Red Kites Class

Class News Autumn Term 2024

13.9.24

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to the first Red Kites Class email of the academic year! I hope you all had a lovely summer holiday…I can’t believe we are already at the end of our first full week. We have been very busy indeed!

We are so proud of how well the children have settled back into school life and life in Lower Key Stage Two.  We have really enjoyed hearing all about the wonderful activities that they completed over the summer and getting to know each other through a variety of activities and games.  All of these things have helped us to get ready for our learning journey together over the next year, which we are very excited about.

In our first week, we enjoyed whole school assemblies that were led by Mrs Lang. We consider how we all have four rights in school; the right to be happy, to be safe, to learn and to be included and how our school and class rules are in place to protect each of those rights. Having discussed and agreed our school and class rules, we then went on to explore the many, many ways that we can be rewarded in school; from house points to coloured coins and from stickers to class awards, there are so many rewards we can earn!  The children have certainly made a fantastic start to collecting these already this year.

It was so wonderful to hear the children talking so enthusiastically about our summer reading challenge book ‘The Wild Robot’ and so keen to share the work they had completed linked to it.  Thank you so much for supporting your child with the challenges set.  The children have all been rewarded with lots of house points in recognition of all their hard work … a great start to the year.

This week has seen children begin their English and Maths lessons and complete some introductory tasks and baseline assessments that they have thoroughly enjoyed. In English we have also begun to read our new book, ‘The Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes. Children have made predictions about what they think the book may be about, using the Chromebooks to record our ideas on a jamboard. 

We have been introduced to our foundation subjects that take place in the afternoons each day. Topics that we will be looking at included Forces and Magnets in Science, a geographical study of Dunstable and the surrounding area, the history of Dunstable in addition to Music, Art, French, Computing , Religious Education and worldviews and PSHE lessons.  For more details on these topics, please refer to the half term overview that has been sent home to you.

I am sure that you will have all seen the exciting new planners that are being used in Lower Key Stage Two this year. Children have been really responsible for taking care of these, bringing them to school each day and using them to record important information to support their learning, such as login details. When children are awarded with house points, these are also recorded within their planners.

Our Red Kite of the week for the last week was Benjamin . Well done!  When the children receive this award they get a special certificate to keep and our Red Kite class bird that they can keep over the weekend and then return to school the following Monday. 

Our handwriting hero and heroine are Saweinya and Sirous; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

Here are a few other reminders for you:

• Everyone in LKS2 has swimming on a Tuesday and should come into school in their PE kit.  The Leisure Centre have requested that every child with long hair wears a swimming hat so please ensure that these are packed in your child’s swimming bag this week if they need it.

• Miss Spokes’s Maths group also have their second PE slot on a Tuesday

•  Mrs Waterman’s Maths group have their second PE slot on a Wednesday

• Mrs Shilvock’s Maths group have their second PE slot on a Thursday

Please remember to send your child into school wearing their PE kit on these days with any earrings removed or taped up and long hair tied back, both for health and safety reasons. 

 As per the newsletter, no homework will be set until 20th September however, we would like the children to log onto TT Rockstars and read their Accelerated Reader book daily.

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

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark

 27.9.2024

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, our lessons have been so exciting!. There was a real buzz in the classrooms as we carried out an investigation to help us to understand these scientific enquiries.  It was wonderful to hear the children speaking like scientists to explain their learning and the conclusions that they reached. 

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 Red Kite of the week is Methara and Lucas. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Hudson, Erik, Sia and Annabelle; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

Here are a few other reminders for you:

• Homework will be set on Doodle English. 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.

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-)

 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. We considered how the farm could have grown wheat which could have been used by one of the five hat factories that used to be in the town. It was fantastic to see the children linking their learning through to our local area walk where we learnt so many amazing facts about the history of our town.

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 Red Kites of the week are  Eddie and Hadassa. Well done!  Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Jaden, Arlo and Anya and Alexa; 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,

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-)

 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 then 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 Red Kites of the week are  Simra and Ethan. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Malcolm, Pelle  and Methara and Ilaria; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

• Mrs True – our amazing Science Subject Leader – has set and throughout November on Google Classroom some science based challenges for the children to complete over half term.  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.

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-)

 15.11.2024

Dear Parents and Carers,

Wow, what a busy couple of weeks we have had in the key stage! It has been lovely to see that the children have returned after their break eager to learn and find out all about their new topics. 

This week has been action-packed as we have celebrated not one event, but three different events; Anti-Bullying Week, Maths Week and Children in Need. It was lovely to see the children come to school with their odd socks on Tuesday morning. We enjoyed an assembly which helped us to reflect on why we were wearing our odd socks; to celebrate our differences and how unique we are! 

The focus for Anti-Bullying Week was all about how to ‘Choose Respect’. We started our week off by listening to the book ‘Today I’m Strong’, by Nadiya Hussain and Ella Bailey, which helped us understand ways to be respectful to others and how to find our inner strength.  We then joined a live lesson to understand what bullying is and strategies to manage this. Finally, our learning was brought to life as we used Now Press Play, an interactive audio experience, which followed a child’s story involving bullying. This enabled our children to reflect on how they would feel and empathise with the characters within the story. The children have been fantastic in discussing their thoughts and feelings around bullying, and understood the importance of talking to a trusted adult. 

The theme for Maths Week has been ‘Can you solve it?’ We have had such fun celebrating this! Each morning, children have had a range of different questions, from logic to problem solving, to try to solve. It has led to some excellent discussions! Not only this, but some of the children took part in ‘Active Maths’; a game which involved solving a range of addition and subtraction questions in an interactive and exciting way! Other children worked together to solve area problems, working together as a group and showing great problem solving skills.

Thank you to parents for supporting these events; the children have loved supporting Children in Need today with their non-uniform day. Don’t forget, children will celebrate Maths week further on Monday when we will celebrate the exciting event of Times Tables Rock Star day. You will have already received information about this. Children are invited to come into school on Monday dressed as a Rock Star! 

Alongside this, we are pleased to announce that there will be a Times Tables Rock Star competition launching on Monday. This will be a competition that is played with all KS2 classes across our trust. It will pop up when your child logs in and is called the 'Winter Battle'. This will run until the 5th December. Remember to log in daily everyone! 

Here are some other highlights from our week: 

In History, the children have discovered that they were learning all about the Normans. The children are already mesmerised with this topic and have begun to learn about the Bayeux Tapestry. We were shocked to find out that it is approximately 70m long and is a key piece of primary evidence which depicts the story of the Norman Invasion! 

In Geography, we have begun learning about Brazil. The children have completed their own independent research on Brazil to find out key facts, including the continent it is located in, capital city and population. This week, we have discovered how to read 4 and 6 figure grid references on a map. Well done children! 

Varjak Paw is a big hit in English. Every lesson, the children protest and ask us to keep reading on! The children have completed some excellent work, including creating similes, setting descriptions and letters advising Varjak Paw to explore the ‘Outside’ or to stay in the Contessa’s house. 

Our Red Kites of the week are: Zachary and Demi. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Daniel, Jack, Emilly, and Hadassa; well done on some beautiful handwriting children!

• 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. 

Have a lovely weekend and we look forward to seeing the children on Monday for Times Tables Rock Star Day. 

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-)

 29.11.2024

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 Red Kite of the Week is Alexa and Pelle. Well done!  Our handwriting hero and heroine are Benjamin, Eddie Monika and Sia; 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,

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark

 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 Red Kite of the week, Sia and Arlo. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Zachary, Patryk and Saweniya and Alexa. 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. 

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark 

Class News Spring Term 2025

24.1.2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

We have had a great start to the Spring term in Lower Key Stage Two. We have been very busy and working hard on a range of exciting topics! Thank you for attending the Learning Review meetings this week; we really enjoyed meeting with you and discussing your child’s progress and next steps. We hope that you found this meeting useful in providing you with an update and ideas on how to support your child with their learning further at home. 

This week, we have continued our reading of our key text ‘The Wild Way Home’ by Sophie Kirtley. The children all produced fantastic setting descriptions of Mandel Forest and really challenged themselves to develop their vocabulary and sentence structure. We are now moving on to completing some non-fiction writing, which the children thoroughly enjoyed researching this week. We asked them to think about survival and work towards creating a set of instructions on how to protect yourself from wild animals in the woodlands. Children recalled the features of instructions very well and we are looking forward to creating the final set of instructions for survival!

Our learning in History has really captured the children’s interest. We are completing an enquiry into the changes from the Stone Age to the Iron Age. Children have worked with fascination on learning more about the three key periods…paleolithic, mesolithic and neolithic periods. Ask them if they can explain to you what these words mean. We think you will be impressed with their knowledge! This week we have focussed upon looking at evidence of Stone Age living; this has included the oldest footprints in Europe, which were found here in the UK! We look forward to continuing our enquiry and finding out more about the changes of the past.

Science has been full of hands-on investigations over the last couple of weeks. Children loved creating igneous, metamorphic and sedimentary rocks out of sweets, yoghurt and biscuits last week! This really helped them to describe the properties of each type of rock. This new knowledge was then further enriched by an exciting visit from a Geologist, Paul. Paul spoke to the children about the rocks and his job as a Geologist. Children then got to handle, explore and classify the different rocks. They were amazed by the vast array of different rocks and I think we have some budding Geologists in our midst as a result! 

Across Lower Key Stage Two, we are loving our Maths learning. We are so impressed with the children’s learning of key facts and this is so evident in many of the children’s amazing Times Tables heat maps. Your child’s Maths teacher will have spoken about this with you at Learning Review meetings this week. We hope this information was useful and will support you in encouraging them to log on regularly at home. 

Thank you to the Year 4 parents who attended the information session last week. We hope it provided a useful update on the upcoming Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check. A copy of the presentation has been sent to all Year 4 parents. A reminder that all Year 4 pupils are encouraged to attend our weekly Times Tables Club each Wednesday morning at 8am. We notice a very positive correlation between those children who attend club and their quick and accurate recall of times tables - it definitely works! 

A few reminders: 

• Homework this week will be set on Doodle Spell. Children’s log in details can be found within their planners. We monitor engagement with the homework tasks as it is really important that this is completed; the tasks will consolidate learning for the children. Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any queries about accessing the homework tasks. 

• Red Kites class have Tag Rugby lessons on a Friday afternoon, as previously communicated in an email to you. Please can we ask that children bring in football boots and a change of clothes (tracksuit bottoms) as they will be playing on the field and can become muddy. 

• Next Friday morning is Red Kites’ Class Assembly.  The children are looking forward to sharing lots of our amazing learning with you.

Well done to the Red Kite of the week, Annabelle and Emilly. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Lucas, Jackson and Simra and Methara. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

Have a fantastic weekend,

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark

 7.2.2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

It is hard to believe that this is our final email of our first Spring half term!  This term seems to have absolutely flown by and we have been able to fit so much amazing learning into it.  It has been lovely to have so many of you come into school over recent weeks to see our class assemblies; these are a great opportunity for the children to celebrate all of their hard work and achievements.  They are always so proud to share their learning with you all.  We have been so proud of the confidence that the children have shown to deliver these amazing assemblies to you.  Well done children!

Our History learning is continuing to focus on the Stone Age time period.  Having previously looked at life in the Palaeolithic and Mesolithic time periods, we have moved on to look at life in the Neolithic age.  We learnt that this was a time of huge change for the Stone Age people.  The biggest change was that they were no longer nomadic but chose to settle in one place and build permanent homes.  This led to the next big change where they began to grow their own crops and keep animals.  The children have been absolutely fascinated with our learning and have been able to make some incredible observations as they answer one of our key enquiry questions – ‘How did people live in the Stone Age?’  We are excited to carry on this learning after half term.

In our Science learning we have focussed on fossils.  We have learnt about the process that takes place when they formed in sedimentary rock.  Did you know that there are three different types of fossils?  There are body fossils, chemical fossils and trace fossils.  We can learn so much about the past by studying the fossils that have been found.  We were fascinated to look at the trace fossils that have been found recently in Oxfordshire; over 200 dinosaur footprints have been found.  It is believed that these footprints are from over 166 million years ago … Wow! We have also learnt about the palaeontologist, Mary Anning.  We created a fact file on Canva to provide information about her life and her achievements.

In our Computing lessons we have been learning programming skills using Scratch. We have been learning to sequence a set of commands to tell our sprite (character) what to do; this is called an algorithm.  We have been able to create algorithms to allow our Sprite to move and make sounds and have even been able to make multiple Sprites follow different algorithms.

Our learning about Italy has continued in our Geography lessons.  We spent a fantastic lesson exploring the amazing capital city of Rome.  We learnt about the human features that you could see there such as The Coliseum, St Peter’s Basilica and The Roman Forum. The River Tiber flows through  Rome.  It is the third longest river in Rome and its source is in the mountains in the north of Italy and then it flows through Italy and into the sea; this is a physical feature of Rome.  Many of the children commented on what a wonderful place Rome was and how they would love to go and visit it one day.  

We are very much looking forward to our Italy day Magic Moment that will be happening in school on Tuesday 11th February.  Email communication has been sent home about this day and children have been invited to come in wearing clothes in the colour of the Italian flag – green, white and red.

A few reminders: 

• Homework this week will be set on Doodle Spell. Children’s log in details can be found within their planners. We monitor engagement with the homework tasks as it is really important that this is completed; the tasks will consolidate learning for the children. Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any queries about accessing the homework tasks. 

• A reminder that all Year 4 pupils are encouraged to attend our weekly Times Tables Club each Wednesday morning at 8am.

Well done to the Red Kite of the week, Daniel and Anya. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Ethan, Archie and George and Ariana and Sia. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

Have a wonderful weekend and a fantastic half term.

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark

 28.2.2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

It has been lovely to see all of the children back in school refreshed and eager to learn! We have been incredibly busy learning our new topics for the half term. Here are some highlights: 

We had a huge cheer across the Key Stage as we finished our key text, ‘The Wild Way Home’. The children and adults absolutely loved reading this text and it led to some amazing pieces of work, including instructions, setting descriptions and narratives. We are so proud of what the children have achieved in their writing and can’t wait to introduce them to their new text next week: ‘The Ultimate Survival Guide to Monsters Under the Bed’ by Mitch Frost. 

For our Science lessons, we are exploring the topic ‘Plants’. We began this week by exploring what seeds and plants need to survive and learnt all about the WOW factor; seeds need water, oxygen and warmth to germinate! We set up our own experiments using cress seeds and can’t wait to observe what will happen next week. 

In Geography, we are comparing Dunstable and Clacton in our topic of Urban VS Coastal. We began by exploring the United Kingdom using Google Earth and locating Dunstable and Clacton on the map. We will continue comparing the physical and human features of both places, which will eventually lead up to our field trip to Clacton on Wednesday 26th March. We already can’t wait! 

In History, we are continuing our learning all about the Stone Age. This week, we explored Skara Brae: a settlement from the Neolithic period. We used our Chromebooks to go on a ‘virtual tour’ of Skara Brae which helped provide an insight on how people may have lived during this time. We found that inside the ‘houses’ were stone beds, drawers, seating and a fireplace! We are really enjoying this topic, and delving in deeper to explore what has changed from the Stone Age period to the Iron Age. 

Well done to the Red Kite of the week Hudson and Saweinya. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Jaden, Eddie and Monika and Anya. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

A few reminders:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Spell for this week. 

• Please continue encouraging the use of Times Tables Rockstars at home! This is crucial for the children to have quick recall of the times tables and helps them in all areas of their Maths.

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

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark 

14.3.25

Dear Parents and Carers,

We have had a busy two weeks in school! The children have continued to work hard and enjoy their learning and we were extremely proud of them during our Ofsted inspection this week too. Key events have included a fantastic World Book Day, Science Week and many more highlights! Read on to find out more about what we have been up to in Red Kites class!

In English we have been reading a range of persuasive texts to help to inform our next written piece of work. The children have really enjoyed ‘The ultimate guide to monsters under the bed’ and also ‘The day the crayons quit’. We have become confident in identifying the persuasive devices used in this piece of writing and are beginning to draw upon these in preparation for our next write. 

For our Science lessons, we have continued our learning on the topic ‘Plants’. We enjoyed looking at our results from our cress experiment and we were able to conclude our findings by reflecting on what plants need to be able to grow. The cress in our cupboard was yellow and wilted, whereas our cress beside the window thrived with all the sunlight, warmth and water. We have continued our investigations of plants by also exploring how water is transported to a plant through completing a celery investigation! We placed coloured water in a cup and observed how it travelled up the celery stem. We learnt new vocabulary including ‘xylem’, why not ask your child what this word means! 

The theme of Science has continued this week as we celebrated Science Week. We took part in an engaging Science Live Lesson presented by a panel of incredible STEM-focused children's authors to explore the wonders of science, adventure, and discovery through storytelling, live drawing, and an interactive Q&A session. The children loved this session and it really helped to further enrich their scientific knowledge. For your information, the authors that presented wrote the following books; your child may be interested in reading one of these titles: 

 Vashti Hardy – The Relic Hunters: The Clockwork Key

 Lisa Harvey-Smith – Quarks, Sparks and Quantum Mysteries (pre-recorded)

 Dr. Lucía Pérez-Díaz – How the Earth Works

In History, we are continuing our learning all about the Stone Age. This week, we found out more about the Bronze Age. We are beginning to draw our knowledge together now to focus on the key historical concepts of ‘continuity’ and ‘change’. For example, how did tools change over time? What materials were used? What were homes made of? And many more questions! Please note the date change for Stone Age Day, which has already been sent out to you. This will now take place on Wednesday 2nd April. 

Well done to the Red Kites of the week, Malaki and Jack. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Malcolm, Arlo and Annabelle and Ilaria. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

A few reminders:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Spell for this week. 

• Please continue encouraging the use of Times Tables Rockstars at home! This is crucial for the children to have a quick recall of the times tables and helps them in all areas of their Maths.

Many thanks for all of your support and kind words this week and we hope you have a lovely weekend and look forward to seeing the children on Monday.

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-) 

 28.3.25

Dear Parents and Carers,

Wow! What an amazing couple of weeks we have had both in and out of school!  We have to begin by talking about our incredible Geography Field Trip to Clacton.  We had such a brilliant day and were able to complete some map reading activities, take photographs of the human and physical features of the town AND got to dip our toes in the sea … what a great trip.  The children displayed exemplary behaviour and it made us so proud to hear so many members of the public and the coach drivers commenting on what a credit they were to the school.  We were so lucky to have the most beautiful weather and this, in the words of one of the children, made it the ‘Best day EVER!’  A huge thank you to so many of you for giving up your time to support us with the trip, we really appreciate this and these ‘magic moment’ trips could not go ahead without your support.

In our History learning we are reaching the end of our ‘Stone Age’ topic.  We have considered the changes that took place from the Palaeolithic era all the way through to the Iron Age.  It has been fascinating to consider the impact that changes to homes, food and tools had on people’s lives.  The children have completely loved this topic and can talk so confidently about their learning.  We are really looking forward to rounding this topic off with our Stone Age Day next, Wednesday 2nd April.  These days are a great way of really bringing our learning to life and we have got lots of wonderful activities planned for the children to complete.

For our Science lessons, we have continued our learning on the topic ‘Plants’.  Having learnt about how pollination happens and seeds are produced, we moved on to look at how seeds are dispersed.  We were able to watch video clips showing some of the different methods of dispersal in slow motion.  Having learnt that seeds can disperse using the wind, water, animals or even through exploding seed pods, the children then drew their own seed and thought carefully about the best features to add to ensure their seed dispersed to the widest area possible.  Many of the designs were really well thought out and included hooks to attach the seed to animal’s fur, additional structures on the seed to support it as it flew through the air and features to help the seeds float in water to reach a new destination … very inventive! Well done children.

In our weekly PE sessions, we have been learning basketball and multi-skills.  We have taken full advantage of the fact that we have had some lovely weather recently and have been able to have our basketball lessons outside on the basketball court.  We have focussed on our dribbling, passing and shooting skills and are now putting all of these skills into practice in some games.  In our multi skills lessons we have been focussing on key skills such as balance, control, teamwork and agility.  These are all great transferable skills that we will be able to use in many different sports.

Well done to the Red Kites of the week, Jaden and Ariana. Our handwriting heroes and heroines are Benjamin, Pelle, Saweyina and Alexa. Well done for working hard on your handwriting!

A few reminders:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Spell for this week. 
• Please continue encouraging the use of Times Tables Rockstars at home! This is crucial for the children to have a quick recall of the times tables and helps them in all areas of their Maths.

We hope you have a lovely weekend and enjoy your Mother’s Day celebrations.  We look forward to seeing the children on Monday for our final week of the Spring half term before the Easter holidays!

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-) 

Class News Summer Term 2025

25.4.25

 Dear Parents and Carers, 

It has been wonderful to welcome the children back after the Easter holiday and we have all

been impressed with how well they have settled back in. Although this has been a very short week, we have already started on lots of our new topics for the term ahead.

In English, we have begun the reading of our new text, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’. This famous play by William Shakespeare has been adapted by Andrew Matthews. We began reading this on the 23rd April, which also happened to be William Shakespeare’s birthday! Alongside reading the text, we are also looking forward to finding out more about Shakespeare. So far, we have made some predictions about what we think is going to happen using our inference skills; we looked at the image on the front cover and read a quote from a key character in the book to support us with this.  Next, we were introduced to some of our main characters from the book and even after reading only a small section of the book, we are all hooked!

We were very excited to find out that we are learning all about Ancient Egypt in our History lessons. We launched this topic by becoming historians and examining artefacts closely to deduce and infer what they might have been used for and consider what we can learn from them.  

In our Science this half term, we are focussing on the topic of ‘Light’.  We have identified natural and artificial sources of light and then carried out research on our most important natural source of light - the sun.  Our research helped us to find out that nuclear fusion happens at the core of the sun and creates light and heat.  We were amazed to find out that even though the sun is an incredible 93 million miles away from earth, it only takes light 8 minutes and 20 seconds to reach earth … WOW! We can’t wait to carry out investigations over the coming weeks as we explore this topic more.

In our base class, we have been having weekly ‘Book Chats’; these are opportunities for children to share information about the books that they have been reading and make recommendations to other children.  I have to say that this is one of the highlights of my week!  I love to hear the children talking confidently about their chosen book and sharing the reasons why they would recommend reading it. Many children go on to choose a new book from an author that they haven’t read before as a result of these sessions.

Red Kite of the Week this week and the week before the Easter holiday were Monika and Ilaria. Our Handwriting Heroes and Heroines are: Hudson, Patryk, Hadassa and Emilly. Well done to these children for working so hard on your handwriting.

A few reminders:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Maths for this week. 

• Please continue encouraging the use of Times Tables Rockstars at home! This is crucial for the children to have a quick recall of the times tables and helps them in all areas of their Maths.

We hope that you all have a lovely weekend with your children, 

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-) 

 9.5.25

Dear Parents and Carers, 

What a fantastic couple of weeks we have had! The children are absolutely loving the learning this term, as are we! Here are a few highlights:

In English, we have finished our text, ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ and it was amazing to see how much the children enjoyed this! They were captivated by the love triangle between the characters and we had plenty of discussions based around the history of Midsummer and the crazy events that happened. This led to the children writing a detailed character description about Puck using a range of adjectives, similes and metaphors. We are now moving onto our next ‘big write’ which will be an additional verse of the poem, ‘We are selling Moonbeams in the Market Place’. Watch this space! 

In Geography, we have been focusing on UK symbols and we have been using Ordnance Survey maps. The children have loved exploring the OS maps and have discussed the use of scale and contour lines to help us understand the landscapes. In History, we have been learning about the pyramids in Ancient Egypt. Much discussion was had over how the pyramids were created; whether by a skilled workforce, or by slaves. The children explored two different accounts from modern historians, and Herodotus and analysed which account they felt was more factual. We are absolutely loving this topic, and can’t wait to learn more about the Pharaohs of Ancient Egypt. This has linked perfectly to our Art topic, where we are working towards creating an Egyptian cartouche using clay. This week, we have researched all about cartouches and the use of hieroglyphics to begin the planning stage of our topic.  

On Thursday 8th May, we joined in with a LIVE lesson to learn all about VE day.  The children were amazed to learn that the war had been going on for 6 years and thought that it definitely deserved celebrating when the war was finally over.  We were able to see photos and video footage from the time and it really made us appreciate those who gave their lives fighting for our country and the freedom that we now have.  We were also able to see a newspaper, photographs and learn about how VE day was celebrated in Dunstable.

Red Kite of the Week this week has been awarded to Patryk and George. Our Handwriting Heroes and Heroines are: Malakai, George, Demi and Simra. Well done to these children for working so hard on your handwriting.

A few reminders:

• Homework will be set on Doodle Maths for this week. 

• Please continue encouraging the use of Times Tables Rockstars at home! This is crucial for the children to have a quick recall of the times tables and helps them in all areas of their Maths.

• A reminder that Year 4 children are all encouraged to attend our weekly Wednesday Maths club sessions at 8:00am. This will support them in recalling their times tables facts with confidence and accuracy.  

We hope that you all have a lovely weekend with your children, 

Mrs Shilvock and Miss Clark :-)