Randwick Church of England Primary
School
Kestrel Class 2025 - 2026
Miss Newbould
Welcome to Kestrel Class
The Kestrel Class team
Class Teacher: Miss Newbould
Class Teaching Assistant in mornings: Mrs Bird
Class Teaching Assistant in afternoons: Mrs Aristotelous
PPA Cover Teacher: Mrs Chastney on Tuesday afternoons
Together, we work hard to create a classroom environment which inspires confidence and a love of learning. Our learning is theme-based and this is reflected in the look and feel of our classroom. From surviving Prehistory to flying over France, we use our Geography, History and Art topics to draw together our other learning.
We are passionate about creativity and are always thinking about the next artistic project we can do as a class. We believe that learning should be fun and that the new skills learnt should be applied in real life situations and challenges.
How we learn in Kestrel Class
- We focus on building their independence and the children will be taught how to use different resources to help themselves (word banks, dictionaries, maths resources).
- Much of our learning involves teamwork and children having the opportunity to discuss their thinking.
- We will be supporting the children to develop confidence and resilience. We talk a lot about Growth Mindset and the importance of believing that everyone can improve with effort and practice.
- We love feedback in Kestrel Class and children are encouraged to give each other helpful feedback, improve their own work and listen to the feedback from adults.
Autumn Term 2 2025-26
Why is Paris a great city?
This term, much of our learning will be connected to our Geography topic.
In English and Guided Reading, we will be reading the books A Dream of Flight (a Biography about Alberto Santos-Dumont, his airship inventions and race across Paris). This will inspire our own biography writing about the Montgolfier brothers and a journey tale across France.
In Geography, we are finding out about the physical geography of France and how this lead to Paris becoming such a culturally significant place.
In our DT lessons, we will be exploring nets both physically and digitally to create our own suitcase designs.
In Science, we will be studying and investigating the human body witha focus on the teeth and digestive system.
Knowledge Organiser
These Knowledge Organisers show all of the sticky knowledge (facts that we want to stick in the children's heads) and vocabulary that we want children to be able to know by the end of the topic. You might like to ask your child about some of these words or ideas at home. Find this term's knowledge organisers for Science and History by scrolling to the bottom of the page.
Reading in Kestrel Class
When children first join us, we assess their reading and support them to choose books from a selection that closely match their reading level. Adults in class regularly talk to children about their reading and support them to find books that they are interested in and motivated to read. Over their time in Kestrel Class, the children will move up through these reading stages. We call these books 'Daily Readers' as we expect the children to be reading at home a little every day.
Reading Passport
Kestrel Class Padlet Reading Passport
Our reading passport books in Year 3 and 4 have such a range of exciting fiction and non-fiction texts. These will always be available for your child to read and borrow from class. Once your child has read seven of these books themselves, they can bring their passport into school to be awarded a £5 book token.
Our texts this term
By Rob Polivka and Jef Polivka
Years before the invention of the modern airplane, Alberto Santos-Dumont dreamed of flying. As a boy, he was mesmerized by the machinery on his father's coffee plantation in Brazil and went on to study science and engineering in France. Soon his groundbreaking - and sometimes silly - inventions became the talk of Paris, especially after he set his sights on building an airship that could bring the world's people together. His small stature and big ideas earned him the nickname “Le Petite Santos.” This is the story of Santos's successful race for the Deutsche Prize, and his many failures along the way. Chock-full of cool diagrams, charming Parisian scenes, and graphic novel-style spot illustrations, A Dream of Flight will have young readers looking to the sky and scheming up their own aerial inventions.
By Eve Titus
Anatole is a most honorable mouse. When he realizes that humans are upset by mice sampling their leftovers, he is shocked! He must provide for his beloved family--but he is determined to find a way to earn his supper. And so he heads for the tasting room at the Duvall Cheese Factory. On each cheese, he leaves a small note--"good," "not so good," "needs orange peel"--and signs his name. When workers at the Duvall factory find his notes in the morning, they are perplexed--but they realize that this mysterious Anatole has an exceptional palate and take his advice. Soon Duvall is making the best cheese in all of Paris! They would like to give Anatole a reward--if only they could find him...
Important information
PE Days
Kestrel Class will have PE (swimming this term) with Mrs Chastney every Tuesday afternoon. Please send your child into school in their PE kit on this day. On weeks with no Forest School, Kestrels will also have PE on a Friday. Please can children also come into school in their PE kits on these days.
Uniform
General uniform:
Dark blue sweatshirt/cardigan, light blue polo shirt, grey trousers/skirt/shorts, grey/navy/white socks or tights, dark coloured school shoes or boots in winter. Your child also needs to have a waterbottle in school every day.
PE kit:
Randwick PE Shirt, navy shorts/cycling shorts/skirt, trainers, change of socks (white/grey)
In cold weather, navy blue joggers/leggings and a school sweatshirt are recommended
Forest school kit:
Navy blue joggers, usual t-shirt and school jumper. They can wear their shoes/trainers to school and bring their wellies with them in a bag. Don’t forget a waterproof coat!
- Please clearly name everything -
Helpful Websites
These are websites that we use to support your child's learning in school. Your child might like to build on thier learning at home and complete thier own projects. Do get in touch with me if you would like a copy of the children's school log in details. Most of these websites will also allow you to set up free accounts for projects at home.
On Scratch, children can use coding to build a whole range of creations: https://scratch.mit.edu/
Book creator allows children to make thier own eBooks: https://bookcreator.com/
Brush Ninja is brilliant for creating animations: https://brush.ninja/
Chrome Music Lab allows children to explore music and compose thier own pieces. We particularly use the Song Maker app: https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/
DK Find out is an online encyclopedia for children. We often use it to complete research for science, history and geography topics: https://www.dkfindout.com/uk/
Spelling frame supports children with learning the spellings for their year group and has a range of games that the children enjoy: https://spellingframe.co.uk/
Doodle Maths and Tables
All children from Year 1 upwards have a Doodle Maths and Doodle Tables account set up. We ask children to practise doodling regularly at home to build on their maths learning in school. Each week, one class will be awarded the trophy for 'Top Doodling Class' for the most number of children in the 'Green Zone'. There is also a certificate and small prize for the child who has impressed us with regular practice at home.
You might like to download the apps at home if you have a device your child regularly uses. Please get in touch if you need another copy of your child's password.
Guardians - Defenders of Mathematica is a brilliant gamified maths program created by BBC bitesize: https://www.bbc.co.uk/games/embed/guardians-mathematica?exitGameUrl=https%3A%2F%2Fbbc.com%2Fbitesize%2Farticles%2Fzn2y7nb
Get in touch
If you wish to contact me, please use this email address: [email protected]