Hi, I'm Teacher Sample (they/them) and I teach Year 5 Kestrels. I'm so excited to be a part of this school for a fourth year.

I have lived and worked in Germany and China prior to working at St John's. I am MFL lead as I have a passion for learning languages. I can speak German, Chinese and Spanish. I'm looking forward to teaching German as our school's MFL and to teach my class some Spanish during our South America topic. 

As well as being a teacher, I like coffee, Lego, dinosaurs and Pokemon! 

 

Other staff working in our class are:

Miss Plummer (Monday-Friday)

Important dates

PE will now take place on a Monday afternoon. Please send your child to school in school PE kit.

Our learning this term:

English: We are reading  A Place Called Perfect, a story about a girl who moves to a new town where everything is perfect...and a little strange! Throughout the story, we try to predict what will happen to Violet in Perfect and who/what we think is behind all the strange activity! This mystery story lends itself well to writing a character description, a narrative letter and a non-chronological report on the fictional town of Perfect. This book is part of a 3-part series and we have the second and third book in the school library, which the children are welcome to read after this term.

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Maths: We are learning about multiplication & division and fractions, including: equivalent fractions, ordering and comparing fractions, converting fractions, adding fractions and subtracting fractions. For this topic, the children will really need to use their times tables skills!

Science: We are learning about Properties and Changes in Materials. We hope this will include some practical investigations about thermal conductors and insulators, electrical conductors and insulators, dissolving materials and separating materials from each other.

Topic: We are continuing our two-term History topic called "Stone Age to Iron Age". Having focussed heavily on the Stone Age in Term 1, we will now move on to studying the Bronze Age and comparing the two ages. In this part of the unit, we are fortunate enough to have a box of Bronze Age artefacts and replicas from the Canterbury Archaeological Trust. We will then move on to studying the Iron Age and then finally we will be able to answer our big question: How did life in Britain change from the Stone Age to the Iron Age?

RE: We are studying Christianity, the story of Christmas and answering the big question: Was Jesus the Messiah? This includes looking at prophecy texts from the Old Testament and comparing them with gospel texts from the New Testament. We will also look into how Christians and non-Christians celebrate Christmas around the world and discuss the reasons for these traditions. We hope to visit the Christmas Markets in the Cathedral grounds to search for clues and religious and non-religious Christian symbols and enquire about ways that Christmas is celebrated at Canterbury Cathedral.

German: We are learning to describe the weather and different colours that are needed in different weather situations. This unit will include speaking, listening, reading and writing.

Learning at home for Kestrel Class :

• Reading AR books 

• Spelling shed 

• TTS Rockstars 

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Be ready for learning! In Kestrels, your child will need to have these items in school: 

• water bottle (no squash or juice) 
• small rucksack (big enough to hold lunch box and reading books) 
• wellington boots (to leave in school) 
• coat (weather appropriate) 

Please don’t bring other items to school, as we do not have space to store them, and it can cause upset if things are lost or damaged. 

Term 1

Kites

We spent our DT lessons this term researching, designing and making our own kites using paper straws, various joining techniques and tissue paper. We spent a long time making our designs come to life and using what we know about the form and function of kites to create something for our target audience. Due to poor weather, we were unable to properly test these yet, however, we are looking forward to being able to when the weather improves.

Cricket

Year 5 were fortunate enough to have cricket sessions led by a coach from Kent Cricket this term. Each week, the children focussed on a new skill such as batting, bowling and fielding, in order to build up to playing matches in the final week. It was wonderful to see the children’s confidence grow, as well as to see them enjoying themselves and working collaboratively.

English

Kestrels loved the first novel of Year 5: There’s a Boy in the Girls’ Bathroom. It is a story all about a new boy and a school bully, who start to become friends and slowly change each other for the better. The children found it fun to discuss their theories about the book and to share their opinions on the characters and their personal development. This text also allowed to children to explore balanced arguments and persuasive speeches, which they then performed to each other in class.

Ukulele

In Term 1, Kestrels made a strong start in their ukulele journey; having already learned the C and F chords. Combining these chords and their beautiful singing, they were able to perform Row, row, row your boat. Next term, we will continue learning the ukulele, aiming to learn the Am and G chords, so that we can play a wider variety of songs.

History

We started our two-term topic on Stone Age to Iron Age, focussing on the big question How did life in Britain change from the Stone Age to the Iron Age?  We kicked off this exciting topic which an outdoor learning lesson about hunter-gatherers and settlement building. Throughout the term, the children have built on their knowledge of aspects of daily life in the Stone Age in Britain and are ready for the next part of the unit: the Bronze Age.

 

Teambuilding

At the start of Term 1, Kestrels took part in some teambuilding games in order to put into practise some of the ideas we came up with for a class character; about what we wanted our class to be like and how we could help each other to achieve it.