11th September 2019
Dear Parents,
We would like to welcome all our Year 3/4 children to the new school year and say what a positive start it has been. Our children have already started to settle into routines and have been very welcoming to any new children to All Saints’. We would like to take this opportunity to give you some useful information about the systems in place this term for your Year 3/4 child.
PE/ Swimming
PE lessons take place on Wednesday afternoons and Friday mornings for Year 3. Please could children come to school dressed in appropriate, named PE kit on the days that they have PE and remain in their kit for the day. PE Kit = Red school sweatshirt, plain white T-shirt, plain black shorts/tracksuit bottoms and dark trainers. The majority of our PE lessons will take place outside. Year 4 have already started their swimming lessons on Friday mornings and this will continue until February half term.
Maths and English Groups
For maths and English, our children are taught in single year, mixed ability groups. These lessons happen daily and give teachers the opportunity to focus the learning specifically to the National curriculum intended for that year group. Mrs Elliott and Miss Hetherton will teach Y4. Mrs Simmonds and Mr Cooper will teach Y3. Your child will already know which group they are in.
Homework
We welcome parental support with homework and would like to get into the homework routine as quickly as we can. Here is an overview of the weekly homework expectations.
| Homework | Timescale |
|---|---|
| Reading | Regular reading of school reading book or another age appropriate book, recorded in their reading diary with a comment from the child about their book or the pages read. |
| Reading comprehension activity or similar | Given Friday to return the following Thursday to group teacher. Homework should be recorded in their homework books. When activities are linked to theme work the hand in day may change. This will be made clear to the children. Reading comprehension activities are intended to be an opportunity for discussion between adult and child to develop their understanding of texts. |
| Spelling activities | Activities set on Fridays to support the learning of spelling. Work to be done in blue spelling homework books and returned the following Friday when a dictation will be given to check spellings learnt. |
| Maths activities (Education City and Times Table Rockstars) Should your child not have access to a tablet or computer, please let their class teacher know. | Your child has an account on the Times Tables Rockstars Website. Each child has a schedule set for them by their group teacher for them to practice multiplication and division facts for the appropriate times tables. By the end of Year 3, children need to know 2s, 5s, 10s, 3s, 4s and 8s. At the end of Year 4, pupils will be assessed on their rapid recall of all the multiplication and division facts up to 12 x 12. To support learning within maths lessons, your child will also be set homework on Education City each week. They will be expected to attempt two maths activities on this website. These activities will go live after school on Friday and they are to be completed by the following Friday. |
During this half term we will continue to teach our curriculum in school using a cross-curricular theme approach where we teach skills and knowledge which are naturally linked. This term our theme is ‘What makes Ilkley a good tourist destination?’ Our curriculum overview for the term is below.
| English | Writing, guided reading, spelling, grammar and punctuation taught through the study of quality texts from different genres. | |
| Maths | Year 3 Year 4 | Number: place value Number: Addition and Subtraction Number: Multiplication and Division Number: Place Value Number: Addition and Subtraction Measurement: Length and Perimeter Number: Multiplication and Division |
| Science | Food and our Bodies (nutrition, skeletons and muscles) | Teeth and Eating (Teeth and digestion) |
| History | Which was the best Anglo-Saxon king? (Investigating Britain in the past using archaeological evidence) |
|
| Geography | Is Ilkley a good tourist destination? (Investigating local area using mapping techniques) | |
| Art | Colour Mixing (Using a variety of media and skills) | |
| DT | Anglo-Saxon Money Bags (Textiles) |
|
| Music | Shape Rhythms (Recognising musical notation) | Singing vocals (Christmas Carol Service) |
| PE | Multi-skills Outdoor and adventurous activities | Dance and Gymnastics |
| PE - Swimming | Year 4 (Fridays) | |
| PSHE | Me and my Relationships (Feelings, emotions, conflict and resolution and friendships) | Valuing Differences British Values Focus |
| Computing (PPA) | We are Communicators (e-safety and emailing) | We are HTML editors (editing and writing HTML) |
| Computing (class) | We are opinion pollsters (Collecting and analysing information) |
|
| RE | What do different people believe about God? Judaism and Christianity |
|
| MFL - French | French - An introduction to verbal and written greetings, simple questions and answers. | |
We will be having an Open-Door session on Thursday 12th September after school until 3.50pm when you are welcome to come and have a look around your child’s classroom. Class teachers will be available to answer any other questions that you may have. We look forward to seeing you then.
Kind regards,
Mrs Elliott Mrs Simmonds Miss Hetherton Mr Cooper
New National Curriculum 2014: Guide for Parents
Tricky Words…
Maths Calculation Policy
White Rose Maths Hub Long term plans Year 3
White Rose Maths Hub Long term plans Year 4
Glossary for English at KS1 and KS2
Useful Websites for parents including homework websites
