What Grade 5 curriculum designs are
The curriculum design is the official KICD document that says what a Grade 5 learner should know, do and value in each learning area by the end of the year. Under the Competency Based Curriculum it is the master reference, not the textbook — every scheme of work, lesson plan, record of work and assessment for Grade 5 is derived from it. If you want to understand or plan any Grade 5 subject properly, this is the document you start from.
For each strand and sub-strand, a design lays out the specific learning outcomes, suggested learning experiences, key inquiry questions, the core competencies and values to build, the Pertinent and Contemporary Issues to mainstream, and the assessment rubric. This page gathers the Grade 5 designs for every learning area in one place so you can go straight to the subject you need. All of them are the latest KICD editions and download as PDF.
The Grade 5 learning areas
Grade 5 sits in the middle of upper primary, where learners study distinct subjects and the timetable settles into the eight learning areas below. KICD's latest curriculum review rationalised several of these — combining agriculture with nutrition, and pulling the creative subjects together into Creative Arts — so this list follows the current, merged structure.
English – the four language skills developed as a standalone subject. Grade 5 English curriculum design
Kiswahili – kusikiliza na kuzungumza, kusoma, kuandika na sarufi; shule zinazotumia Lugha ya Alama ya Kenya hufuata KSL. Grade 5 Kiswahili curriculum design
Mathematics – Numbers, Measurement, Geometry and Data Handling. Grade 5 Mathematics curriculum design
Science and Technology – the living and physical environment, scientific investigation and everyday technology. Grade 5 Science and Technology curriculum design
Agriculture and Nutrition – the current merged area joining agriculture with nutrition and food. Grade 5 Agriculture and Nutrition curriculum design
Social Studies – people, places, resources, citizenship and the environment. Grade 5 Social Studies curriculum design
Creative Arts – the current merged creative area spanning art, craft, music and movement. Grade 5 Creative Arts curriculum design
Religious Education – offered as Christian Religious Education (CRE) or Islamic Religious Education (IRE), following the school's programme. Grade 5 CRE curriculum design · Grade 5 IRE curriculum design
Who this page is for
- Teachers – a single place to open the current KICD design for any Grade 5 learning area before you plan schemes, lessons or assessments.
- Trainee teachers and education students – an authoritative reference on what a curriculum design is, how it differs from a scheme of work or lesson plan, and how Grade 5 is structured across its eight learning areas.
- Researchers, administrators and sector practitioners – accurate, current information on the upper-primary curriculum a Grade 5 learner follows.
- Anyone downloading on a teacher's or school's behalf – each subject is labelled clearly by learning area, so whoever fetches the file can be sure they have the right Grade 5 design rather than a neighbouring grade's.
How to use a Grade 5 curriculum design
Open the design for your learning area and read the general and specific learning outcomes first — they tell you what learners are aiming at. From there, the strands, sub-strands, suggested experiences and assessment rubric give you the raw material to build the scheme of work, then the lesson plans, then the records of work and assessments. Everything downstream should trace back to the outcomes the design sets out; when a scheme or lesson plan and the design disagree, the design wins.
Frequently Asked Questions
Why do the curriculum-design pages say "Latest" instead of a year? Curriculum designs don't roll over annually the way schemes and lesson plans do — a design stays current until KICD revises it. So these pages point to the latest KICD edition rather than pinning a year that would go stale.
Which Grade 5 subjects are on this page, and why not others? The eight core learning areas from the official upper-primary lesson allocation: English, Kiswahili, Mathematics, Science and Technology, Agriculture and Nutrition, Social Studies, Creative Arts and Religious Education. Electives that appear in the catalogue but aren't in that core allocation are deliberately left off to keep the list matching what a Grade 5 learner actually takes.
What's the difference between a curriculum design and a scheme of work? The design is KICD's official statement of what to teach and assess; the scheme of work is the term-by-term plan a teacher builds from it. You start from the design, then derive the scheme, then the lesson plans.
Do these download as Word files? No — curriculum designs are PDFs, as published by KICD. The editable Word resources are the schemes, lesson plans and assessments built from them.
Is Grade 5 the same structure as Grade 4 and Grade 6? Yes. Grades 4, 5 and 6 share the same upper-primary structure — the same eight learning areas and 35 lessons a week — so the design layout is consistent across the three.
Download the Grade 5 curriculum designs (PDF)
Every Grade 5 KICD curriculum design above downloads as a PDF from our catalogue. Use the subject links to open the design for a specific learning area, or the button below for the complete Grade 5 set across all subjects.