Year 4
Welcome to Year 4
In the Spring term, Year 4 will be investigating The Romans and their impact on Britain. We will use our previous learning on the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons from the Autumn term, to help further embed our knowledge of invasions, settlements, and the way of life during the Roman era. We will start to learn about the Romans' struggle for Britain against the Anglo-Saxons.
Class Dojo
Class Dojo is now set up for parents to join, where messages can be sent back and forth - I will reply as and when I can. I believe that using Class Dojo as a means to communicate with one another is vital (especially in current circumstances) but this won't only be used for communication, it gives me the opportunity to share your child's work with you by being able to post photos or messages directly to their own profile!
Numeracy
In the Spring term, we are focusing on Multiplication and Division; Length and Perimeter; Fractions and Decimals. We use the White Rose Maths Scheme of learning to assist with our learning in numeracy, which helps with our school's Mastery approach to maths. We will be working on times tables daily through various activities, such as Maths Zap, Times Tables 38 (TT38), and Big Maths Beat That!
We want the children to be able to recall times tables faster, therefore, each child has access to Times Table Rockstars, a programme specifically designed to improve the children's speed and fluency with times tables. Please ask for your child's login, if this has been forgotten. I will be setting a competition every few weeks between members of the class and other classes.
Aston's Numeracy Policies:
Literacy
In each lesson, we aim to layer up our writing, by taking a step-by-step approach, where we slowly build our writing up. To do this, we use Jane Consodine's Write Stuff, which allows the slow, but effective, build-up of our writing. We will be creating various genres of writing from narrative stories to newspaper reports to poems.
Homework
All our homework links with tasks we have been doing in class that week. Year 4 will have numeracy and reading homework, which will alternate on a weekly basis. Homework folders have been provided for the children, which they are responsible for keeping tidy and safe. Homework is set on a Friday afternoon and should be returned by the following Wednesday to be marked. If anyone is struggling with the homework, please ask a member of staff in Year 4 for assistance and we can do our best to help.
Spellings
Spellings are produced through Read Write Inc. Our spelling lessons span over a two-week period and consists of various units, that focus on a particular area of spelling, such as prefixes (for example, un- , in- , il - etc.) and prefixes (such as -ing, -ed, -s etc.). The class work in practice books. On Wednesdays, children will be set TEN spellings, with five spellings from the spelling rule that week and ten spellings from the Year 3/4 statutory spelling list. We will have a spelling quiz the following Wednesday.
Reading
"Reading is the key that opens the door to many things in life"
This year, we are encouraging reading more than ever. Reading is not just for reading comprehension, but we need to be able to read to access all subjects on the curriculum. Each week, every child will receive a colour-banded book to read at home. This will be their home reading book that targets areas with which we have assessed they may need support with. Please support your child with this. Once the book has been read, please re-read it as many times as possible in that week. These books specifically target areas we want your child to improve on, therefore, repetition of these books will help to close those gaps that have occurred over the past couple of years due to the pandemic.
As well as these specific books, children should have a book for pleasure reading, which could range from traditional novels to comics to poems to sporting magazines and so on. Any reading is fantastic! And allowing children to develop a passion for reading in an area that interests them is a positive thing!
Physical Education (PE)
We ensure that two hours of PE are done each week in line with the Government guidelines. Our PE lessons are on Thursday and Friday afternoons. Thursday will be outdoor PE and Friday will be indoor. Our PE kit is yellow t-shirts and black shorts/bottoms. For any new PE kit, please contact the office. During the Spring term, we will be participating in Netball, Fitness, Yoga, and Tag Rugby.
