Welcome to Year Four Birch Class Teacher: Mrs O’Neill Teaching Assistant: Mrs Lewis Lime Class Teacher: Miss Dodd Teaching Assistant: Mrs Hunt & Miss Brown

o The children should arrive at school on time each day and line up on the lower junior playground o A teacher will be on the playground from 8:45 if you have any questions, messages or problems and the class teachers will collect the children at 8:55 o If you wish to speak to either Year 4 teacher: o Please feel free to write a message in the children’s reading records, o Arrange an appointment with us before or after school o Speak to us at the end of the school day on the playground o Speak to the class TA’s (Mrs Lewis, Mrs Hunt or Miss Brown)

 Bags – the children should bring in a bag such as a rucksack or book bag everyday, so long as they are not too large.  Pencil cases – many children do choose to bring in a pencil case with basic equipment in.  PE kit – children will need to keep a full PE kit in school including jogging bottoms and jumpers in winter. PE days= Outdoor on Tuesday, Indoor on Thursday  Painting overall/ old shirt – we will do lots of painting and printing.

 Reading records should be brought into school every day and taken home so the children can record what they have read.  The children are able to choose books from the class reading area.  After half term, and provided the children are recording regularly, we do allow the children to bring in books from home or from the library as their class reading book. However they must show it to an adult first so that we can ensure it is of a suitable level of challenge.

 Reading records are taken in and marked by the teaching assistants on Wednesday. We would like the children to read at least three times a week (ideally to an adult). We also have readers of the week for those who are reading several times a week and writing interesting comments about their books  Each time the child reads they should record the following information. -date -title -pages read  Brief comments about the book should be included regularly however not every time they read

 At the beginning of each term Year 4 will be given their grid homework. Each Monday they will choose 1 activity from the selection to complete.  This will be returned to school on the Monday for the teacher to mark, or discuss. Please sign your child’s grid when they have completed their activity.  Year 4 will also be given their spellings on a Monday in preparation for their test on Friday.  Reading is expected to happen at least three times during the week with entries written in their reading records.

 Every Thursday Year 4 will receive their second piece of homework, this will alternate between Literacy and Maths and will focus on similar activities or skills as we are using in class.  This homework will have differentiated levels for the children to choose from and they will be encouraged to challenge themselves.  Parents may discuss this homework with their children, however if the child is unsure of the task please encourage them to come and ask a teacher.

Here are some of the topics that your child will be studying this year:  Maths – place value, addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, shape and space, fractions and decimals, measures, mass and time.  Literacy – stories set in imaginary worlds, newspaper reports, persuasive writing that explores whether animals should be kept in captivity, historical stories and scary stories  Science- Sound, electricity THE CURRICULUM

 Geography – We are looking at Natural Disaster’s with a focus on Volcanoes, Earthquakes, Tsunamis and Floods  History – We will be exploring The Anglo Saxons and The Shang Dynasty  PSHE – New beginnings and relationships.

 PE – gymnastics, dance, tennis and athletics  ICT – word processing skills, photo and audio editing software, blogging, programming and using the ipads  Art – based on stories set in an imaginary world including designing and drawing their own world. We also produce clay artefacts which links to our History topic  Design and technology - We will be creating our own textile dragons and potato based dishes.

 We will hopefully be visiting Cuffley Camp for an activity filled day, this can range from Map –reading to Tree measuring  The children may also attend an athletics and other sports festivals organised by the local Grammar Schools  There will be opportunities for parents to offer their help and to join in activities through the year and you will be notified of these with a letter

Marking Scheme In each of the children’s books, throughout the school we stick to a clear marking scheme. I – independent work GW – group work - wrong tense ___ - spelling correction C – capital letter missing T – target, this will be a comment from the teacher for something the child can improve on. Often a task or an additional question will be asked for the child to complete to improve their work. This is in addition to our 2 stars and 1 wish marking that will occur fortnightly.

 In class the children will be discussing Esafety  You may wish to discuss it with them further at home  This website has lots of useful information: