Welcome back Year 4 and welcome to Key Stage 2 Year 3!
We hope that you have all had a super summer holiday and enjoyed yourselves!
This is our class newsletter to let you and your parents know what is happening in our class this half term!
PE starts NEXT TUESDAY, 12th September and we will be going to St Chad’s School again to use their hall. You will need to bring a tracksuit to wear over your PE kit to keep you warm as we walk to and from the coach.
Swimming started today and will continue to be our second PE lesson until the end of the year in July. It is so important that YOU remember your bag every week.
Homework will be given out on a Friday and collected in the following Wednesday. Please ensure you bring your book into school on or before the following Wednesday. A record is kept to ensure that children are completing homework and handing it in on time. If it is not handed in on time, please be aware that it may not be marked due to other commitments on Thursday after school. For this term, homework will be a research based homework task one week, followed by a grammar/spelling/ punctuation task the next. Maths consolidation activities will be sent home each week to follow up the work done in class. More information about homework will be found inside your homework book when you receive it.
Some children may also find that they will receive extra homework activities, such as handwriting, where necessary.
Spellings will be given out each Friday and tested the following Friday. You will receive a spelling homework sheet on which you should write each word in a sentence of your own ( PARENTS / CARERS – Please ensure your child completes this spelling homework, as it not only helps them to practise spelling each word, but it also helps them to understand the word in context and also reinforces sentence structure and punctuation work ). You MUST bring your spelling folder into school each Friday.
Our topic this half term is ‘Sparks Might Fly’ and is a science led topic on the theme of electricity. In DT we will be designing and making a product which has an electrical circuit to run alongside our science work. In music, we will begin to learn the songs for a performance in the Sing Together concert at King George’s Hall in March (more details to follow in the new year). In maths, we will be looking at place value, mental calculations, 2D shape, length, perimeter and written addition/subtraction methods. Our English work will involve looking at explanation and narrative texts and poetry linked to Remembrance Day.
In KS2, the focus for reading is mainly on comprehension. Your child will bring a book home to read from school from the reading scheme (up to the end of the Lime band) or a ‘free choice’ book from the school library once they have finished the scheme.
It is so important that you continue to listen to your child read at home for about 10 minutes a day. As they read, please ask them questions about the text to develop their comprehension skills. Please see the attached bookmark for examples of questions to ask them. A number of children will continue to read to an adult a couple of times a week if necessary, and we ask that you please fill in their Reading Record to let us know how they are reading at home. All the children will read once a week in a Guided reading group session and there are many other opportunities for your child to read in shared/paired reading activities across the curriculum.
We are very excited about our topics this year and we are looking forward to a fantastic, fun and hard working year!
Any questions, please do not hesitate to ask!
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