us at Primary Tutor Project! We will be adding to this series each week! If there is any topic in particular you require advice for contact us here.

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