Dear Parents,

Hello and welcome to Year 4 and Blue Class! I hope you all had a lovely, relaxing summer and are ready for the year ahead. There will be many exciting challenges for the children this year and hopefully, with your support, these will be enjoyable and successful. I’m so excited to get to know you all; I can feel a wonderful year approaching!This newsletter will give you some information about the day to day organisation of Blue class alongside some information about what the children will be studying this half term.

In Literacy we will be looking at information texts. We will continue to develop our reading and writing skills, incorporating the use of grammar into our everyday writing. We will look at a variety of sources to get to know the genre before creating our own information books about Greek Gods! We will also look at poetry based on the animals we can find in our local area. Each Monday they will receive a list of spellings. The children need to practise these spellings and complete the activities in the front of their spelling book. Spelling books will be collected on a Friday when a test will be given.

In Numeracy we will be continuing to apply our number skills to solve a range of problems and puzzles. We will look at place value, decimals and fractions, addition and subtraction, shapes and measurement, including time. Mrs McDonald will be teaching us some of this on a Thursday morning. Each week the children have a times table to learn which will be tested on a Thursday. The list of times tables can be found in the homework book.

This half term our topics are:

Science / What wild plants and animals thrive in your locality?
History / Has Greece always been in the news?
ICT / Digital Imagery
P.E. / Swimming
P.S.H.E. / Getting on and falling out
DT / Ancient Greek shields
Music / Songwriter
French / All Aboard

As you can see, the children will be going swimming this term. It will be every Tuesday afternoon, so please make sure your child brings their swimming kit on a Tuesday.

The children will continue to bring home reading books each day. It does make a real difference if the children have the opportunity to enjoy and share their books with their parents.

Homework will be set at the beginning of the half term in children’s homework books. The children are set a variety of activities which are linked to our topic work and listed at the front alongside a points score. Children need to complete activities of their choice over the course of the half term, ensuring that they earn 50 points. Homework will be collected and marked on a Monday. I hope that you will support and encourage your child with their homework as much as you think is necessary. If your child has difficulty in completing the work or is unable to complete please let me know.

Extra games and link with work we have been doingare available on the VLE at Ask your child for their password.

We will also be posting work up on our blog at . There is the option for visitors to leave comments and we would love to hear what you think about our work! Please leave your name as ‘Billy’s mum/ Chris’s dad’ so we can see who is who.

Children are encouraged to bring plastic sports type water bottles into school as part of our healthy school. Please ensure that this bottle is clearly labelled with your child’s name. Water bottles should be taken home on a Friday afternoon. Any bottles left will be put in the bin at the end of the week.

P.E. is on a Thursday morning. Please ensure that your child’s kit (indoor and outdoor) is available on these days. Unfortunately, we aren’t able to loan kit to children for hygiene reasons. In order to minimise the confusion caused when children lose or mix up their kit, I would appreciate it if you could write or sew your child’s name onto all items of clothing they bring into school.

Each week, Blue class visit the school library on a Thursday afternoon. Please ensure that your child has their library book with them to be changed on this day.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter; I hope you found it helpful. If you have any more questions at any time, please do come and see me.

Miss Kidd