Dear Parents and Carers,

This week in English, we learnt about determiners. These are words which go in front of nouns and can be specific or non-specific – the most common examples are ‘a’, ‘an’ and ‘the’ but the children will be able to give you lots more. We continued reading Varjak Paw and talking about the language and structure of the writing. We answered some comprehension questions, discussed the use of paragraphs and practiced our own descriptive writing in the style of Varjak Paw.

In Maths, the children have been partitioning numbers in different ways as well as learning how to work out 1, 10, 100 and 1,000 more and less than a number. Today, they practiced estimating numbers on a number line.

In RE, we talked about different types of suffering. In Buddhism, suffering is split into three different categories. The first, is old age, illness and death. The second is natural and man-made suffering such as earthquakes and poverty and the final category is the loss of something that we have become accustomed to such as the death of a pet. We looked at some pictures of people suffering and talked about how it makes us feel and why and it makes us feel like that.

History continued with the Anglo-Saxons. The children researched and answered a series of questions about the Anglo-Saxon invasion and subsequent settlement to help them put together a timeline of events.

Homework groups are now stuck into the homework books so there should be no confusion this week. Please make sure the children are up to date with their Mathletics. I will be checking on Fridays so they have a week to get it all done!

Have a lovely and restful weekend.

Mrs Walsh

Dear Parents and Carers,

Our first full week and we’ve achieved a lot!

A little bit of admin: I’m afraid homework is slightly disorganised this week as I haven’t had time to stick in their comprehension or spelling groups. The children know their comprehension group but I have suggested that they stick to their spelling group from last year for this week and the Year 4 groups will come into effect next week.

I have now read with all the children and assessed their level and reading books will go home on Monday.

In Maths, I am teaching the independent group and Mr Faith is teaching the supported group. Both groups will be covering the same material. We are currently learning about Place Value and representing numbers up to 10,000.

In English, we are reading Varjak Paw by SF Said. Our grammar focus has been possessive apostrophes and inverted commas which we will continue to perfect over the next couple of weeks. Today, the children wrote some comprehension question based on an excerpt from the text. We talked about the meaning of inference and discussed how to write and answer inference questions.

In History, we are learning about the Anglo-Saxons, Picts and Scots. Today, we learnt about Sutton Hoo which is one of Britain’s most important archaeological sites. We looked at the items that were discovered and used our detective skills to work out who might be buried there.

In Science, we are studying electricity and in RE we learnt about the origins of Buddism.

Have a lovely weekend.

Mrs Walsh

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back! It’s been a fantastic first week and I am loving seeing the children again and admiring the progress they have all made. This week we have been settling in. We’ve talked about  Valerie Bloom (the poet our class is named after), discussed the rules for Year 4, written a recount of the summer holiday and created some mixed media self-portraits. The hard work starts next week!

Ms Cummings is our TA but sadly she was unable to be here this week. We are hoping to see her on Monday. Miss Isobel will also be working as a 1:1 in our class.

You should have received an email today with all the procedures for Year 4. If you have any questions or concerns please email me at v.pawsey@ststephensce.lbhf.sch.uk

Have a lovely weekend and I look forward to seeing you all soon.

Mrs Walsh