It has been another fantastic couple of weeks at Lark Rise Academy and the children have really started to settle into the routines and expectations of school life as well as completing some magnificent learning. Well done to all the children that got off to a flying start with their first set of homework this week; we are so proud of you! Also, a big thank you to all those parents that have been supporting your children to use TT Rockstars or Numbots at home; this really helps to consolidate the children’s learning at school and develop fluency in their number facts. The children will be rewarded with house points next week for their continued efforts.

We have continued our science learning by looking at all different types of animals: reptiles, amphibians, mammals (which is what we are!), fish and birds. We were able to compare the features of each and could name some of their characteristics. We were able to play a game of guessing the animal and the children gave some fantastic clues. I wonder if the children could guess this animal - I lay eggs, I have pink feathers and a beak, what am I? We were even able to learn about what animals eat, looking at carnivores, omnivores and herbivores. There are so many fantastic scientists among us - David Attenborough would be proud!

In PSHE we discussed the importance of rules and being kind to one another. We looked at different scenarios and established what the best course of action would be if we saw something unkind happening. The children are learning about advocating for themselves and using their voice to speak out and tell an adult to help them when navigating social situations. We are all valuable and important.

It was so wonderful to share the children's teddy bears with them! We compared what old teddies looked like and what has changed over the years. It was fascinating to discover how soft they are now, especially when thinking about how old teddies could be hard and even had glass eyes! We discussed how most toys used to be hand stitched and how they are manufactured on a greater scale now. We also explored some old games children would used to play like ‘the farmer in his den’ and hopscotch; we have had so much fun!

This half term we are looking at Aboriginal art and were amazed to discover that aboriginal cave paintings are some of the oldest art in the world - over 40,000 years old! We were able to practice some of the symbols used in this art and even created an x-ray fish! It has been so lovely to see the children really express themselves through their creativity. 

During our English lessons we have been reading ‘The Owl who was afraid of the dark' by Jill Tomlinson. We have been following Plop’s journey of bravery and discovering that things that frighten us might actually be something we grow to love! It has been incredible to see the children so engaged and their first piece of writing on describing Plop has truly made us so proud. It is clear to see how valued stories are and the children always try their very best with their learning. We cannot wait to continue our exploration of Plop and find out how he manages to overcome his fear of the dark!

Finally, our Happy Hummers over the last two weeks were Roman Crawley and Logan Monk for being such amazing members of our class; listening well, sharing ideas and being fantastic role models to their peers. Our Handwriting heroes have been Caylen-Blue Pickering, Eliana Liscio, Sienna Sayers and Dolly McCulloch.

We hope you and your lovely families have a wonderful weekend and look forward to seeing the children on Monday.

Lots of love,

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite and Mrs. Harrison X

 10.10.25

Dear parents and carers,

It has been another fantastic fortnight in Hummingbirds class as the children continue to thrive in Key Stage One. It has been lovely to see the children showing such care for each other and as a result during Thursday’s special celebrations assembly we saw a record amount of nominations for our kindness and caring cup; fantastic! The children make it so difficult to choose an overall winner which I think you’ll agree is a great problem to have.

During science learning, we have continued with our theme of ‘Animals including humans’ and studied the diets of different animals. See if your child can tell you what a herbivore, carnivore or omnivore is or even name a few examples? The children also sorted animals into two different groups looking at the similarities and differences of pets and wild animals. They did a brilliant job and so we discussed why some animals make better pets than others. Some children wondered whether keeping sharks would be a good idea and we all agreed a no on that one (especially Great Whites)!

In P.E the children have been busy learning different skills and I think it’s safe to say the kickboards for running up; to learn how to turn effectively have proven very popular. The children have definitely enjoyed the freedom of running across the hall for once and it has been wonderful to see the children so engaged and enjoying their learning. We are very proud to see the children measuring their achievements by their own efforts and dedication to keep making improvements and not by comparing themselves to others; this is a sure way to success for all of our children.

In R.E the children have been busy finding out about the special holy book for Jewish people- The Torah. Having read and even acted out some stories from the bible the children were surprised to find out that the writing in the Torah is written in Hebrew and read from right to left but that some of the stories are actually the same as in the bible. The children had a lot of fun making their own Torahs.

Over the last couple of weeks in geography the children have been finding out more about Kenya and really enjoyed hearing a talk from one of the children in Hummingbirds about their trip to Kenya which included sharing a wonderful collection of photographs. A highlight was definitely finding out about the Maasai tribe and having their own jumping contest on the school field just like the tribe themselves; fabulous!

Finally, our Happy Hummers over the last two weeks have been Poppy Ross and Bobby Bland. Well done for always trying your best and for doing everything with a smile; you are both fabulous additions to our wonderful class. Our handwriting heroes have been Sophie Anderson, Maya Hamilton, Stefan Stavropolous, and Isla Vicary. Well done for all your efforts in our handwriting sessions to try your very best and make improvements each week on your handwriting.

All that is left to say is have a lovely weekend with your beautiful families.

Kindest regards

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite and Mrs. Harrison.

Messages:

Thank you so much to those of you who have already brought in some toilet roll tubes for our wonderful art learning. This will greatly help with our end of unit creation of a rain stick! If these could continue being brought in we would really appreciate it. Thank you for your support with this, the children can't wait to get creating and share their masterpieces with you!

Please can you remind your child that they are not allowed to be bringing in toys to school. Thank you for your support with this.

 14.11.25

Dear Parents and carers, 

Welcome back to the second half of Autumn term. We are so proud of how well the children have settled back into school life again and as we begin the countdown to Christmas we have been excited to begin practicing for our Nativity performance! If your child is in Year 2, they may have come home with a script and some lines to learn. Some children have chosen singing and dancing parts like our angels and will have a slip to tell you their part. An email should have gone out to all parents this week to explain the children's costumes and let you know if we have one in school for them. If you have any questions surrounding this please do not hesitate to come and speak to myself at the end of the school day or email in and we will get back to you straight away.

Celebrating Children in Need today was a lovely way to support such a wonderful cause and the children had an assembly to help them understand more about it. Thank you for all your support with this and odd socks day at the beginning of the week to also celebrate and embrace differences. It has certainly been a busy week this week as we were also able to participate in Michael Rosen’s poetry day on Thursday. It was a wonderful way to inspire the children and ignite a passion for poetry. He performed some hilarious and feel good poems about food - as your child what their favourite moment was! It was also such a brilliant way to demonstrate how a love of reading is essential to our wellbeing and empowers us to live full, happy lives! 

Geography this half term is all about the world around us and the differences seen at the North Pole, South Pole and the equator. To explore the world around us we went on a scavenger hunt to explore what we could find around the school environment which was a great opportunity for the children to demonstrate their knowledge of our community. We were then able to draw a map of the school and begin to develop one of our key skills of map making in Geography! Over the next few weeks we will be comparing our environment to how different it can be at the top, bottom and middle of the Earth - exploring Ecuador and the equator!

We are thinking all about seasonal changes as well as materials in Science this half term. We have recapped our learning of trees by looking at the school trees on the field, exploring how the leaves have changed colour and how some of them are falling off! We also looked at leaves and the differences between deciduous and evergreen trees - ask your children what each tree is and what makes it so special!

Our History learning about toys from the past has continued and we had such a wonderful time visiting Wardown museum this week! Seeing all the old toys really brought our learning to life and it was fascinating to explore the differences between old and new toys. The children's behaviour was fantastic and it was amazing to be able to see how a museum is curated. We take inspiration from this as it will really help us when it comes time to create our own museum display of toys in the classroom! 

Finally, our Happy Hummers over the last two weeks were  Olivia Faunch and  Keisha Wicks for being such amazing members of our class; listening well, sharing ideas and being fantastic role models to their peers. Our Handwriting heroes have been Logan Monk, Trixie |King, Franky Rooney and Carter Nurse-Sterling .

Lots of love,

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite and Mrs. Harrison X

 28.11.25

Dear Parents and carers, 

Firstly, a massive thank you to those of you who have been sending in costumes for our Christmas production of ‘Born in a Barn.’ We have been excited to see the stage go up at the beginning of this week and the children have been doing a wonderful job in their rehearsals; you really are in for a real treat! Thank you also to parents who have been supporting their children with their lines and where to come in on their scripts at home; we have been really impressed at school with their efforts. Just to clarify for anyone who is unsure, Year 1 are our amazing choir and have been asked to dress as their chosen barn yard animals. Please note these do not need to be bought costumes; they can wear clothes in the colour of that animal and a mask/head wear/tail etc. bird, sheep, cat, cow, pig. Please speak to Miss. Slough or any of the Key stage 1 team if you need help with any of this.

Alongside rehearsals, the children in Hummingbirds have had a great time last week playing maths games with the children in Upper Key Stage 2. It was so lovely to see the sense of community we have at Lark Rise in action as our Year 5 and 6 children explained games they had designed and spent time helping our children to play with their friends. There were lots of smiles and even some siblings that had the chance to play together which was very lovely to see. It was definitely a fun way to end Maths week. See if your child can tell you about some of the other active Maths activities they played in their morning Maths classes too.

We have been very fortunate over the last two weeks to have had some lovely grandparents visit us in Key Stage 1 to support us with our history learning. The children discovered an old train set that was a firm favourite and even got to see a set of wooden blocks that had been handmade and handed down through three generations of family and is still going strong; amazing! The children really enjoyed seeing old photos and listening to tales of when our two Grandads were young. Both talks were very special moments indeed. This will also really help us when we come to make our own toy museum next week. We would love your child to bring in a toy for this event on the 11th of December. We will be creating a toy museum with all three classes so please let them bring in something they like to play with but not too precious to display (and I’m sure we can make some time to play with them too!).

In music the children have been learning a special Christmas song ‘Somewhere in my memory.’ By John Williams. It featured in the film Home Alone and some of the children were able to recognise it straight away. We will be performing the song as a whole school before the end of the Christmas term in a special assembly. The children thought about how it makes them feel and what the lyrics mean. They sound absolutely angelic singing this song and we can’t wait to hear what it sounds like with the whole school and a percussion accompaniment.

Finally, our Happy Hummers over the last two weeks were Imogen Hancock and Caleb Fox for being such amazing members of our class; listening well, sharing ideas and being fantastic role models to their peers. Our Handwriting heroes have been Franky Rooney,Tymek Worobec, Isla Vicary and Cassie Starkey-Brown.

We hope you have a wonderful weekend.

Lots of love,

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite and Mrs. Harrison X

 12.12.25

Dear Parents and Carers,

What a busy but great term we have had! The children have worked so hard and made some amazing progress.

We must start by saying just how incredibly proud we are of the children for their fantastic performance of our Christmas production, ‘Born in a Barn.’ The performances have been the absolute highlights of our week! A massive, heartfelt thank you to all of you who supported us so brilliantly by sending in such wonderful costumes—the barnyard animals, angels, shepherds, kings, and Mary and Joseph all looked spectacular. We also know how much time went into helping the children learn their lines and cues at home; that support makes a huge difference to their confidence. I’m sure you will agree all that practice paid off and it was a joy to see them shining so brightly. They really did give it their all, and their singing was absolutely beautiful. It was a very special occasion for our Key Stage.

Back in the classroom, the festive learning has continued in our RE lessons. This week, the children thoroughly enjoyed the hands-on task of making their very own Christingles. It was a wonderful, practical activity that really helped us to explore the deeper meaning of Christmas. We discussed why this season is so important to Christians and unpicked the symbolism: the orange represents the world, the red ribbon symbolises God’s love, the sweets and dried fruit represent God’s creations, and the candle stands for the light of the world. The classroom smelled delicious, and the children showed such respect during our discussions about faith.

We have also rounded off our History topic in style by creating a ‘Toy Museum’ in the classrooms using the children’s own toys. It was lovely to see such a variety of favourites brought in to share. It was great to see the children applying what they learned earlier in the term; they worked very hard to write detailed labels for their exhibits, just like the real ones we saw at Wardown Park. They had to think carefully about how to explain their toy to a visitor, describing materials and how it is played with. It was a fantastic way to link literacy skills with history, and they took great pride in displaying their items.

In Design and Technology, creativity has been flowing as the children worked on their hand puppets. We have been so pleased with their resilience. Sewing is not an easy skill, and there were certainly some tricky moments! However, the children didn't give up straight away, even when cutting felt was difficult or threading needles was fiddly. It was truly lovely to see them supporting one another during these lessons; we saw so many examples of friends helping friends to thread needles or offering encouragement.

A huge, special thank you must go to Kit’s wonderful Grandma who came in to support Miss. Sheldrick with the sewing session. Having an extra pair of hands (and expert sewing knowledge!) was invaluable and helped the children achieve such great results.

Finally, our happy Hummers over the last two weeks have been Zara Dockree and Tomasz Kwiatkowski. They have received this award for being such amazing members of our class; always listening well, helping their teachers, sharing their ideas with confidence, and being fantastic role models. Our Handwriting Heroes have been Pratham Verma, Wyatt Linsley, Mia Worth and Kayden Abranches. We are really impressed with the care you are taking with your presentation.

We hope you have a wonderful, restful weekend after such a busy week.

Love From 

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite and Mrs. Harrison. 

Class News Spring Term 2026

9.1.26

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back! I hope you all had a restful and enjoyable break. It has been an absolute pleasure welcoming the children back into the classroom this week; the school has felt full of energy and excitement once again.

We are so impressed with how quickly the children have settled back into their routines. This week has been all about reconnecting with friends and diving straight into our new learning. Here is a little glimpse of what we’ve been up to during our first few days:

In history, we have begun our new topic The Great Fire of London. The children used images from the past to become detectives and find out about where and why the fire began. We have also started our key text in history ‘The Great Fire’ by Emma Adams. The children have enjoyed looking at the hauntingly beautiful illustrations that have depicted the fire.

This week, we officially launched our new Science topic, "Living Things and Their Habitats." The children have been busy learning about what makes something "alive" and what animals and plants need to survive. To kick things off, we took our learning outside! We spent some time exploring the school grounds to identify different micro-habitats. The children loved searching under logs and stones to find minibeasts and discussing why a damp, shady corner is a perfect home for a woodlouse. It was wonderful to see them using their "scientist eyes" in the fresh air!

We’ve already seen some fantastic effort across the board, but we would like to give a special mention to our first award winners of the term:

• Our Happy Hummers: A huge well done to Mia Worth and Gabriel Hasanaj! They have been real "Happy Hummers" this week and before Christmas, spreading positivity and showing a wonderful attitude towards their peers. 

• Handwriting Heroes: Congratulations to Alex Kubkowski, Trixie King, Roman Crawley and Tomasz Kwiatkowski . They have been showing such focus, taking incredible pride in their letter formation and presentation.

It promises to be a busy and rewarding term ahead and hopefully you will have some time to have a look at the new curriculum overview so you can see the exciting projects we have planned.

As always, thank you for your continued support. Please do catch me at the gate if you have any quick questions, or feel free to book a time to chat if there is anything more specific you’d like to discuss.

Warm regards,

Miss. Slough, Mrs. Braithwaite, Mr. McAleese and Mrs. Harrison

Notes;

Children will have English / RWI homework given to them today. It is due in the first Wednesday of the following week (14.1.26). Thank you in advance for all your support with this as well as reading at home with your child and support to use TT Rockstars and Numbots. It really does translate into fantastic progress in the classroom when children are consistently supported with these at home as well as at school.

 6.2.26

Dear Parents, Carers, and Hummingbirds Class,

We have had an absolutely great week! It has been a joy to see the classroom buzzing with energy, and we are so impressed by how hard the children have worked across every single subject. 

Choosing our Happy Hummer is definitely becoming one of the hardest jobs of the week because the whole class is constantly working so hard. However, we have some special shout-outs for individuals who have truly stood out for their effort and kindness!

• Our Happy Hummer: A massive "well done" to Eliana! We are so impressed by the way she treats her friends and her fantastic attitude toward every challenge. We also want to celebrate Wyatt; his quiet resilience and positive outlook on his learning are wonderful to witness. You both sparkled these last 2 weeks!
• Handwriting Heroes and Heroines: A huge round of applause for Rocco, Imogen, Logan and Sienna. Their books are a delight to look at because of their incredible focus on letter formation and their pride in their presentation. Keep up that beautiful work!

In Science, we have been exploring the fascinating world of food chains. The children have become experts at identifying whether an animal is a herbivore, carnivore, or omnivore. We enjoyed using pictures to build sequences of "who eats what," and the children even got creative by drawing their own unique food chains to show the flow of energy in nature.

Our Computing sessions have been full of excitement as we welcomed the Bee-Bots into our classroom! The children have been learning how to program these little robots to follow specific paths. Most importantly, they have been practicing their "debugging" skills—learning how to fix their code when the Bee-Bot doesn't quite end up where we planned!

We are bursting with pride over the children's Writing this week. They have completed their recounts of "The Snowman Christmas Party," and we can honestly say it is some of the best writing we have ever seen from them. Their hard work has truly paid off! Looking ahead, we are excited to use our History topic to inspire our next pieces. We will be writing diary entries from the perspective of a cat being rescued during the Great Fire of London. To prepare for this, we spent the afternoon recapping our knowledge of the fire through a range of activities to support our learning, ensuring we are ready to travel back to 1666 in our imaginations.

In Art, we have continued our journey with Henri Rousseau. Last week, the children painted beautiful, lush backgrounds, and this week they brought them to life by adding their own animals. These "jungle" scenes look spectacular and show a real understanding of Rousseau's unique, dreamlike style.

A Note on Our School Trip

We were so disappointed that we were unable to go on our school trip today. However, we are already looking forward to our new date: 19th March. We are so glad the trip has been rescheduled and can't wait for the big day!

Finally, we know the children are missing Miss Slough very much. We all send her our very best wishes and really hope she feels better very soon!

Have an exciting, joyful, and rejuvenative weekend!

Lots of Love,

The Key Stage One Team

X

Class Reminders:

• We do appreciate the children’s enthusiasm for their toys and things from home but we ask that all personal toys and stationery items stay safely at home to help everyone stay focused and make the most of our exciting lessons. We provide everything the children need for their learning right here in the classroom. This helps us avoid distractions and ensures that no precious belongings from home get lost or accidentally swapped. Thank you for helping us create a calm, ready-to-learn environment for all our Key Stage 1 superstars!