Year 3

Thanks to all families for meeting with the teaching team this week to discuss how your child has settled into their new class and year group. It has been a pleasure to talk about early successes and to identify development points for the year ahead. What an incredibly quick half term it has been! 

We’re delighted by the hard work that has been invested in our writing since the beginning of the year. Our current project is to compose a poem about Autumn and we hope that an additional motivating factor is that the strongest examples will star on the school’s writing display. The poems will include the feature of personification which can make pieces feel very sophisticated.

Our year group’s fluency-based maths scheme has been working well and children have benefitted from plenty of hands-on practice with manipulatives. This helps children become secure before they move on to working with pictorial representations. A final step would be to work at a more abstract, theoretical level. 

Our geography topic on rivers has come to an end and the children have learnt a huge amount about the River Thames, including lots of specialist vocabulary. Next half term, our humanities learning will turn to history, where we will learn about the Stone Age. This will be reinforced through a variety of vivid texts that we will study in English. 

With just one further lesson about magnets before moving onto rocks, the children have developed their knowledge about forces, including which items are and aren’t magnetic, how a magnet attracts iron filings around its poles and they have particularly enjoyed setting up a simple experiment to see how many paperclips different magnets could attract. 

The cohort have engaged very well with their weekly ‘wider opportunities’ lessons where they have learnt a variety of stringed instruments. Next half term, we will invite families to a concert so you can see the children’s progress for yourselves.

With all good wishes for a happy, healthy and restful half term break.

                                        

     

Key messages from the Year 3 team: 

• Please ensure your child has a healthy, tasty snack with them for break times. One that includes protein and carbohydrates is ideal 

• Please tie shoulder-length hair back

• Please record five reading record comments per week, ready for checking on Mondays 

 

Useful links: 

• https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00r33mq Link to Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock’s Desert Island Discs on Radio 4. Dr Aderin-Pocock is one of the scientists featured on the Black History Month poster in classes to Celebrate Black Scientists: past and present

• https://www.rsc.org.uk/the-bear-and-the-piano/ This delightful Y2 text which was much enjoyed by the children will be put on by the RSC this Christmas

• Autumn 2’s learning bulletin which contains the knowledge and skills that your child is being taught, plus key vocabulary and suggested activities/reads

 

Year 4

It was lovely to meet everyone during our family teacher meetings this week. 

The children have been inspired in their writing by The Barnabus Project. They have produced some brilliant character descriptions, showing real creativity and attention to detail.  We have now moved on to diary writing, where the children are writing from the perspective of their chosen character and exploring their thoughts and feelings.

In reading, we have started The Polar Bear Explorers’ Club. It’s a challenging text, but the children have been captivated by the suspenseful and gripping story. They enjoyed predicting what might happen next and discussing the tense moments in the plot.

We have moved on from place value to addition and subtraction in maths. The children have been solving calculations using a range of strategies, including partitioning, number lines, and column methods. They are making excellent progress. 

Our geography lessons have taken us to the world’s biomes.  We have explored the tundra, learning about its unique climate, plants, and animals. Next, we will study the savanna, looking at its features before finally comparing the different biomes we have explored.

Perhaps the most exciting part of our recent learning has been art! The children are using clay to create their own Islamic tiles. Inspired by Islamic art, they are experimenting with geometric and vegetal patterns to create beautiful, intricate designs. The next task will be to paint them.

In science, we went outside to identify different trees according to their leaves and started our tree study which we will re-visit each season.

Next term in maths we look forward to enjoying the challenge of applying our new skills to a range of word problems.

  

  

 

Key messages from the Year 4 team: 

• Please ensure your child has a healthy and delicious snack with them for break times!

• Please record five reading record comments per week, ready for checking on Mondays .

Useful links: 

• This half term’s learning bulletin which contains the knowledge and skills that your child is being taught, key vocabulary and suggested activities/reads.  

• Link to Year 4 spelling lists.