Properties and changes of materials (Y5)
Properties and changes of materials is the most experimental topic in Year 5 science. Children dissolve things, separate mixtures back out, and discover that some changes can’t be undone. Here’s what the curriculum expects and where to find lessons and resources to teach it.
What children learn about the properties and changes of materials in Year 5
What the national curriculum expects
Properties and changes of materials is taught in Year 5. Pupils should compare and group everyday materials by their properties, including hardness, solubility, transparency, electrical and thermal conductivity, and response to magnets. They should know that some materials dissolve to form a solution and describe how to recover a substance from it, use knowledge of solids, liquids and gases to decide how mixtures might be separated by filtering, sieving and evaporating, give reasons based on fair tests for the uses of everyday materials, demonstrate that dissolving, mixing and changes of state are reversible, and explain that some changes form new materials and are not usually reversible, including burning and the action of acid on bicarbonate of soda.
Key knowledge and concepts
Within this topic, children build knowledge across what materials do and how they change:
Comparing properties
Hardness, transparency, conductivity and response to magnets
Solubility
Which materials dissolve, and what affects how quickly
Solutions
What happens when something dissolves, and how to recover it
Separating mixtures
Filtering, sieving and evaporating
Reversible changes
Dissolving, mixing and changes of state
Irreversible changes
Burning, and reactions that make new materials
Fair testing materials
Comparing materials, and giving reasons for their uses
Thermal and electrical conductivity
Which materials carry heat and electricity, and why it matters
Where this topic sits within KS2
Properties and changes of materials is taught in Year 5, alongside Living things, Animals including humans, Forces and Earth and space. It builds on the KS1 work on everyday materials and the Year 4 work on states of matter, taking both considerably further.
How to access this topic
Properties and changes of materials doesn’t sit on its 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.