Dear Parents and Carers,

Wow; what a busy couple of weeks we have had in Lower Key Stage 2!  There have been so many wonderful learning opportunities that have taken place and the children have settled well into life in our key stage. Here are some of our highlights. 

In our English lessons, we have continued to read our book, ‘The Iron Man’. The children are really enjoying this book and it has led to some excellent discussions on where The Iron Man has come from, and what is going to happen next. We are gearing ourselves up for our next ‘big write’ which will be a diary entry all about the discovery of the Iron Man in the voice of Hogarth’s father. The children have wowed us with their creativity already and we can’t wait to read what they write. 

In Mathematics, the children have continued to develop their understanding of Place Value. It has been wonderful to see the children grow in confidence and use their reasoning skills to explain their answers. This is an area we will continue to develop over the course of the year. We encourage children to log onto daily Times Table Rockstars at home which will help with their fluency in Maths. 

Science has led to some excellent discoveries about forces and magnets. The children have really enjoyed our investigations so far! From learning about friction and which surface is best to stop you from slipping to learning about magnetism and which metals are magnetic. There is a real buzz in the classrooms and the children have been able to speak like scientists to explain their learning. 

Learning all about our local area has truly captivated the children in History. We have learnt the importance of looking at primary sources, such as newspapers and maps, to find out key historical information and have created a class timeline of the key events that have happened in Dunstable. The children were enthused to hear the history of the name Dunstable. Dun is an old word for hill, and staple means a wooden post which would have marked the site of the market. If you want to hear more, ask the children all about their knowledge of the history of Dunstable! Our History learning will be brought to life on Wednesday 2nd October as we will be visiting the local area as a magic moment.

Our Macaws of the week for the last two weeks are Carter and Lydia. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine for the last two weeks are Thesanth, Mike, Precious and Alessia; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

Here are a few other reminders for you:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Spell. Your children’s passwords can be found in their planners.  

• Please remember that children’s chromebooks do need to be charged at the end of each day so they are ready for use in school. 

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend and we look forward to another fantastic week next week.

Miss Spokes and Miss Seaborn :-)

 11.10.2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

We have been very busy over the last fortnight! I am sure you will have heard all about our exciting lessons and ‘magic moments’. The children have really enjoyed the many learning opportunities on offer over the last two weeks and we are pleased to share some highlights with you in this email. 

In our English lessons, we have continued to read our book, ‘The Iron Man’. The children have all written some amazing diary entries in the role of Hogarth's father. We are now progressing through the book and considering how we would trap the Iron Man! Children have thought creatively about this and used some excellent features in creating their very own set of instructions for this, such as using rhetorical questions to engage the reader. We are looking forward to reading the children’s full set of instructions once they are completed!

It was Biology Week this week and children were enthused from the very start after listening to Mrs True’s inspiring assembly. This was all about plants and trees and how they help our environment. Children also heard about how the planet struggles in its battle against climate change. 

Biology Week helps us to consider important issues as part of our continued dedication to supporting and exploring sustainability as a school. We have continued that focus in our classes this week and completed an exciting afternoon of wildflower seed planting in our school field. We read a lovely book called ‘Wilder’ by Isabella Tree and this helped us to think about the importance of wildflower areas and pollinators. We reflected on the quote ‘To plant a garden is to believe in tomorrow’. I wonder if your child can explain what this means! Finally, we all completed a lovely butterfly craft and we hope that our new wildflower areas will attract a range of pollinators, including butterflies!

Last week saw the key stage embark on an exciting History trail around our local area. We were very lucky that the rain held off to enable us to complete a morning of discovery on our doorstep! We saw a range of exciting historical sites from the site of the local town stocks to the site of the chapel where Henry VIII’s marriage to Catherine of Aragon was annulled! I am sure your children will have told you all about this. A special thank you to the parents who volunteered to help on this trip. We really appreciate your time and support as this enables ‘magic moments’ like this to go ahead. 

We have now started to explore the history of Lark Rise Academy. Children were fascinated to learn that the site of our school was once known as Downs Farm and we considered what this might have looked like, by looking at historical sources such as photographs and maps. This week we have started to explore why Lark Rise is called Lark Rise! You could ask your child if they can remember why this is. Who knew Dunstable had such an amazing historical past?!

We are looking forward to seeing you all at the upcoming Learning Review meetings next Thursday 17th October. This meeting will be with your child’s base class teacher and the focus of the meeting will be discussing how your child has settled in and started the academic year. Please note that this is not a meeting to discuss the specifics of progress in individual subjects, however you will also receive targets in advance of the meeting from your child’s English and Mathematics teacher. There will be an opportunity for you to meet with English and Maths teachers later this academic year. We hope the targets will be useful in helping you to support your child at home in these areas. 

Our Macaws of the week are Myra and Neri. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Callan, Lilly, Victor and Jemima; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

• Homework this week has been set on Doodle Spell. Your children’s passwords can be found in their planners.  

• Please could you also ensure that your child is logging on to complete the Maths homework that is set fortnightly on DoodleLearning. The task set last week was due today, so if your child has not completed this yet they could do so this weekend. 

• We also encourage children to log onto daily Times Table Rockstars at home which will help with their fluency in Maths. 

• Please remember that children’s chromebooks do need to be charged at the end of each day so they are ready for use in school. 

I hope that you all have a wonderful weekend,

Miss Spokes and Miss Seaborn :-) 

25.10.2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

It is hard to believe that we have reached the end of our first half term!  We have had such a fantastic half term and it is amazing just how much we have achieved in this time.  We are so very proud of how well the children have settled into life in Lower Key Stage 2 and how hard they have worked.  It was great to have the opportunity to meet with so many of you at our Learning Review meetings last week to share this information with you.

In our English lessons, we have completed our book ‘The Iron Man’; the story line kept the children engrossed right until the final page!  We used the book to inspire our writing as we produced a set of instructions that could be used to trap the Iron Man.  After drafting and editing our set of instructions, we then went on to produce our final piece of assessment writing.  The children worked so hard to produce their instructions and were so proud of their final piece of writing.  This week, we introduced the children to our new book ‘Varjak Paw’ by S F Said.  Having looked at the front cover and read the ‘blurb’ on the back cover, we made predictions about what we thought the book was going to be about.  We look forward to seeing what exciting adventures and mischief the cat called Varjak Paw is going to get up to over the coming weeks.

In our History lessons, we have reached the end of our learning about the history of our local area.  The children have produced a double page spread in their books to demonstrate the huge amount of knowledge that they have learnt about the history of Dunstable and Lark Rise.  It has been fantastic to hear the children talking so confidently about what they have learnt and they have been absolutely fascinated to trace the history of Dunstable right back to the Stone Age.

Our endpoint for our Geography learning involved planning and creating a travel guide for Dunstable.  Using Canva, the children produced some wonderful travel guides that provided the reader with information about the leisure facilities, the retail areas, local landmarks and agricultural land that surrounds our town.  Their skills on Canva are developing all the time and it is such a fantastic tool that we have that we can use to support our learning in the classroom.

In our PE lessons, we have loved our weekly swimming lessons down at the Leisure Centre. The children have made such great progress over the last half term and we look forward to these lessons continuing after half term.  We have also been learning Dance with Miss Klausner.  These lessons supported our team working skills to support us to create our own dance routines.  We have used the dance techniques of performing in unison (moving at the same time) or canon (taking it in turns to perform a movement that is then identically copied and performed by others).  Well done children on such fantastic performances.

Our Macaws of the week are: Liyana  and Baine. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Reggie, Myra, Theo, and Lydia; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

• Mrs True – our amazing Science Subject Leader – has set some science based challenges for the children to complete over half term on Google Classroom.  They are all linked to small things that we can easily do to cut our carbon and reduce our impact on the environment.  The children are invited to take part in the challenges and upload photographs of themselves completing each challenge.  When the challenge has finished, we consider the impact that we, as a whole school, have had.

• Doodle Maths and Doodle English are both available for your child to use over the half term.

• We also encourage children to log onto daily Times Table Rockstars at home which will help with their fluency in Maths. 

• Please remember that children’s chromebooks do need to be charged at the end of each day so they are ready for use in school. 

Thank you all so much for the support you have given your child and the school over this half term.  We hope that you all have a relaxing and enjoyable half term and we look forward to seeing the children back in school on Monday 4th November.

Miss Spokes and Miss Seaborn :-)

Dear Parents and Carers,

We cannot believe that we are entering December this weekend; these last weeks have flown by! As we approach December, our preparations for Christmas are in full swing and we look forward to some exciting events in the weeks ahead. 

The last two weeks have been filled with some lovely learning and some wonderful magic moments! Last Monday we marked the end of our Maths Week with a Rock Star day. This day also launched the Chiltern Learning Trust Times Tables Rock Stars Competition. The children all looked fantastic and we had a great day rolling numbers and celebrating all things Maths! Thank you for your support in ensuring that children are logging on regularly to Times Tables Rock Stars and also for providing an outfit for your child during this day. They all had a great time! 

Last Friday also saw the Key Stage take a trip to the cinema in Stevenage to watch ‘The Wild Robot’. The children were amazing; thoroughly enjoying this experience together and reflecting on the experience of seeing our summer reading challenge on the big screen! Again, thank you for your support in ensuring your child could attend this event. It really enriched their reading and enjoyment of one of the key texts we so enjoy. A special thank you to the wonderful parent helpers who were a fantastic support during the visit. 

We continue to read ‘Varjak Paw’ in our lessons. The children are enthralled by the story (as are the adults!) and we all look forward to reading the next installment each day. Children have completed an excellent piece of writing, writing as ‘Holly’ another main character in our book. We are fast approaching the end of this book and whilst we don’t want it to end, we cannot wait to find out the answer to these questions: 

‘What are the vanishings?’,  ‘Where is Tam?’ and most importantly… ‘Will Varjak find a dog and be able to save the day?’

Why not ask your child what they think the answers to the questions might be. Prediction is an important reading skill that we promote in school, so these conversations with your children will really help to support them to develop these skills earlier. 

We have also continued our investigations in Science to help us to find out more about the Water cycle as part of our learning on ‘solids, liquids and gases’. In History, the children have enjoyed finding out about what life was like before The Normans and they were absolutely fascinated to hear about the ‘battle for the throne’ between William, Harold and Harald. I am sure they will enjoy telling you all about this! We thought about who was most deserving to take the crown; next week we will continue to find out more about this, including learning more about the famous battle of Hastings! 

A reminder that the Times Tables Rock Stars competition runs until the 5th December. We are currently topping the leaderboards! Well done everyone; please continue to log on daily at home to both help to keep our strong lead but most importantly to keep that super times tables recall going! 

Our Macaws of the Week for the last two weeks are Zakariya and Precious. Well done!  Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Rayyan, Katarina, Charlie and Charlotte; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

• LKS2 Brazil Day takes place on Wednesday 4th December. You will have already received an email about what children will need to wear on this day. We are looking forward to taking part in a range of events to enrich children’s learning about this country; from Samba dancing to mask making! 

• Our homework this week is set on Doodle Spell. 

• Please remember that children’s chromebooks do need to be charged at the end of each day so they are ready for use in school. 

• Your child’s most recent ZPD level (Reading level) can be found in your child’s planner. This informs the level of books that they are able to choose from in our library. Please continue to read at home with your child, as this will further support their Reading progress. 

Have a lovely weekend,

Miss Spokes and Miss Seaborn :-)

 16.12.2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

I cannot believe that we are writing the last email of the term and of 2024.  This first term with your amazing children has flown by; we have completed so much incredible learning and we are so proud of all of the children and how hard they have worked. The last two weeks have been very busy and we have lots of updates to share with you.

We hope that you were able to join us for our Christmas performance down at the DCC. It was a wonderful evening of singing and dancing and made us all feel very Christmassy. Each of our classes enjoyed performing their own part of the Christmas story and it was wonderful to see them performing them and delivering their lines so confidently. Thank you for your support and we hope you enjoyed the performance as much as the children enjoyed performing it for you.

In our English lessons, there was a real mix of emotions as we reached the end of our fantastic book – Varjak Paw by S F Said; we were so thrilled to share the final chapters of the book to find out about the very exciting ending but also sad that the book we have loved reading so much was finished. This is the sign of a really great book! Lots of children have shown an interest in the sequel to this book called ‘The Outlaw Varjak Paw’ as they are keen to carry on finding out about Varjak Paw's adventures; many have mentioned about adding it to their Christmas List. 

After finishing Varjak Paw, we moved on to completing a piece of work with a Christmas theme that the children loved! After watching a video clip of a McDonald’s Christmas advert, we became journalists who were tasked with writing a newspaper report to inform the world of the potential carrot crisis that was happening across the world! The children took their new role very seriously and created a series of questions to ask key witnesses of the event, Santa and the Head Elf.  They then went on to start creating some newspaper reports on the potential carrot crisis which could have impacted upon Santa's reindeers and therefore Christmas. Well done children on your excellent work so far and we look forward to finishing this work off next week.

In our History lessons we are approaching the end of our topic about the Normans. The children have learnt so much about this topic including information about the Bayeux Tapestry, The Battle of Hastings, the Feudal system, Motte and Bailey castles and life in Norman England to name just a few! Next week, we will be pulling together all of our learning from the whole term together in a double page spread and answering the question ‘What was the impact of the Norman Conquest on England?’ Please ask your child to share their new knowledge with you – we think you will be very impressed!

In our Design Technology learning we have looked at the process needed to create a 3D product from 2D images.  We have looked specifically at the design of purses and wallets and considered their purpose and design features.  We created a 2D pattern of a purse and used this to cut out our material that we then used to produce a Norman coin purse.  We followed a pattern and used a variety of cutting techniques and tools, before lacing a ribbon through our work to create our finished masterpieces.  It is fair to say that the children have absolutely LOVED this activity and showed great concentration, resilience and attention to detail as they worked to create their individual pieces.  Next week, we will be putting the finishing touches to our coin purse before sending them home with the children.

We were so lucky to be able to enjoy a ‘Magic Moment’ in the key stage in the form of ‘Brazil Day’.  This was a wonderful opportunity for us to immerse ourselves in our Geography learning.  We enjoyed learning about the huge, six day carnival that takes place in Rio de Janeiro and this inspired us to create festival masks and to learn some fantastic samba dance moves.   We also explored some of the rhythms and instruments that are used to create Brazilian music and then had a go at creating our own pieces of music.  It was such a fantastic day and we really appreciate your support in providing the children with such amazing outfits for the day.

The last two weeks have seen the children completing end of term assessments in English and Maths.  All of the children put so much effort into each and every assessment and we could not be prouder of them. We look forward to meeting with you all in January to share information on your child's progress. 

Monday evening saw many children staying for our Christmas Movie night.  It was so much fun being in the classrooms when it was dark and being able to enjoy a Christmas movie with our friends and of course, popcorn!  A huge thank you to you all for ordering so many fantastic books to add to our library. The children have loved seeing them arrive in school and can’t wait to start reading them.

Well done to the Macaws of the week, Arianna and Riley . Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Teddy, Liyana, Hugo and Emily. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

Just a quick reminder of some important information: 

• Homework this week will be set on Doodle spell.  Please encourage your child to log on and complete the task that has been set for them.

• In addition to this, children in Lower Key Stage 2 are expected to be logging onto TT Rockstars daily and reading their accelerated reader book.

• We are very much looking forward to our last week in school with the children and have lots of lovely activities planned. Please could you send in a named carrier bag for your child to bring home their Christmas crafts.

As there will not be another class email until after Christmas, all that is left to say is thank you all so much for the wonderful support that you have given your children and the school this term. We hope you have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year and we really look forward to seeing the children at the start of the Spring Term in 2025. 

Miss Spokes and Miss Seaborn :-) 

Class News Spring Term 2025

24.1.2025