Term 1 message to parents and carers: 

Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to the first term of this school year at St. Andrew’s!

Please find below the relevant information for the school term.

Supporting at home:

Parents often ask how they can support their children at home with their learning.  Please continue to share books with your child and also discuss their personal reading with them.  Reading should be for pleasure, so please come and see me if you would like support in choosing books your child may enjoy.  Please find below some questions you could ask your child to further develop their reading skills. This is key for developing the language skills to take on our reading assessments throughout the school year.

Times table practice at home is essential at this point in the school year. Please ensure your child is completing the expected 30 minutes weekly of TTRS to ensure they are fluent in their tables. This helps reduce their workload and thinking time in maths lessons and will also prepare them for year 5. ​

The year 4 times table check will take place during weeks 1 and 2 of this term! Please ensure your child is completing their 30 minutes of TTRS weekly, as there is a direct correlation between those who pass, and those who complete their 30 minutes weekly. 

What we will be learning this term:

Please see the medium-term plan for this term, which contains information about all the subjects and what the children will be taught this term. This can be found on the school website and includes all the objectives we will cover across the term.

Class text: This term we will be focusing on the text Stone Age boy by Satoshi Kitamura. This is a picture book about a boy who finds himself in the Stone Age and learns a lot from a young girl named Om and her village. We will be using this text to help us write an alternative narrative and non-chronological report. 

PE:  This term, our P.E lessons will be focused on Dodgeball and Tag Rugby. These lessons will take place on Tuesday and Wednesday afternoons. These sessions will be taken by the Leap Active team.

Please ensure your child wears the appropriate footwear for these sessions, or they may need to be given different tasks to do in these sessions. 

Music: This term, we are learning about dimensions of music such as pitch, dynamics and texture and understanding how music can tell a story.  We will have the chance to hear music, play instruments and compose and perform our own pieces of music at the end of the unit.

Home Learning and Spelling:

Homework is set to allow children to revisit learning from school to help embed it.  Children need several opportunities to practise their learning to allow them to build confidence and recall it better at a later date.  Please do support your child in completing all the tasks set for each week. 

Spelling: Children will be sent home with a list of 10 spelling words for each week of this term. These will include words from our weekly spelling focus, as Common Exception words and words from our Special Skills (such as homophones and apostrophes). Please ensure your child practises these spellings at home in preparation for a short test on Fridays. On the back of your spelling sheets, I have provided a huge list of possible practice activities to make spelling practice fun!

Reading: Please support your child to read for 15 minutes per day, at least 5 times per week.  Tips for supporting your child with their reading are detailed above.  You will have been provided with information about our new online reading tracker we are trialling this term. More information about how this website works can be found here.  We will collect these in on Fridays and celebrate the children who have read 5 times that week.

Maths: Please complete the 4 activities set in Mathletics each week as well as 30 minutes of Times Table Rock Stars.  This has more impact in short 5-minute bursts over the week, rather than one 30-minute session.   Later this year, all year 4 children will complete a Times Table check. Spending time on Times Table Rock Stars will allow your child to feel more confident about this test.

This school year, each class will be recording engagement with the home learning tasks. The above tasks have been carefully planned to aid your child in making the best progress they can, so it is essential they access this work.

Key information:

PE days: Tuesday & Wednesday

Wellies: Need to be in school all the time.

Drinks: Water bottles should be brought into school and taken home daily.  Water only please.

Jewellery: Only stud earrings and a watch to be worn in school.  Earrings to be removed or taped up for PE.

Coats: Please ensure your child comes to school with a coat when cold weather or rain is expected.

Snacks: A number of children have begun to bring in sugary snacks, such as cookies and chocolate bars. Break time snacks should be fruit and vegetables only, unless agreed otherwise by Mr Pike or the class teacher.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to come and see me at the end of the school day, or email me.

Thank you for your continued support.

Miss Holmes