Dear Parents/Carers,

Welcome to another school year at St. Andrew’s.  I hope you have had a brilliant summer with your families, and that your children are ready for an exciting and busy first term in Year 3 and 4.   

Supporting at home:

Parents often ask how they can support their children at home with their learning.  Reading is the most important thing you can do at home with your child.  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:

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 of the objectives we will cover across the term.

Class text: Our class text this term is ‘Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura’. This text will be used throughout our English and History unit, and we will use this to help inform our fiction and non-fiction writing. At the end of the school day, we will also be reading ‘Stig of the Dump by Clive King’ to further develop our subject knowledge.  

PE: PE will work differently this term.  Instead of having our 10 swimming lessons over 10 weeks in the summer term, they will be over 10 consecutive school days this term.  Children will need to bring their swimming kits every day for the weeks commencing 16^th September and 23^rd September.

 As we are doing so much swimming this term, we will just have one in-school PE day.  This will be on a Friday (apart from during the two swimming weeks).  On Fridays, please make sure your child comes to school wearing appropriate clothing. Please ensure their kit is weather suitable, as a number of children often do not have a coat on rainy days, meaning they may miss out on P.E time. A reminder of clothing expectations: plain black shorts/leggings/joggers; a plain white t-shirt or blue t-shirt with or without the school logo; a plain black sweat top or school sweat top or school fleece; daps or trainers (trainers are preferable as most PE activities will be outdoors). Children in school shoes may also miss out on some activities.

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 to complete all the tasks set each week. 

Spelling: Children will be sent home each week with a list of 10 spelling words. These will include words from our weekly spelling focus, as well as 5 selected words from our Common Exception words. Please ensure your child practises these spellings at home in preparation for a short test on Fridays.

Reading: Please support your child to read for 20 minutes per day, at least 5 times per week.  Tips for supporting your child with their reading are detailed above.  Please remind your child to record their reading in their reading diary and to bring this into school daily so we can also record in it when we read with your child in school.  Please initial next to each entry your child makes at home.  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 on 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.

Key information:

PE days: Fridays

Swimming every day for week beginning 16^th September and week beginning 23^rd September.

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 into school.  Earrings to be removed or taped up for PE.

If you have any questions or concerns, please do not hesitate to come and see me or to send me an email.

Thank you for your continued support.

Mr Watkins