Online tutoring for Year 5: fractions, decimals, reading critically, one-to-one
Year 5 is where primary maths becomes abstract. Fractions, decimals and percentages are three ways of writing the same quantity, and a child who does not see that will spend Year 6 and Year 7 memorising rules. Our one-to-one classes make the connections visible, keep school work on track, and begin the reasoning habits that the Selective test will ask for next year.
What changes in Year 5
Year 5 opens Stage 3 in NSW and the upper-primary band of the Australian Curriculum. Three things change at once. Numbers stop being whole: fractions, decimals and the first percentages dominate the year. Methods stop being short: multiplying by a two-digit number and dividing with remainders need several written steps in the right order. And answers stop being a number: problems are worded, have more than one step, and the question at the end is not always the one the child expected. Reading changes in the same way — texts argue, persuade and hint, and the reader is expected to notice.
Year 5 maths, strand by strand
Number and algebra
Factors and multiples; rounding and estimating to check an answer; multiplying by two-digit numbers and dividing by one-digit numbers with remainders; comparing and ordering fractions with related denominators; adding and subtracting fractions with the same denominator; decimals compared, ordered and placed on a number line; percentages as another way of writing a fraction of one hundred; finding the unknown in a number sentence.
Measurement and space
Choosing the right metric unit and converting between them; perimeter and area of rectangles with a formula; 12-hour and 24-hour time; measuring and drawing angles in degrees with a protractor; nets of three-dimensional objects; translating, reflecting and rotating shapes; reading a grid reference.
Statistics and probability
Collecting data for a real question and showing it in a dot plot, column graph or table; describing what a graph shows and what it does not; listing all the outcomes of a chance experiment and writing the probability of one of them as a fraction.
The habit we teach hardest in Year 5 is estimation before calculation. A child who knows that 23 × 19 is "about 20 × 20, so about 400" will catch the written-method slip that gives 4,370; a child who does not will hand it in.
Year 5 English: reading like a detective, writing like an editor
Year 5 reading asks for inference as a matter of course. Questions ask what the author thinks, how a character's feelings change across a passage, why a word was chosen, and what two texts on the same subject disagree about. Poetry appears, with its own questions about imagery and rhythm. Writing is expected to be planned, drafted and edited — the child's own — with complex sentences, paragraphs that follow one another for a reason, and a vocabulary that is chosen rather than first-to-mind. Persuasive writing wants a clear position and reasons that support it; narrative writing wants a complication that matters and an ending that resolves it. Spelling turns to word origins, suffix rules (-tion, -ible/-able) and the words a child personally gets wrong.
In our English lessons the teacher reads a short text with your child and asks the four kinds of question — literal, inferential, vocabulary and structure — then, in the next lesson, sets a prompt, insists on a plan, and marks the draft on screen while it is still fresh.
NAPLAN in Year 5
NAPLAN is sat in March of Year 5, with the same four tests as Year 3: Reading, Writing, Conventions of Language and Numeracy. The numeracy test now assumes the Year 4 content — tables, equivalent fractions, decimals to hundredths — is secure, and the reading test leans on inference. Preparation is a matter of a few weeks: the content is what the child is already learning, and the format is practised with our free NAPLAN-style practice tests, marked online. See the NAPLAN preparation page for how we fit it around school.
Beginning Selective preparation
In NSW the Selective High School Placement Test is sat in Year 6 for entry to Year 7. Families who intend to sit it usually begin in Year 5, and this is a sensible time: not to drill papers, but to build the three things the test rewards and a year of practice can supply — fluent, accurate arithmetic with fractions and decimals; reading that finds evidence rather than guessing; and the reasoning question types (Thinking Skills) that school does not teach. Our Selective school preparation page describes the test's four sections, and the free Selective practice papers show the level. The Year 6 page explains how the final year of preparation runs.
Where Year 5 children get stuck
| Symptom | Cause | What the one-to-one teacher does |
|---|---|---|
| "Fractions are just rules I forget" | Fractions were met as procedures before they were met as quantities. | Back to number lines and fraction walls until ¾ = 0.75 is obvious; only then the rules, which now have a reason. |
| Long multiplication goes wrong in the middle | Place value of the second row is not understood, so the zero is forgotten or misplaced. | Teaches the grid method alongside the column method so the child can see why each row is where it is. |
| Worded problems skipped | No routine for turning words into a calculation. | A fixed method on the whiteboard: what is asked, what is given, draw it, choose the operation, answer with units. |
| Reading answers are plausible but wrong | The child answers from memory of the passage rather than from the passage. | Every answer must point to a line. Guessing becomes finding. |
| Writing is long but shapeless | No planning, no paragraphs, no editing. | Plan for two minutes, write for fifteen, edit for three — every time, until it is habit. |
Your first month
The demo class is an assessment lesson across number, fractions, a worded problem, a short passage and a paragraph of writing; the teacher watches the working rather than the score. A written summary and a suggested plan follow on WhatsApp the same day. Classes then run at a fixed weekly time in your own time zone, with a reminder on WhatsApp beforehand. Homework — ten to twenty minutes — is set in the parent portal with a due date and returned marked, and a short practice test closes each topic. Families preparing for the Selective test usually add a second weekly class from the middle of Year 5.
Before you book: free Year 5 maths worksheets, marked online.
Neighbouring years: Year 4 · Year 6. Subjects: maths · English · science. Everything: online tutoring index.
Questions parents ask
Should Selective preparation start in Year 5?
For NSW families who intend to sit the test in Year 6, Year 5 is a sensible start — not for test papers, but for fluent fraction and decimal arithmetic, evidence-based reading and the reasoning question types. The Year 6 page describes the final year.
What does the Year 5 NAPLAN numeracy test assume?
That the Year 4 content is secure: multiplication facts to 10 × 10, equivalent fractions, decimals to hundredths, perimeter and area. It is sat in March, so it mostly reflects the previous year. We teach the content first and practise the format with free online tests.
My child can do fractions as pictures but not as numbers. What do you do?
We go back to the number line and the fraction wall until equivalence and decimal links are obvious, then re-teach the rules with a reason behind each one. It usually takes a few weeks of short, regular work.
How is reading comprehension taught one-to-one?
The teacher puts a short text on the shared whiteboard, your child reads it, and the questions follow a pattern: literal, inferential, vocabulary and structure. Every answer has to point to the line that supports it.
How many classes a week does a Year 5 child need?
One a week keeps school work on track; two a week is usual for a child catching up or preparing for the Selective test. The teacher suggests a rhythm after the assessment lesson and it can change later.
Is homework compulsory?
Homework is set in the parent portal with a due date and is how the teacher sees whether the lesson stuck. It is short — ten to twenty minutes — and if a week is heavy at school, tell the teacher and it is reduced.
Do you teach the same content for children outside Australia?
The format is the same; the content is matched to the curriculum used at your child's school in the USA, UK, Canada, New Zealand or India. Tell us the year and the school when you book.