Forces (Y5)
Forces in Year 5 is where children start explaining why things fall, why parachutes work, and how a small push can move something heavy. From gravity and resistance to levers, pulleys and gears, here’s what the curriculum expects and where to find lessons and resources to teach it.
What children learn about forces in Year 5
What the national curriculum expects
Forces is taught in Year 5, as a separate strand from the Year 3 work on forces and magnets. Pupils should explain that unsupported objects fall towards the Earth because of the force of gravity acting between the Earth and the falling object. They should identify the effects of air resistance, water resistance and friction that act between moving surfaces, and recognise that some mechanisms including levers, pulleys and gears allow a smaller force to have a greater effect.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across the forces acting on everything around them:
Gravity
Why unsupported objects fall towards the Earth
Isaac Newton
The scientist behind our understanding of gravity
Air resistance
How air slows things down, and how to investigate it
Water resistance
How shape affects movement through water
Friction
How surfaces resist movement against each other
Levers
How a lever lets a smaller force do more
Pulleys
How pulleys change the force needed to lift
Gears
How gears transfer and change movement
Where this topic sits within KS2
Forces is taught in Year 5, alongside Living things, Animals including humans, Properties and changes of materials, and Earth and space. It builds directly on the Year 3 work on forces and magnets, and the mechanisms content links closely to design and technology.
How to access this topic
Forces don’t sit on their own in the curriculum. The Cornerstones science curriculum is fully sequenced from EYFS through Year 1 to Year 6, so you can see what comes before, what follows and how the whole picture fits together. We’ve done the thinking, so your planning time goes into teaching, not sequencing.
Full curriculum
Subject curriculum
Quick Teach Individual lessons and resources for supplementing what you already teach.
Ready to bring the wider curriculum to life?
See how the full Cornerstones Science Curriculum sequences topics like this one across every year group.