Welcome, for the pre-adolescent classroom
Year 5 and Year 6 children are quietly becoming adolescents. Identity, status and belonging dominate the social classroom, even when the academic surface looks calm. Grade 5 & 6 is 39 weekly bundles built for this exact moment, with explicit lessons on identity, peer pressure and the transition to secondary alongside the usual play, exercise and gratitude.
Same five-lesson rhythm every week, Overview, Play, Written, Exercise, Gratitude, designed to fit your literacy block, HPE rotation or wellbeing slot without rewriting your timetable.
Standards, Vic Curriculum 5–6, RR Topics 1–8
Every lesson is dual-mapped to the Victorian Curriculum F–10 (Levels 5 and 6) and the ACARA Australian Curriculum. Respectful Relationships Topics 1–8 are addressed across the year, including the age-appropriate introduction of Topic 7 (Positive Gender Relations) and Topic 8 (Help-Seeking & Protective Behaviours).
- Victorian Curriculum, Personal & Social Capability (Levels 5–6), HPE, Ethical Capability, Critical & Creative Thinking.
- ACARA HPE 2.0, Movement & Physical Activity, Personal, Social & Community Health.
- Respectful Relationships, Topics 1 to 8, with the option to defer Topic 7 to the back half of the year.
- CASEL 5, every lesson maps to one or more of the five competencies, with extra weight on Self-Awareness and Relationship Skills at this age.
- AITSL Standards 1.1, 1.3, 3.5, 4.1, 6.4 supported for your annual reflection portfolio.
Your first week, a Year 5/6 timetable
Upper primary children can hold the rhythm with very little scaffolding. Run a single bundle in week one before scaling up:
- Monday first session, Overview + Play game (25–30 min).
- Tuesday literacy, Written game inside your normal writing block.
- Wednesday brain break, Exercise game between subjects.
- Thursday HPE, re-run Play, or trial the variation.
- Friday end-of-day, Gratitude ritual. Hand over to a student leader after week 3.
Built for the transition to secondary
Year 6 children are watching for clues about what high school is like. The Grade 5 & 6 program includes an explicit transition arc in Term 4, six lessons specifically on "how high school is different", with content reviewed by secondary HPE teachers. Many schools use these in the term 4 transition program.
RR Topic 8, Help-Seeking & Protective Behaviours
RR Topic 8 is delivered explicitly in weeks 27–30 of this curriculum, with prompts for trusted-adult naming and safe-network mapping in age-appropriate language. The Family Guide (see the Family tab on this page) is built to be sent home before this block so parents can prime conversations at home. As always, this block is designed to deliver the Department’s mandated content, your school’s wellbeing team remains the right path for any conversations that go beyond curriculum delivery.
For the kids who roll their eyes
Year 5 and Year 6 produces the first wave of "this is babyish" responses. The program is designed for that, every game has a "stretch" prompt that lets the eye-rollers re-engage as leaders, designers or peer coaches. Lean into letting students teach the game to younger classes (Year 1 buddies, for example). The eye-rolling vanishes when they are the ones running it.
When a game does not land
Three near-universal fixes:
- Hand the game to a student to model, peers carry more weight than teachers at this age.
- Move it outside.
- Skip ahead. A flat week is fine; the next week will land.
Questions about the curriculum
Email support@theschoolofplay.co or open the chat. The team can help with anything to do with running the program, sequencing, planning, or rolling it out across multiple classes.
