Kestrels Blog

30th September - 4th October 2024

This week in Kestrels, we have continued to cover so much of the curriculum and the children have really enjoyed our afternoon foundation lessons. In History, we have been learning about the life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta and writing about her life story and the changes that happened in her life in Science, the children completed an investigation about what materials are insulators or conductors, they have been learning about how to have a safe online profile and what information should be on their profile and we have started playing games and matches in hockey lessons. 

Have an amazing weekend and see you all on Monday!

23rd - 27th September 2024

Even with the awful weather this week, the children have continued to work incredibly hard across all areas of the curriculum. 

They have been writing the end of the True story of the Three Little pigs and they have shown what brilliant imaginations they have with the way they have ended the story. 

In maths, the year 3's have been learning to count on and back 10 and 100 more from any given number and the year 4's have been learning to round 2, 3 and 4-digit numbers to 10. 

During our topic lessons, the children have been predicting whether on not certain electrical circuits would work and then testing them out to see if their predictions were correct. They have learnt about the different counties that are in the UK and where cities and places are located in those counties. 

Big congratulations to the class as well, as they won the attendance cup!!!

Have an amazing weekend!

16th - 20th September 2024

Throughout this week, all the children in Kestrels have continued to be a joy to teach and have put some much effort and enthusiasm into their learning. 

We have continued writing up the story about 'The true story of the three little pigs' and the children will write their own alternative endings to the story next week which they are looking forward to. Both year groups have been working on counting forwards and backwards in either 10, 100 and 1000 whilst also being brilliant with their 6 in 6 sessions. 

During the afternoons, the children have being learning how to control and pass a hockey ball and on Thursday we tried to see if we could juggle a tennis ball and balance a tennis ball on our hockey sticks. For science, the children had the chance to create some electrical circuits with buzzers, motors or lights and had to try and work out all the elements they need to make them work. 

Have an amazing weekend and see you all on Monday. 

9th - 13th September 2024

This week in Kestrels, we have been incredibly busy across the whole curriculum.

In maths, both year groups have been learning about how to represent numbers on a number line, and reading and writing words in numerals and words too. We have continued to read the Iron Man in year 3 and The Firework Makers Daughter in year 4, whilst answering questions about what we have read or listened too. 

For the first time this year, we have started our English sentence stacking lessons all about the True Story of the Three Little Pigs and many of the children didn't believe the story or when Mr Moorcroft was acting out the role of the Wolf and telling them how kind and caring the Wolf is

We have started our first few sessions of PE, learnt more about the Victorians and how children were made to work if they didn't have a lot of money, learnt how to stay safe online as well as using two different colours to try and create another colour using points. 

Have a great weekend all!!!!

3rd - 6th September 2024

Kestrels first week back at school has been absolutely incredible, everyone has enjoyed seeing each other after having the summer holidays off. Throughout the week, all of the children have continued to demonstrate all of our core values. 

We started off the week with lots of team building games and creating some leaves for our aspiration tree, with each child writing down different aspirations they have for the year ahead. The class have been introduced to the topic this term, which is all about the Victorians. During Art, we have been learning about pointillism and have started to create some of our own pieces of work inspired by A Sunday on La Grande Jette. 

On Friday, we have continued working hard with our maths on three and four-digit numbers, planning our descriptive settings about a boat and monster and have learnt about how to be safe online. 

Here are some comments from the children from this week. 

"We've had a fantastic, amazing and enjoyable week."

Have a great weekend. 

Mr M

Term 6 

As a final post, I can say that the last day was amazing to send off the year 6's onto secondary school as a whole school but this term has been full of so many amazing memories that we have made from all going to Cadbury World, having the most incredible enrichment week learning all about food, shopping for food, making food and watching teachers and governors cook too, we've had sports day too and the spectacular Uplands Got Talent on Monday of this week. 

From Mrs Knight, Mrs Croft and myself, I hope everyone has the best summer holidays and we are so proud of all the achievements and progress that you have all made and especially to the year 4's, you are such an incredible bunch of children to teach and having had the pleasure of teaching you for four years! I will miss teaching you but I am still going to be around in school so you know you can always come and say hello. 

Have a great 6 weeks everyone!!!!

Friday 14th June

Morning everyone, here is a list of some activities that can be completed tomorrow. You can send me any work that is completed on the kestrels email: kestrels@uplands.gloucs.sch.uk

Mr Moorcroft 

Year 3 and 4 English

https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/english-primary-ks2/units/speech-first-punctuation-and-apostrophes/lessons/direct-speech-inverted-commas#exit-quiz

Year 3 maths 

https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/maths-primary-ks2/units/measuring-length-and-recording-in-tables/lessons/measure-length-and-height-from-zero-using-whole-m-or-cm#starter-quiz

​​​​Year 4 maths

https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/maths-primary-ks2/units/tell-the-time-to-the-nearest-minute-and-compare-units-of-time/lessons/tell-and-write-the-time-to-the-nearest-minute-past#starter-quiz

Art

https://www.thenational.academy/teachers/programmes/art-primary-ks2-l/units/creative-craft-2b12/lessons/exploring-paper-crafts-75jkat#slide-deck

11th - 22nd March 

Over the past two weeks, all the children have worked hard across all of the curriculum. They have finished writing their explanations about the Earth and what is below. As a class, they have included lots of skills that they have been taught this term which is great to see. 

For maths, the year 4 children have been working incredibly hard with dividing 3-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and recognising acute and obtuse angles. The year 3 children have continued to work on multiplying 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers as well as adding and subtracting money. 

In the final few days of the last week, we have made our own mini greenhouses out of wood and plastic. Over the last two weeks, the children have researched, analysed and tested different materials to choose the ones they wanted to use to make the mini greenhouses. 

Have a relaxing Easter break and see you all in two weeks.

Mr M

4th March - 8th March

It was amazing to see how imaginative the children can be when they came in on Thursday for World Book Day. As a whole school we wrote a story that will be finalised over the weekend and we will be able to read the finished work at some point next week.

Thank you to the children that attended the Country Dancing Festival on Thursday evening at the leisure centre. It was wonderful to see the smiles on your faces and you showed off your incredible dancing skills and a bit thank you to some children from Owls and Eagles that helped fill in on some of the dances. Everyone that was there had the most amazing time so thank you again. 

Kestrels have continued to work really hard this week. We have all continued writing some more for our non-fiction text and have learnt what a subordinate clause is and have started using them within our writing. Both classes have continued reading their stories in guided reading and both are enjoying them and can't wait to read more. 

Have a brilliant weekend and see you next week. 

Mr Moorcroft

19th February - 1st March 2024

All Kestrels have enjoyed coming back after half term. Over the course of the last two weeks we have continued working hard across all areas of the curriculum and this Friday we were lucky enough to have Paul from Brass Brand England come in and teach us how to play the trumpet. There will be pictures to follow. 

In maths, both year groups have worked hard learning how to multiply 2-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers and multiply 3-digit number by 1-digit numbers over the past two weeks. In English, we have started to learn more about what is under the Earth to help us to write an explanation text and show the children in Owls. 

For our topic, we have used the chromebooks to code a turtle to draw different words and numbers on turtleacadmey. We have written an essay, on the impact that environmental change has on animals habitat as well as learning about what producers, consumers, prey and predators are in a food chain. 

During our PE sessions, the children have continued to work incredibly hard learning the dances for country dancing and we hope to see as many of you as possible at country dancing festival on Thursday next week. 

Have a lovely week everyone and see you all on Monday. 

Mr Moorcroft

29th January - 9th February 2024

Over the last couple of weeks, the children have been working very hard across all areas of the curriculum. 

For our topic, we have been learning about our teeth and what protects our teeth so as a class we have carried out an investigation to see how different drinks effect our teeth. We used hard boiled eggs as our teeth and placed them in coke, milk, coffee, orange juice and water and left them for three days to see the effects. I will let the children tell you at home what happened to the eggs. 

In maths, both year groups have been working hard with exchanging and regrouping when adding and subtracting and in English, they have finished writing their the ending to their stories and they all came up with some very creative ideas to finish them. 

With it being half term, have a lovely week at home and see you all on the first day back which is Tuesday. 

Mr M

22nd - 26th January

MADD week has been so much fun this week. We have had so many different people into school to help us learn and play different instruments. 

On Monday, we split into our teams and went into different class to learn how to use our bodies to make different sounds, how to create short dance routines to a piece of music, to use music to create a piece of Art work and then how music can change our emotions. Throughout the day, we had the pleasure of working with Gez O'Connell to create a song with the rest of the school. It was brilliant for all the children to be part of the process and see how a song is created. Later that afternoon, a dance teacher came in and taught the children some Urban dance moves and then in small groups the children created a dance routine. 

On Tuesday, we were delighted by Paul who played many Brass instruments for us and then some of the teachers performed to the rest of the school. In the afternoon, we had another performance from a harpist and some children had the chance to play some notes on the harp. 

The year 4's then had a brilliant time with the rest of school at young voices on Wednesday. 

Later in the week, Kestrels had the chance to try out two different styles of drumming (Samba and Junk) with some excellent teaching by the two drummers that came in. All of the children thoroughly enjoyed both sessions that they took part in as you will see from the photos below. 

It has been a rather loud by exciting week for the children, so have a lovely calm weekend and see you on Monday. 

Mr M 

9th - 12th January 2024

What a brilliant welcome back to school week we had, the children were thrilled to see each other after the holidays and have worked incredibly hard even with the shorter than normal week that we've had. 

During the first couple of days, the children were introduced to the topic for the term which is Roots, Shoots and Poops and on Wednesday, we learnt all about the digestive system and the journey that food goes on through our bodies and what happens at each stage. We even had a go at making our poo, using chocolate cake and variety of other things. Everybody in class absolutely loved it making it and have been able to write about the journey too. They have also learnt about the different food groups we need to eat and the nutrients that are in our foods. 

In maths, the year 3's have been learning how to represent unit fractions and non-unit fractions whilst the year 4's have continued learning more times tables and have now learnt their 11s. 

Here are some pictures from Wednesday when the children learnt about the digestives system. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you on Monday. 

18th December - 21st December 2023

It's the last week before we break up for Christmas and the children have still been working really hard this week. All of them were superb in the Christmas play on Tuesday afternoon and evening. 

During the week, we have been researching about Roman catapults. After researching them, we drew up a plan for our own catapults. Everyone had the chance to cut up all the pieces of wood to the right length and then we used some more materials to build the catapults. As a class, we went into the hall and tested them out and all of the catapults worked which showed what a brilliant job everyone did. 

On Wednesday, we walked down to the Sub Rooms in Stroud. We watched a brilliant performance of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs but at the end of the show we were treated to an extra show from Charlie W who formed a band with some of the actors on stage. He rocked out with the rest of the school and showed his brilliant guitar skills. 

From Mrs Knight and I, we hope you all have a brilliant two weeks off and we can't wait to see you after the holidays. 

11th - 15th December 

This week, we have been working extremely hard with the Eagles on the school play but we had the pleasure of going to the Roman Baths on Thursday. 

As we arrived, we were able to walk around the baths and listen to some audio clips which were explaining all about the artefacts and exhibits that are all around the museum. Whilst walking around, we spoke to a Roman lady who told us all about the baths and what they were used for and then asked us if we were going to be having Roasted Doormice for our lunch. 

After we had lunch, we split into three groups and some children dressed up as Romans, others had the chance to look at some artefacts from the Roman era and the last group then used magnetic tiles to create some mosiacs. Just before we left, we went down to the bottom of the musuem and some children used iPads to match up different artefacts, others were using trowel and brushes to try and find some artefacts and the last group had to complete some problem solving activities. 

Everyone had a great time and they were all such brilliant ambassadors for our school. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday. 

4th - 8th December

What a wonderful week it has been, it was great to see some many children in Christmas jumpers on Thursday. 

As a class, we have been starting to get in the Christmas spirit by looking through at images of Christmas settings and writing some descriptive pieces to match those pictures with the children writing expanded noun phrases with prepositions in. 

We have nearly finished both texts in guided reading and the children have enjoyed both stories (Iron Man and The Firework Makers Daughter). 

In maths, both year 3 and year 4 have been working on subtracting ones, tens and hundreds but the year 3's have been subtracting from 3-digit numbers and the year 4's have been subtracting 4-digit numbers. 

We have started practising the play so make sure this weekend. You all try and learn your lines and parts to be able to pracitse even more next week. 

Have a super weekend. 

Mr Moorcroft

6th - 24th November

Over the course of the last three weeks, the children have accomplished a lot. We started writing our newspaper reports about the Romans and the children have chosen whether it is when the conquered Britain or one of the times they failed. 

In maths, both year groups have been learning new times tables and been using those to help them with their division questions as well. 

In the first week back, the children created some stop motion animations of a day in the life of a Roman. 

Have a great weekend and see you all on Monday. 

16th - 27th October

We've had a brilliant couple of weeks to end the term in the Kestrels. Today it culminated in running a whole school rainbow run where all the children joined in after lunch and ran together for 10 minutes in the playground with all of their beautiful bright colours. 

Over the last two weeks, they have finished writing their letters as Roman soldiers and then this past week, they have worked so hard to write a Halloween acrostic poem. 

Both year 3 and 4 have worked really hard learning about different shapes and the properties they have. 

Have a lovely, relaxing half term and see you all a week on Monday. 

Monday 2nd - Friday 13th October

It has been a very productive couple of weeks for the children in Kestrels. We have continued our learning about the Romans and the changes that they made in Britain. 

This week in English, we have started to plan and work on writing our letters as if we were Roman soldiers that have just finished a battle and the week before that, the children planned and wrote about the end to the story - The Magic Paintbrush. They all had brilliant ideas and completely different endings and they thoroughly enjoyed being able to change the outcome of the story. 

In maths, the year 3's have worked so hard with ordering 3-digit numbers with both same and different digits in the hundreds column and the year 4's have been rounding to the nearest 100 and 1000 as well as learning about Roman numerals all the way up to 100. 

At the end of the week, we continued our science work, looking at different states of matter. The children learned about what the different states are as well as, how different matters can change state and on Friday they worked in small groups to act out how they can change matter. 

Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday!

25th - 29th September

Another week and we've won the attendance cup again so well done to everyone coming into school!

As a class, we have been working hard in English to continue to write some more of the magic paintbrush and today we have planned the ending of the story so they will be looking forward to writing the ending to the story next week. 

In maths, the year 3s have worked so well this week on counting up and back in 10s from any given 2 and 3-digit numbers as well as counting up and back in 100s. The year 4s have been counting up and back in 1000s as well as comparing and ordering 4-digit numbers. 

During topic this week, we have learnt about how the Romans invaded Britain and we created a story map of the different events that happened over that period of time. We have started to learn a new song on the recorder on friday and then in PE, we have started to play games of netball as well as looking at our shooting. 

Just a quick reminder to end though, make sure you have played your 10 games of times table rockstar and have read 4 times to get the extra play on Monday. 

Have a brilliant weekend and see you all on Monday. 

18th - 22nd September

It has been another fantastic week in Kestrels this week! The children have continued to work well together in all subjects. 

With our English, we have continued to write some more about our narrative using 'The magic paintbrush text' and the focus has been on using time adverbials.

In maths, the year 3's have worked hard to write out 3 digit numbers in both numerals and words as well as counting up in 50s and 100s. The year 4's have been learning about similar things but rather than 3-digit numbers, they have been using 4-digit numbers and have been counting in 25 and looking at number lines. 

Everyone has worked really hard to research about Roman soldiers and to write an essay and on what life was like as a Roman soldier. They have also been learning about Ramadan and what happens during Ramadan. 

In PE, we have continued to work on our passing in netball and we have incorporated that into small sided games and then in small groups, we have been working on our shooting ability. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

Mr M

18th - 22nd September

It has been another fantastic week in Kestrels this week! The children have continued to work well together in all subjects. 

With our English, we have continued to write some more about our narrative using 'The magic paintbrush text' and the focus has been on using time adverbials.

In maths, the year 3's have worked hard to write out 3 digit numbers in both numerals and words as well as counting up in 50s and 100s. The year 4's have been learning about similar things but rather than 3-digit numbers, they have been using 4-digit numbers and have been counting in 25 and looking at number lines. 

Everyone has worked really hard to research about Roman soldiers and to write an essay and on what life was like as a Roman soldier. They have also been learning about Ramadan and what happens during Ramadan. 

In PE, we have continued to work on our passing in netball and we have incorporated that into small sided games and then in small groups, we have been working on our shooting ability. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you all on Monday.

Mr M

11th - 15th September 

We've completed our first week back again and we won the attendance cup again for another week so it's been a fantastic week in Kestrels. 

As a class, we have started our first block of narrative writing and for the year 3's, they have been using the writing lenses that we use in Kestrels. We looked at the text we are using this time around and the text we are using is 'The Magic Paintbrush'.

In maths, both year groups have been writing numerals as words for 3 and 4-digit numbers as well as writing out numbers that have a place holder zero. 

We have continued our Topic about the Romans. We have researched about what a Roman soldier would've looked like, what they would have to do and how they would train in the army. In computing, we have learnt about digital devices and have created our own input, processes and outputs. 

In PE, the class have continued to show off their brilliant passing skills in netball and today we were lucky enough to have a taster session in Tennis from some of the coaches from Stratford park. 

Have an amazing weekend and see you on Monday. 

Mr M

5th - 8th September 2023

What a wonderful week it has been welcoming back the old and new Kestrels. Everyone came back in high spirits talking of their tales from the summer and with wonderful smiles on their faces. 

We have had a busy week already, we started the week getting normalised with school and class again. We know that we will be learning all about the Romans and we have had the chance to find out what English words are in Latin, draw some Roman soldiers as well as writing out our birthdays in Roman numerals. We also researched about the Romans, who they were, when they were around and why they invaded Britian.

In pairs and groups, we have written a poem about the summer and in maths both year groups have been learning about place value. 

Hope you have a cool and calm weekend. See you all on Monday. 

3rd - 14th June 2023

During our Arts week, we were able to work in our team to create some beautiful pieces of Art and the children enjoyed working with children from different year groups and for some of us we have had the chance to work with our siblings. We also created some lovely Picasso self portrait art work using pieces of card and mirrors. As well as this, for our Stone Age work, we created some coil pots similar to those that may have been used in the Stone Age. 

In the week after, the children worked really hard during maths. The year 3's were learning how to read and interpret bar charts and pictograms and the year 4's have been learning how to read bar charts and line graphs whilst interpreting them as well. For our topic, they have been learning about why the baptism of Jesus was is so important to Christians and they have been using Scratch to debug algorithms and then create their own games. 

29th June 2023 - Our trip to Museum in the Park

We had the pleasure of heading to the Museum in the Park to learn more about the Stone Age. When we arrived, we walked through the beautiful gardens and then we split up into three groups. Each group went around the Museum, with one group using flint stone to cut different vegetables, another group looking at Stone Age artefacts and discussing what they could have been used for and how they differ from the different periods of the Stone Age and the last group went around the Museum completing a hunt for different artefacts in and around the Museum. 

In the afternoon, we split again but into two group and one group used some flint stone to create some art work on slate using images that may have been seen in the cave during the Stone Age and the other group learnt about how important Wooly Mammoths were in the Stone Age and all the different uses they had in the Stone Age. 

5^th June - 29^th June

We have had a brilliant start the final term of the year. The children have come back and have been in good spirits to match the good weather. 

During English this term, we have been writing a couple of different types of genres of writing. At the start of the term, the children came up with their own creatures and they then had to write a non-chronological report about their animal, its habitat and its diet. After that, we have just finished creating our summer poems about all the things we so, see and hear during summer time. 

Over the course of the term, both year groups have worked really hard on telling the time - with the year 3s learning to tell the time to one minute intervals and the year 4s have been converting different times and measurements. 

For our topic, we have been learning about more of the timeline - when the Stone Age changed to the Bronze Age and the main changes that occurred. As well as this, we have learnt about the different types of soil there is and why it is so important to use as well as writing an essay on soil. In Computing, we have had the chance to use Scratch where the children can code their sprites to move on the page using different keys and understand how different codes can allow for a variety of different outcomes. 

We are looking forward to our trip today to Museum in the Park and for Arts week next week. 

22nd - 26th May 2023

What a brilliant last week we had in Kestrels. 

We had planned some more descriptive writing in English using an image to help us. The focus was to use apostrophes for possession, expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials. All the children came up with brilliant and unique ideas for their descriptive writing. 

For our topic learning this week, we looked at how fossils are formed in Science and created a story map and in R.E we learnt about the what the Holy Trinity is. In P.E, we were practicing our cricket skills to help us during our small sided games at the end of each lesson and in history, we started researching about the different shelters that were used in the Stone Age, which will help us to write our essay question after half term. 

Have a brilliant half term and see you all on that first Monday back.  

3rd May - 19th May 

Over the last three weeks, the children have as usual been working incredibly hard at all subjects. 

In English, we have finished writing our letters to the authors of our choice and then this week, we have been using the same image to write a descriptive piece of writing using fronted adverbials, prepositions and expanded noun phrases. 

In maths, the year 3's have been learning about measuring, comparing and ordering lengths, capacities and mass whilst the year 4's have been working hard with adding fractions, finding equivalent fractions and knowing how to use equivalent fractions to find decimals. 

For topic, we have learnt about different settlements we have now, we have created some cave paintings using sticks and the same colours that would have been used back then. 

Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Monday. 

Mr Moorcroft 

24th April - 28th April

The children have been working incredibly hard again this week. 

In English, we have continued to work on writing parts of our letter that we are hoping to send off to the author of our choice. The children have been learning about the author of their choice and have been finding out facts and information to help support them with writing it next week. 

In maths, the year 3's have continued working hard with telling the time and have been learning how to read and write the time to one minute intervals of both past and to. The year 4's have been learning about how to count up and down in hundredths and how to compare numbers with 1 decimal place whilst continuing to recap our times tables. 

During science, we have been able to investigate is rocks are permeable or not by dropping them into water and seeing if any bubbles appear on the rock or come from within the rock. We have also learnt about the history of the start of the Stone Age, we found out about the different tools that were used and how those tools might have been used during the Stone Age. 

We have continued to use our recorders in music and have been practicing using the notes b, a, g and c to play a variety of short pieces of music whilst also listening to and appraising pieces of music. 

This is also the last week we have Mr Dando in school helping, so all the children are incredibly thankful for all the work that he has put in during his time in Kestrels and we wish him all the best in the future. 

Enjoy your weekend and see you all on Wednesday next week. 

17th April - 21st April

It was amazing to welcome the children back to school after the Easter holidays. 

We have started our new topic, which is called We Will Rock You. We have already learnt about the Stone Age and how the earth used to look when the Stone Age started. At the beginning of the week, we created some sunset backgrounds and then cut out silhouettes of Stonehenge that will then be displayed around the classroom. 

In Science, we learnt about different types of rocks and how they are formed. We then had to complete a table saying what the rock is called, what type of rock it is and some words to describe them. 

For our English, we have started a new genre of writing that is looking at persuasive letter to convince an author to help us with something. We have started rewriting the letter in our own words, which will help us at the end of the writing period to then write our own letter. 

In Maths, the year 4's have been learning to count up and down in hundredths and the year 3's have been learning about time, days of the week, months of the year, days in a year and days in a leap year. 

We have continued with swimming this week but we have started cricket with Mr Dando on Monday and we are going to be continuing our cricket skills throughout the rest of the term. 

Have an enjoyable weekend and we are looking forward to another amazing week at school. 

Monday 27th - Friday 31st

The children in Kestrels have worked incredibly hard in the last week before the Easter holidays. 

They enjoyed swimming a lot this week with every group going down to the deep end and jumping into the pool whilst others were learning backstroke and practising backstroke. 

For Science, we created a bar graph to show the results of our friction test that we performed last week. 

In DT, we have been creating a torch to use if there was a natural disaster. We have been using our circuits knowledge from the term before and we built a circuit with a switch. Then we used two toilet rolls and combined them together to fit the circuit inside. The children found it tricky to fit the bulb and the circuit inside but they perservered throughout to try and make the torch work. 

Finally, we had an Easter egg hunt in school on Friday morning which everybody absolutely loved. 

Have a lovely Easter break and see you all in two weeks. 

Monday 20th - Friday 24th March

This week in Kestrels, we have been continuing to work so hard with our maths and English but we were lucky enough to walk up to Hawkwood on Tuesday. One of the workers there, allowed us to feed the cows they have at the farm and then we tried all the different types of lettuce that they grow in one of their poly tunnels. After this, we walked over to where they start the planting process for all of the things they will be growing this summer and we saw the process of how they start to then when they are moved into the ground in the poly tunnel. 

For maths, the year 3's have been working with money again and have been adding amounts as well as subtracting amounts from £2 and £5 which has been a bit tricky but they have all worked so hard. The year 4's have been learning about multiplying and dividing by 10, 100 and 1000 this week and they've worked brilliantly at that. 

On Friday, we finished our stories about a girl finding a cloud and then finding a way to get it back into the sky so next week we will be editing our stories to make them even better. 

As usual for PE, we walked down to Stratford Park to swim and the children are thoroughly enjoying being in the pool and on Monday, the children came up with their own dance routines from scratch which were brilliant. 

Hope you all have a lovely weekend and then one more week until Easter. 

Monday 13th - Friday 17th

Although this week has been a little shorter than normal, the children have continued to work incredibly hard. In English, we have continued to the end of the writing 'The star in a jar' story and we are going to prepare to write our own versions of the story next week. 

In maths, the year 4's have been learning about different types of angles within a triangle, such as obtuse and acute and the year 3's have been learning about adding amounts of money together and how to use £ sign. 

For PE, we continued with dance and the children learnt 3 new dance moves that we performed together as a class and then they went away in groups and created their own dance. All the children then performed a dance together to the rest of the class. 

In science, we continued to learn about forces and how things move differently on different surfaces and as groups we took part in an investigation to see how far a toy wheel would travel on different surfaces. 

Have a lovely weekend and see you on Monday. 

Monday 6th March - Friday 10th March

In Kestrels this week, we have continued writing our story about the Star in a Jar and the children have worked so hard all week whilst they are looking forward to writing their own versions of the story soon. In guided reading, both year groups have continued reading 'The boy who grew dragons' and 'Charlotte's Web' and have been answering inference questions this week. 

In maths, year 3 have been working hard to divide with remainders and dividing by multiples of 10 also. The year 4's have been multiplying 3-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers. Both year groups have been working hard on learning their times tables in our MOT sessions. 

The children enjoyed the second session of swimming this Wednesday, whilst on Monday they worked in groups to create a dance and some of the children performed their dance in front of the rest of the class. 

We looked at the 'The Great Wave' piece of artwork and we then recreated our own using pencil crayons and in the next art lesson we will try recreating it again using pastels. 

Enjoy the week ahead!!

Monday 27^th Feb – 3^rd March

We have enjoyed a great week back at school after the half term. As a school we celebrated World Book Day in a couple of different ways by enjoying the reading breakfast on Wednesday morning where parents came in and read with children and had some delicious pastries and drinks. Then on Friday, we watched the author Frank Cottrell-Boyce read some of his books and answer some questions.

As well as having our brilliant reading breakfast on Wednesday, it was our first sessions of swimming and the children thoroughly enjoyed the first swimming session of the year and are looking forward to the next one.

On top of all that physical activity, some of the children in the class also ran in the cross country race at Stratford Park after swimming.

For English, we read the Star in the Jar book together and we have started to rewrite out the story as a class to prepare to continue on the story how we choose.

In maths, both year 3 and year 4 have continued with multiplication with the year 3’s multiplying 2-digit by 1-digit numbers together whilst the year 4’s have been learning their 12 times tables and multiplying 1-digit numbers by multiples of 10.

13th February - 17th February 

Over the course of the week, we have continued with our normal lessons in the morning and then in the afternoons each team went around the different classrooms learning about the different Big Ideas that drive our curriculum. 

For English, this week we have learnt about what a Haiku poem is and then we created our own about Change. We used the theme of seasons for our Haiku's so we all brainstormed some ideas for lines that could be used within the Haiku. After this, we then planned and wrote our poems that were them used to make a book that was sold on the last day of term!

In maths, both year 3 and 4 have been learning about multiplication, with the year 3's learning how to multiply 2-digit multiples of 10 by 1-digit numbers. The year 4's have been continuing to learn the 12 times table through counting in equal steps of 12 and then translating this to 12 times table. 

During our enrichment week afternoons, each team split up and moved around the classrooms. In Kestrels, we discussed relationships and how there are many different relationships and family groups. Then in groups, we created a small drama piece about different family groups that we had early discussed. In Owls, the children were learning about diversity within the school and they had the chance to try a variety of different foods from countries that some children in the school are from. In Merlins, the children had the chance to paint some the walls of the playground to show our school community. In Eagles, the children were learning about similarities and differences and during this time created something that will be used for a school display. 

Enjoy the half term and see you all on Monday 27th!

Wednesday 4th January - 10th February 

This is term so far has been a very busy one, we have started our new topic which is called Extreme Earth!! As a class we have created a display about the different parts of the volcano that you can see below. As well as this, we have learnt about different natural disasters that happen and in groups we create fact sheets about them. Some of the disasters we researched were hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, volcanoes and tsunamis. 

We combined art and geography together when learning about the different layers of the rainforest. In groups, we made a poster about the layers and then wrote a small fact sheet to match that layer. When we had finished writing our fact sheet we either drew the rainforest or used tissue paper and then stuck out fact sheet next to each section. 

In maths, both year 3 and 4 have been using column addition and subtraction to answer a variety of questions ranging from two 4-digit numbers added or subtracted to 3-digit number added to a 1-digit number. As well as this, year 3's have learnt about different fractions and year 4's have been learning their 11 times table. 

For our English, we have written our own brilliant disaster stories together using all the great knowledge we have from our geography lessons. As well as a story, we have just finished writing a disaster poem having been able to choose from any of the disasters that we have learnt about. 

Next week, we have our enrichment week all about the big 5 ideas we have running through our curriculum which is going to be great week.

One more week to go till half term so enjoy!!!

14th November - 9th December

Over the last four weeks, the children have been working incredibly hard in all areas of the curriculum. During our English lessons, we have been learning about explanation texts and narrative and we have written our own explanation text about an iRobot dog whilst also writing short descriptions using expanded noun phrases and using apostrophes correctly. 

During our topic, we have been learnt about how we hear and the children have written an explanation on how we hear using diagrams to help their explanations. In History, we have learnt about the life of Sarah Forbes Bonetta and what a fascinating life she had whilst writing about how her life must have been very challenging too. We have continued using Scratch in our computing lessons so the children are now able to program their sprites to make different noises as well as move in a variety of ways. 

As a class, we took a trip to Gloucester to see a Hindu temple and learnt about what happens there. As a class, we have learnt how to say different colours as well as, knowing how to say we are feeling. 

Over the last week, we have been learning songs for our Christmas play and have started practising a dance for each year group. We can't wait to show you during the last week of term. 

Enjoy your weekend!!

31st October - 11th November

What an superb first two weeks back we have had in Kestrels. All the children came back with such great enthusiasm for their work and have continued to work so hard and we have covered some much in these two weeks. 

In English, we have continued writing some of our explanation text and have now planned what we are going to write, so next week we will be writing our very own explanation texts using what we have learnt over the last couple of weeks. 

In maths, both year 3 and year 4 have been learning different times tables which has been tricky but they have all worked so incredibly hard to first count in the multiples of the times table and then translate that into knowing most of them as their times tables. Both year groups, have enjoyed using BOB to help them learn their tables which has been brilliant. 

During our topic, we have moved on from learning about electricity and electrical circuits and have started to learn about how sounds are made and how we hear different sounds. We investigated how different musical instruments create the sound they make. 

In PE, we have started a new gymnastics and the children have enjoyed showing how they can control their bodies in a variety of different ways. 

Have a great weekend everyone. 

10th - 21st October 2022
 

What a brilliant last two weeks we have had in Kestrels to end the first term back at school. 

In maths, we have moved onto learning about different 3 sided and 4 sided shapes and learning about parallel lines and perpendicular lines too. Both year groups have worked so hard this term and we have been so impressed with them all. 

For out topic, we have continued to learn more about the Victorians and how life for children was so different. We learnt about the lives of rich and poor children and what they had to do. To continue our science, we have been planning and completing an investigation into which materials are good conductors whilst making more complex circuits. 

In PE, we have moved on from small sided games for netball and have started playing 5 v 5 games and have worked on our passing. 

Hope you all have an amazing half term. 

3rd - 7th October
 

Another great week of working hard in Kestrels. 

For our English this week, we made plans to finish the rest of the Three Little Pigs story and have started to write them. They will be finished on Monday and we will work together to edit our work. 

In maths, both year groups have been ordering numbers. The year 4s were ordering 4-digit numbers as well as rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000 whilst the year 3s were ordering 3-digit numbers as well as finding 100 more and less than a given number. 

We used some electrical sets and in groups used them to create simple circuits with lamps, bulbs and buzzers included. 

As a class we watched a video about children that had to work in the Victorian Era and made notes on what the conditions were like. Then we wrote about how we would feel if we had to work in those conditions and what would have been seen, heard and felt during those times. 

In Art, we looked at different artwork from William Morris and then attempted to design some similar patterns which we will work more on next week. 

Hope you have a great weekend and see you on Monday. 

26th - 30th September 2022

It has been yet another busy week in Kestrels this week as we have started learning our new story in English. We have read the story 'The true story of the 3 Little Pigs'. Each day this week we have been rewriting parts of the story together using our sentence stacking which everyone has loved. 

Both year groups have moved on in maths and the year 3's have been counting up and down in both steps of 10 and 100 which has been tricky but they have worked hard all week. The year 4's have been finding 1000 more and less than a 4-digit number as well as ordering and comparing 4-digit numbers. 

We have used the pointillism technique in Art to try and recreate a part of ' A Sunday on La Grande Jatte' painting (you can see the pictures below). We have learnt about having secure passwords in Computing and the importance. 

As groups we tried to find make as many different shapes from the Tangram shapes and this helped us to work more collaboratively and to cooperate with each other too.

Enjoy your weekend!!!

19th - 23rd September 2022

Another busy, fun and enjoyable week has been had in Kestrels. 

We have covered everything from computing, PE, Geography, English and many more. 

We wrote our final summer poems this week after planning them and then in pairs we edited them and made them even better than they already were. 

In maths, the year 3's have been worked hard to count in 50s and 100s, read numbers as numerals and write them as words as well as identifying numbers on a number line. The year 4's have worked hard to use place holder zeros when writing numerals for 4-digit numbers, identify 4-digit numbers on a number line and count in steps of 1000 from any given number. 

During topic lesson we have covered more on e-safety, learning the note g on the recorder, learn about the counties of the UK and about how we use electricity in different ways. 

12th - 16th September 2022
 

It has been another busy but enjoyable week in Kestrels. We have been working hard on our spellings during spell well and in English we have been learning to write similes that we will try and then use in our summer poems.

Both year 3 and 4 have been working hard on place value in maths and the year 3's have been using 3-digit numbers and the year 4's have been using 4-digit numbers which they have both excelled at.

In PE, we have been learning different ways to pass the ball to help us with netball.

Have an amazing weekend!!

Welcome back

Hello everyone and welcome back to the Kestrels blog for this year. We hope you've all had an incredible summer!!

It has been lovely to see all the children back in school this week.

Throughout the week, we have been learning our Poem for the term - Granny is by Valerie Bloom and have read various summer poems that will help us write some of our own. In maths, we have been working on using the 4 C's and bar model to help us work out the answer to word problems. 

Our topic this term is about the Victorians and we have spent some time researching about what happened during some key dates the years. We have created our aspiration tree for our display in class. 

We hope you have a wonderful weekend and see you all on Monday. 

Mr Moorcroft, Mrs Knight, Mrs Harvey and Mrs Croft. 

W.C 28th March

We had a very exciting week this week with lots of learning going on. Most excitingly we had our trip to Hawkwood. Check out the photos below for a taste of what we got up to. We also ran a shop with Mr Powell on Friday to practice of money in maths. 

W.C. 21st March

Last week we worked really hard in Kestrels class whilst Mrs TC was away. We did lots of work on our guided reading books of Charlotte's Web and The Boy Who Grew Dragons. We also did some brilliant maths work on angles in Year 4 and money in Year 3. 

Mrs TC was super impressed when she came back at our work on apostrophes and a or an in writing. 

On Tuesday 29th we are off to Hawkwood and will post some photos of our time up there. We are going to be working on our sketching skills so cannot wait to show you all that. 

Cat and Bird by Paul Klee

We have been studying the work of Paul Klee in art and have created our own Cat and Bird pieces of art using oil pastels and watercolours. We love the colours and patterns and we hope you like them too! 

Music 

We have been practicing our recorders again this week. This week we have been playing A and B together and reading sheet music and playing some silly songs like Annie’s Granny and Lazy, crazy kangaroo. Next week we are onto G and E. 

Computer Networks

In Computing we have been learning all about networks. We have learnt about Wireless Access Points, Network Switches, Wireless connections, Routers and the Internet! 

Classification 

In Science, we have been learning about classification of animals. Check out some of our classification sorting below and ask us what we have learnt. 

Kestrels Art 

For our art enrichment days we started by making leaves out of photographs we took in the playground of natural things. We then used the photos to create collage leaves. 

20th September - 1st October 2021

We have been super busy the last few weeks with our Romans topic. We have been busy finding out all about who Julius Caesar was and where the Roman Empire was. 

In science we have been learning about Solids, Liquids and Gases. We learnt some colours and animals in French. We even started singing our new song and playing our musical instruments in our music lessons. Check out some of the photos of the week below! 

DT Enrichment Week

During this week, we have been super busy with designing and creating new muffins for Salt Bakehouse.

We worked hard on our skills day and explored hammering, drilling, sawing and joining materials together. These skills were then used to create our own mini cars. Our champion was Charlie Phelps as his car travelled the furthest!

The baking day went extremely well and we were so pleased with how they turned out! Have a look at the photographs below of our final muffins and box designs.

Have a great weekend.

From all of Kestrels

Hawkwood Visit - Wednesday 16th June 

Week Commencing 7th June

We have had a great first week back after half term. In writing, we planned and wrote our own nonsense poems. Take a look at the videos below to listen to them!

Our new vocab words this week are scamper, discard, roam and enquire.

Have a super weekend!

From Kestrels 

Heureux Demi-Trimestre!

Happy half term from Kestrels!

Week Commencing 10th May 

Take a look at our video below to see what we’ve been learning in Kestrels this week!

Our new vocab words are gallant, generosity, sensational and adjourn. 
 

Have a great weekend!

Week Commencing 3rd May

This week we have finished writing our own set of instructions in English. Have a look at some examples below! In maths, the year 4 children have been comparing/ordering decimals and the year 3’s have been adding fractions.

In our topic lessons, we started to design our own settlements in geography and in PE we continued to work on our hockey skills.

Our new vocab words this week are descend, murmur, eternal and solemn.

See you next week, have a super weekend!

From Kestrels

Week Commencing 26th April

This week in Kestrels we have continued our instruction writing in English about how to wash a prehistoric elephant and next week we will begin to write our own.

In maths, the year 3 children have started to learn about fractions and the year 4 children have been dividing one and two-digit numbers by 10 and 100.

In geography, we continued to look at different types of settlements and also located some villages and hamlets in Gloucestershire using maps. We have also enjoyed greeting our friends and counting in French. As a school, we also began our daily mile challenge and are looking forward to continue it next week. 
 

Our new vocab words this week are apprehensive, motionless, vague and gullible.

Have a brilliant bank holiday weekend.

From all of the Kestrels!

What a great first week back!

Our new topic this term (We Will Rock You) is all about the Stone Age. This week we’ve had lots of fun making our very own timeline and creating our own Stonehenge art work. Have a look at the photographs below, they’re pretty amazing!

In geography, we’ve started to learn about different types of settlements and in PE we have continued learning new skills in hockey.

In our writing, we have started writing our own instructions about how to wash a prehistoric elephant. We have included adverbs and complexed sentences to make our writing more interesting. In maths, the year 3 children have been subtracting pounds and pence from ten pounds and the year 4 children have been reading/representing decimal numbers.

Our new vocab words this week are queer, anguish, adore and restrain. 
 

Have a brilliant weekend! 

Happy Easter Everyone!

Week Commencing 22nd March

We’ve had another great week in Kestrels!
 

This week we have been busy writing non-fiction reports about our own made up natural disaster and have included subheadings to set out our work neatly. In maths, the year 4 children have learnt about angles and the year 3s have been adding coins to make different amounts.
 

We have also started to make torches in DT. A lot of perseverance was needed but we were so pleased with how they turned out! In PE, we continued to learn new skills in hockey and also created our own museum in art to show off the amazing work by the artist Hokusai.

Have a great weekend!

Week Commencing 8th March

We’ve had a lovely first week back together! There’s been breakfast, bubbles, art, lots of reading, poetry, chatting, hockey, playing together and laughing!