P.E:

Children should come to school wearing their PE kit on Tuesday's and Wednesday's.

Their P.E kit includes:

• white t- shirt, black/navy jumper, black trousers, black/navy shorts, black trainers.

Please note: Football kits and other coloured sports clothing will not be appropriate.

Reading Books: 

•  Children must bring their reading book and reading records in every day.
• Reading records should be signed daily after you listen to your child read.  
• If children would like to use Reading Plus, they will not read their reading record signed in for these day (this will be monitored by adults).

Academic Clubs 

• These will run from the 18 November 2024 to the 16 December 2024. Atttendance is key for your child's academic progression. 
• New academic club letters will be sent out every half term. 
• All clubs will run from 2.45pm to 3.45pm. 

Home Learning

This half term's home learning  the children will be set weekly tasks in maths and writing to complete. This will help consolidate their learning in class and deepen their understanding of taught concepts. 

In addition, children are expected to:

• Read their book band or library book at least 5 times a week
• Practice their spellings for a Friday test 
• Complete Timetable Rockstars 
• Reading Plus - It is optional to complete Reading Plus at home however we would strongly advise that children complete x2 15 minute sessions per week at home. Research has shown that proper engagement with this program can increase a child's comprehension and reading skills by up to 2 years. 

Home Learning Maths videos 

Have a look at some of the children in Year 4 who have created some helpful maths videos to support you in your home learning activities. 

Maths

In Maths, Year 4 have been practising and consolidating their knowledge of the times tables ready for the multiplications tables check! We have achieved this through different learning methods such as chanting, interactive games and daily soundchecks. All children must complete a soundcheck on TTRS everyday. This is in preparation for the Year 4 times table test that will take place in June. Children need to answer 25 questions in 6 seconds. To pass, they need to gain 25/25. We have high aspirations for all, and want all our children to pass. 

During our maths lesson time, the children have been exploring the link between fractions and multiplication/ division. We are now moving onto our learning of decimals, using and comparing numbers with up to two decimal places. They key words in this unit of work will be non- unit fraction, mixed number, improper fraction, numerator, denominator, factor, place value, tenths and hundredths. 

Reading

In Year 4, we all have a strong passion for reading. We have tried to make our reading corners exciting and inviting for the children, take a look below! Reading is an essential skill. It supports children to enhance their imagination and creativity as well as supporting the development of key spelling and communication skills. Therefore,  it is an essential part of our curriculum and we prioritise time for children to read daily. They have exposure to high quality texts throughout the year, such as, Street Child, The boy at the back of the class and The Chronicles of Narnia.

This half term, we will be starting to read 'The Chronicles of Narnia' by C. S Lewis. During our reading lessons (Destination Reader), the children will practice a range of key skills including: prediction, inference, summarising, questioning, clarifying, making links and evaluating. Throughout our destination reader sessions, we encourage supportive partner talk and appropriate learning behaviours to ensure children are motivated to learn and share their ideas within a classroom environment which promotes mutual respect. Linked below is the learning behaviours bookmark, that the children use at school daily. We highly recommend using this to guide your conversations about what your child is reading.

We expect children to also be using Reading Plus on a regular basis to help support their development of reading skills. Click the link below to access the login page. The site code is RPFARLEYJU. Their username and password is the same as Google Classroom. Speak to our child's class teacher if unsure of how to log on.

The best readers will spend at least 20 minutes on Reading Plus every day.

• Click me -> Reading Plus Login Page

Writing

Year 4 will be writing a defeating the monster story this term and their audience will be Year 6! We will focus on describing the monster in the build up and problem of the story. Pupils will be expected to create their own monster (linked to the Ancient Egyptians).

You can describe a monster using expanded noun phrases, similes, metaphors, alliteration and the power of 3. A tip – never use the word monster! Instead, you can use synonyms such as brute, creature, fiend, villain etc. Fronted adverbials and prepositional phrases also help to pace a story and make it more cohesive. Short sentences can be used for effect and to build suspense.

In year 4, pupils are expected to edit and improve their own writing where they should be looking for any punctuation, spelling and grammar errors. In our school, we encourage quality over quantity!

Displays

Take a look at some of our Year group and class displays. 

Opportunities we provide:

Every term, we endeavour to provide as many opportunities for our children. This could include organising

trips, hook days and exciting events in school. 

In year 4, we are currently learning about the Ancient Egyptians. To start the unit off, we introduced a hook day, where the children and staff dressed up as Egyptians. The children were excited and took huge interest in their learning. We even made Egyptian style jewellery. The children were able to get creative and plan and design their very own pendant!

Fun fact: Everyone wore jewellery in Ancient Egypt, from poor farmers to wealthy royals. For the wealthy, pieces were made from semi-precious stones, precious metals and glass beads. The poor used painted clay, stones, shells, animal teeth and bones. Egyptians wore it to protect them from disease, ward off evil or bring good fortune.

As part of our partnership with ZSL Whipsnade zoo we were invited to attend a Vets in Action workshop, where the children were able to celebrate the incredible work of the zoo’s vets. They started the day at the zoo vet centre where they were helping experts examine, diagnose and carry out treatments on toy animals, experiencing first-hand the huge variety of work carried out by the Zoo’s vets, vet nurses and zookeepers – from a red panda health check to caring for rescued tortoises. During summer term, year 4 will be learning more about animals within their science lessons.