Typically the child in Class Five is experiencing a warm loving and balanced time. This is truly the heart of childhood. The growing child who at first is strongly directed by adults (educators and parents in the partnership of education) is slowly becoming more independent.
Eleven year-olds are now more conscious of themselves as individuals and learning more and more to cope with the material world. In Class Five, the curriculum mirrors this dawning consciousness of the child through the mythologies of ancient civilizations, from Ancient India, Persia, Mesopotamia and Egypt to Greece at the beginning of Class 6. The children are beginning to be interested in and fascinated by the causes of phenomena.
The form and nature of a plant which grows here in South Africa, in the sub-tropics, will be very different from one growing in a cold climate. Plants growing at the coast will differ from those in the Drakensberg. The progression of Natural History Studies from humans, through animals to plants will lead on to geological studies in the Minerals of the Earth in Class Six
