Kingfisher Class - Year 4 & 5

Welcome back Kingfishers! 

I hope you have had a fun and restful break! I would like to introduce myself as Shannon Burrow your new class teacher and I am very much looking forward to working with you all in this new school year. We are going to be having fun-filled terms with lots of interesting learning and adventures. As we move into year 4 and 5, we will be showing how we are role models of Dean Gibson, where expectations are high. We will be focussing on building on our core values this year which are being caring, curious and resilient learners. We are very lucky to be joined by the wonderful Mrs Joyce in the mornings and she will be teaching in class every Wednesday afternoon. 

Please see the above Curriculum Map and timetable to see what we shall be covering this year and when (subject to change). At Dean Gibson, we value the important partnership between home and school. If you have any questions now or in future then please don’t hesitate to speak to me, (any emails should go to the office email). I am very much looking forward to this year working with you and your children.

Mrs Burrow

Summer 2

Welcome back to our final half term of Year 5, it is going to be a busy one! ! In the newsletter you will find some important information on this coming half term and an overview of the topics that your child will be learning about. Below, I have attached some key dates as a reminder of forthcoming trips and events we have planned.  

Key dates:

·       Thursday 13th June and Friday 14th June- Residential Trip to Liverpool

·       Thursday 20th June- Sports Day (Friday 21st as backup)

·       Monday 24th June- QKS Workshop Day

·       Monday 1st July- Roll Up Morning

·       Tuesday 2nd July- Zoo Trip

·       Thursday 4th July- Chicago Performance

·       Monday 8th July- KKS Workshop Morning

NSPCC Speak Out Stay Safe

We were joined by members of the NSPCC who came to talk about keeping ourselves safe, we discussed different types of abuse that can be experienced and shared how they should raise any concerns they have. They all showed great maturity in their discussions.

Felt Making With Nicki the Artist

Starting with a visit to our local library, we spent time looking at pieces of artwork created by artists who are visually impaired. We have enjoyed working with Nicki the Artist over this week to make felt and 3D flowers, we especially focussed on the feel of the artwork like the artists did who were visually impaired.

Summer Term 2024

I hope you have all had a great Easter break. In this newsletter you will find some important information on this coming half term and an overview of the topics that your child will be learning this half of the Summer term in Kingfishers Class (see below).

PE

This half term PE will be on Wednesdays and Thursdays. On Wednesday we will be joined by Sports Coach Keith Singleton to work on our Athletics skills. Please ensure your child has a full outdoor PE kit including: dark tracksuit bottoms or shorts, a plain white t-shirt, a zipped hooded top/sweatshirt and trainers. No football kits are to be worn and earrings should be removed/covered. Please can all items be named.

On Wednesday afternoons, Mrs Jackson will continue to join us teaching us Art, Spanish and Music. Please ask your child what they have been learning on a regular basis. If you have any questions about anything, please feel free to contact me.

Thank you for your continuing support,

Mrs Burrow

Stations of the Cross 2024

We spent time reflecting on Jesus’ last few days and the journey he took to his death. Each class had created a reflection for the stations of the cross and we thought about what we can learn from that journey and how Jesus felt. Our station was station 8, when Jesus met the women and children of Jerusalem. It was a lovely reflective time.

Features of a River

In our Geography topic we have been exploring North America and Rivers, locating the different rivers around the world, looking at how land is used near rivers, the structure of the river inc; upper, middle and lower courses and the features of a river. We walked beside the river Kent, taking notes of the features such as the meanders, flow and width.

British Science Week 2024 - Time

This week we have been celebrating the 30th anniversary of British Science Week, with the theme of ‘Time’. We kicked off the week with a whole school assembly discussing what time is, how it can be told and how things change over time. We also looked at important Scientific discoveries and how technology has changed over time. We have been discovering what reactions are, we discussed how our senses pick up on a stimuli or danger, a message is then sent from our brains to different parts of the body through the spinal cord and along our nerves through important cells called neurons. This message tells our body to react a certain way to the stimuli. We tested our reaction times by seeing how quickly we could catch a ruler which was going to be dropped unexpectedly. We then compared our results.

Class Mass in Church

On Wednesday 13th March, we went to church to celebrate Mass with Father Hugh during this season of Lent. The readers spoke with such clarity and emotion, all children listened well. We discussed Jesus’ journey to his death looking at the stations of the cross.

Cricket 2024

We have been enjoying the coaching from Cricket coach Adam over this half term. Learning key skills of bowling, batting, fielding and the tactics of the game. All children thoroughly enjoyed it!

World Book Day 2024

Thanks to the PTFA we were able to welcome Chloe the writer into school who shared her new book with us ‘The Spirit of the Fells’. We spent time finding our shine outside, as we ventured around the grounds making our story maps!

Welcome Back! Spring 2024

A big warm welcome to all our children! We hope you have had a lovely Christmas break. Please see the attached newsletter for an idea of what’s to come this half term as well as the upcoming residential trip information.

Money Management

We had a fun activity today in which involved us having the difficult task of managing money, we were given a life scenario and a given amount of money in which we had to decide what we wanted to spend our budget on. This task involved a lot of discussion on which things were essential spends and which were unnecessary. This was an important life lesson that all children thought hard about and understood the importance of making sensible decisions and the consequences of bad choices.

Researching Food Miles

We looked at the sustainability of the food we eat by calculating how many miles it has travelled to get onto our plates. We were shocked to find the numbers of some of the food items we enjoy so much, leading to a discussion about sustainability and the variety of the food we eat then we thought about what fairtrade is and why buying these items benefit the farmers.

Stone Age Artefacts Homework

We enjoyed making a variety of artefacts at home relating to our history topic ‘Stone Age to Iron Age’. We presented a range of weapons, buildings, artwork, jewellery and more. We each had the opportunity to share our work and describe what we had made and how we made it. Thank you to all those who helped from home.

Elf Run

We took part in the St John’s hospice elf run today which was great fun and so important to raise awareness and money for a great charity!

Kendal Mountain Film Festival

We enjoyed visiting the Leisure centre to listen to the guest speakers and watch the videos of the people who are experts in their areas of study. This included videographers from the rainforests of the worlds, glacier mappers of the arctic, autistic mountain climbers and many more. This was a great educational opportunity to explore the outdoors and realise the local talent and expertise around us.

Children in Need 2023

We celebrated children in need by dressing up in spots and colours. We enjoyed a variety of different activities related to this special day!

Remembrance Day

In the lead up to Armistice day, we have been discussing the importance of remembering those who have fought and sacrificed their lives in the war. The fight for freedom was terrifying and traumatic, causing great pain and suffering in the men who joined the armed forces. Thousands of soldiers were killed and we know the importance of taking time every year to acknowledge and pay our respects to them. We have written prayers of thanks and created some artwork in memory of the fallen soldiers. We also joined the rest of the school, walking down to the memorial garden, sharing our prayers, reflecting on the names of the soldiers and holding a silence.

Which will hit the ground first: a ball of paper or a rock?

In Science, we had the opportunity to plan and investigate which would hit the ground first, a large rock or a large ball of paper. First we came up with our own hypothesis of what we thought the finding would be, then we planned how we would investigate this, making sure we knew which the dependent and independent variables were to keep the test fair. We followed our investigation plans and found some interesting results. Although we had some inconclusive results, we found that both the items hit the ground at the same time. We discovered that this is due to the same amount of gravity acting on them in the same way.

Black History Month

During the month of October, we celebrate the lives and work of incredible people. This year, the focus is on Black Women ‘Saluting our Sisters’ and in the Kingfisher’s class we have been learning about the life and work of Mary Seacole, a wonderful woman who ignored the word ‘No’, going out to the Crimean War and helping nurse the injured soldiers back to health in her hotel. She worked tirelessly and helped everyone, no matter who they fought for, she was a true hero! We wrote our own acrostic poems about her and described her work.

Kensuke’s Kingdom

Our class read this terms has been the incredible story ‘Kensuke’s Kingdom’ by the brilliant author Michael Morpurgo. As we have been nearing the end of the story our understanding of the characters has greatly increased and we have found ourselves able to put ourselves in their shoes and role play/hot seat their thoughts and feelings.

Day and Night

We used a torch and a globe to demonstrate how the rotation and movement of the earth creates Day and Night. We could recognise how the portion of Earth facing the Sun is lit up, and it is therefore daytime for these places. The places in the shadow are experiencing night-time.

God’s Creation

This half term we have been looking at Creation in RE, thinking about how the world came to be and why we should be stewards of the Earth, thinking about God’s instructions for us.

The Solar System

This half term our Science topic is Space, we have spent time learning about how our solar system is organised including the order of the planets. We went outside and role played how the Solar System is arranged. By scaling the size of the planets and the distance between them we were able to visualise how the Solar System works. We then created mobiles showing the organisation of the Solar System.

School Council 2023

We have had an amazing turn out of children who wanted to apply to be our school councillors this year; each candidate offered some great ideas and reasons why they should be picked. We did a democratic vote to fairly choose our two reps. It was a very tricky choice!

Congratulations to our new representatives: Elijah and Hannah

WELCOME BACK SEPT 2023

I hope everyone has had a lovely summer and are ready to start a new school year, Mrs Williams and I are very excited to see you all on Thursday 8th Sept. We are going to have a fun-filled term with lots of interesting learning.

Please see the above Curriculum Map to see what we shall be covering this year (subject to change), thank you, Mrs Burrow.