Mrs HV
Teacher
My most memorable read as a child was a book called Mr Meddle's Mischief by Enid Blyton. Perhaps I was taken in by the thought of mischief! Mr Meddle is a pixie who can't get anything right. He's always meddling in other people's business and making dreadful muddles. From then on I went to read many of her books but my favourite was the series of The Magic Faraway Tree and The Wishing Chair. I loved these stories so much I would read them over and over again. They whisked me off to wonderful places of elves, gnomes, talking trees and so many other wonderful things.
Miss Freight
HLTA/TIS practitioner
Autumn 1
Welcome back everyone, we hope that you’ve had a wonderful summer break. Please read on to find out about all of the exciting things we have planned for the first half term of the new academic year.
Our literacy unit for this half term ties in with Black History month and will focus on the book Coming to England by Floella Benjamin.
Children will develop their spoken language by asking relevant questions and articulating and justifying their answers, they will participate in discussions, presentations, performances, role-play, improvisations and debates. They will consider and evaluate different viewpoints. In reading comprehension, they will learn to draw inferences of characters' feelings, thoughts and motives from their actions. Children will discuss words and phrases that capture the reader’s interest and imagination and use dictionaries to check the meanings of unfamiliar words. They will learn to make predictions from details stated and implied and ask questions to improve their understanding of the text. The final outcome will be for children to write letters from Floella to her Grandmother telling her about settling into life in the UK. Children will plan their writing by discussing the structure, vocab and grammar of similar writing. They will compose and rehearse their sentences orally, before writing and building an increasing range of sentence structures. to create settings, characters and plot. Children will assess the effectiveness of their writing and practise the skills of proofreading for spelling and punctuation errors.
In Maths this half term both year 3 and 4 will be working on the White Rose Maths Units Place Value and Addition and Subtraction.
The year 3 place value unit shall focus on representing numbers and partitioning numbers to 100 and 1000, finding 1, 10 or 100 more or less than a given number, ordering, estimating and comparing numbers to a 1000 and counting in 50’s. For addition and subtraction children will focus on applying their knowledge of number bonds within 10 when adding and subtracting 1s, 10s and 100s which cross boundaries. Children will be introduced to more formal approaches of recording such as using the column method for adding and subtracting 2- and 3-digit numbers.
Year 4 place value will focus on representing numbers and partitioning numbers to 1000 and 10,000, finding 1, 10, 100, 1000 more or less than a given number, ordering, estimating and comparing numbers to a 10,000 and rounding to the nearest 10, 100 or 1,000. They will also investigate Roman numerals. For addition and subtraction children will add and subtract 1s, 10s, 100s and 1,000s, adding and subtracting up to two 4-digit numbers involving more than one exchange checking the strategies they have used.
In Science this term our topic is living things and their environments.
Children will learn about the seven characteristics of living things and recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways. They will explore and use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment. In working scientifically children will ask relevant questions and use different types of scientific enquiries to answer them and to support their findings.
Our RE unit this term is Creation. The children will continue to build on their learning in KS1. In studying the creation story children will be able to make clear links between Genesis 1 and what Christians believe about God and Creation. They will recognise that the story of ‘the Fall’ in Genesis 3 gives an explanation of why things go wrong in the world. Children will describe what Christians do because they believe God is Creator and describe how and why Christians might pray to God, say sorry and ask for forgiveness. Children will ask questions and suggest answers about what might be important in the Creation story.
Our topic for this half term will be the Vikings. During this history-based unit, the children will be learning all about the Vikings and how history can present people as stereotypes. They will find out why the Vikings have such a bad reputation and if, when and why they were successful. Children will use primary and secondary sources to explain why attitudes towards the Vikings have changed and will make their own opinions on whether they think they were raiders or settlers. Children will identify and give reasons for the different ways in which the Vikings are remembered.
In ICT our focus will be on online safety. Children will understand how they can protect themselves from online identity theft. They will understand that information put online leaves a digital footprint or trail and that this can aid identity theft. Children will learn about the risks and benefits of installing software including apps. Children will understand that copying the work of others and presenting it as their own is called ‘plagiarism’ and be aware of the consequences of plagiarism. Children will be able to identify the positive and negative influences of technology on health and the environment and understand the importance of balancing game and screen time with other parts of their lives.
For music children will follow Charanga. The end outcome is to be able to sing, play, improvise and compose with the song Mamma Mia.
Children will learn skills such as finding the pulse and singing in unison. They will use instruments to play and copy back using 2 notes (G and A) using Glocks. They will compose a simple melody using simple rhythms, choosing from notes G, A and B.
In PHSE this half term we will follow the Jigsaw unit Being in My World. Year 3 will focus on exploring different career paths and the skills needed to get a job. Year 4 will focus on friendships and what makes a good friendship, developing their understanding of what respect is and why is it important to be respectful.
Children will use Languagenut for our French lessons this term. Year 3 will focus on greetings, classroom instructions and numbers 1-10. Year 4 will continue to practise their existing French language skills. They will learn the days of the week, numbers 20-30 and how to tell the time.
In art children will explore Viking art and identify its key characteristics and features. They will be able to draw Viking patterns and be able to create a piece of Viking animal artwork, accurately sketching a Viking dragon head.
For PE this term we shall be focusing on physical fitness. Children shall observe the impact of exercise on the heart and explore what fitness is and test different ranges of fitness. Children will learn and understand about different muscle groups and their jobs. They will understand energy balance.