Breaking down the Year 5 maths curriculum and the statutory requirements that each student needs to know before they move on to Year 6.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
March 2024
Breaking down the Year 5 maths curriculum and the statutory requirements that each student needs to know before they move on to Year 6.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
March 2024
Breaking down the Year 5 maths curriculum and the statutory requirements that each student needs to know before they move on to Year 6.
Author
Mhairi Sim
Published
March 2024
Key takeaways
Table of contents
Even though they’re still studying the Key Stage 2 curriculum, many students can find Years 5 and 6 much more challenging than Year 3 and Year 4.
The Year 5 maths curriculum focuses heavily on problem-solving and getting students to work more independently. To that end, learners will spend a lot of the year applying their existing knowledge to problems that become increasingly more complicated.
There’s a lot for them to cover this year, all of which will be important for them to know before they move on to Year 6. Let’s dive in and learn more about what exactly learners will be covering in the Year 5 maths curriculum as they take on this tricky year!
The Year 5 maths curriculum is broken down into seven key areas:
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Four of the seven key areas of the maths national curriculum Year 5 students will tackle fall under the topic of number. Within this area, learners will need to be able to read and write numbers up to 1,000,000 and be able to use these in a range of different calculations.
Your Year 5 learners will also further their learning on place value as they are taught how to:
Your learners will build on what they learned in the Year 4 maths curriculum and use a range of written and mental strategies to add and subtract increasingly larger numbers.
They’ll also be able to use rounding strategies to check their answers and identify the correct operations to use in multi-step problem-solving questions.
By the time they’ve reached Year 5, students should have a firm understanding of their multiplication tables. If they aren’t comfortable with these yet, it’s definitely worth getting some practice in!
They’ll use their knowledge as the foundation for the more complicated aspects of this area that they’ll cover this year! By the end of Year 5, students should be comfortable:
The goal here is that they’ll eventually be able to use all of this knowledge to solve a range of multiplication and division problems, including more tricky multi-step problems!
The maths Year 5 curriculum is where the topic of fractions takes quite a big step up which some students will find quite challenging. This is because, in Year 5, we start to get our learners to make the links between fractions, decimals, and percentages.
Throughout Year 5 students will learn to:
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Your students have covered a lot within the topic of measurement over the course of the Key Stage 2 curriculum that they started back in Year 3.
As they progress with national curriculum maths Year 5 learners will continue to develop their maths skills in this area as they master aspects such as:
Your students have covered a lot within the topic of measurement over the course of the Key Stage 2 curriculum that they started back in Year 3.
As they progress with national curriculum maths Year 5 learners will continue to develop their maths skills in this area as they master aspects such as:
By now, your learners should be able to name and identify a range of 2-D and 3-D shapes, as well as describe their properties. In Year 5, they’ll take this topic a step further as they incorporate angles in their descriptions.
They’ll be taught how to:
Following the maths national curriculum Year 5 learners will be introduced to the concept of reflecting shapes. They’ll be taught to identify, describe and show the position of a shape when it’s reflected and know the shape hasn’t changed.
They’ll also be able to plot the points of the reflected shape using a grid and identify the correct reflection image
As well as continuing to practise and develop their statistics skills from last year, children will also be learning to interpret data from a range of new types of tables, including timetables and line graphs.
Your learners will use the data and information from these tables and graphs to solve a range of different problems.
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There are no statutory assessments in Year 5, but that doesn’t mean their progress won’t be monitored closely! Students will be continuously assessed by their class teachers to identify any gaps in their knowledge.
If the teacher does identify a gap or an area where your learner needs more help then they’ll be able to address it quickly. This is important as many students find the step up between Year 5 and Year 6 quite challenging, so it helps if they’re secure in the Year 5 curriculum before they move on.
The first step in helping Year 5 learners is to get a good idea of any areas where your child needs some support and extra practice. Let your learners work through this list of 26 Year 5 maths questions to determine which areas they find trickier than others.
You can also download the award-winning DoodleMaths maths app which has thousands of exciting and engaging maths-based games and activities. The app is fully aligned with the Year 5 maths curriculum, so you can be sure they’re practising skills that they’ll need!
Throughout the Year 5 curriculum, your learners will not only be covering the statutory learning points, but they’ll also be learning how to work and apply their knowledge more independently.
Developing a sense of mathematical independence in Year 5 is the best way to prepare them for the step up to Year 6 as they move on to their final year of primary school.
Parents, sign up for a DoodleMaths subscription and see your child become a maths wizard!
Lesson credits
Mhairi Sim
Mhairi is an experienced teacher, freelance writer and parent. After completing her bachelor's degree in Psychology, she graduated as a teacher from the University of Strathclyde. She then built experience teaching across KS1 and KS2 throughout the UK. In addition to working in mainstream education, Mhairi specialised in the additional support needs sector, including social, emotional, and behavioural support.
Mhairi Sim
Mhairi is an experienced teacher, freelance writer and parent. After completing her bachelor's degree in Psychology, she graduated as a teacher from the University of Strathclyde. She then built experience teaching across KS1 and KS2 throughout the UK. In addition to working in mainstream education, Mhairi specialised in the additional support needs sector, including social, emotional, and behavioural support.
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