Class Teacher: Miss Adams
Learning Assistant: Ms Stone

Hello and welcome to Class 15,

Welcome Back

Welcome back and we hope you have had a wonderful and well rested break over the Christmas Holidays.  We are looking forward to an exciting term ahead and cannot wait to continue our Year 4 journey.

Curriculum

This term we will continue to have a strong emphasis towards learning our times tables so the children can be more confident with their recall facts and develop a stronger understanding of the inverse operation, division, throughout the year. It is important to read as much as possible and we ask that parents listen to their children read and help develop a love of books. When you listen to your children read, this should be recorded in their Home School Diary and each read will count towards their total where they could be in with a chance to win a prize!

In English, we will be starting our new book "Beaver Towers”, an exciting adventure story by Nigel Hinton. In Maths, we will be focusing on using mental and written methods for multiplication and division as well as learning about fractions. During the afternoons, our topic for the first half of the Spring Term will be ‘Rockstars’ and the second half will be ‘Essex Explorers’.

Our PE lessons will take place on Monday. PE kits (white t-shirt, red shorts and trainers) are to be kept in school and will be sent home half-termly to be washed. Please can you include a cold weather P.E. kit (plain joggers and sweatshirt) as a number of PE lessons will take place outside.

Swimming

Class 15 will be swimming on Wednesday afternoon. Children will need to come to school with a separate bag for their swimwear, towel and hat. We walk to and from the Basildon Sporting Village, rain or shine, so ensure your child is prepared with the appropriate outdoor clothing.

With so many exciting things going on in school, there will be lots to talk about on those journeys home. Make sure you’re impressing your parents and telling them all about your learning.

Homework

All of the staff in Class 15 will work hard to ensure everybody does their best this year.

In order to help your child achieve and accelerate their progress, we ask for the following commitments from you at home too:

• Listen to your child read at home at least 4 times a week and record this in your child’s Home School Diary. Please take the time to put a small note and we will also do the same every time we hear your child read in school.
• Practise your times tables and spellings regularly.

We are incredibly lucky to have access to some fantastic online resources, which will also support their learning too. Your child’s login details are included at the front of their Home School Diary.

Times Table Rock Stars is a fun and challenging online programme designed to help pupils master their times tables by playing the different games and answering different questions to improve their Rock speed and status. Children will earn coins for correctly answered questions which they can use to improve and upgrade their Rock Star Avatar. Just go to https://play.ttrockstars.com and use the login information inside your Home School Diary.

Please remember, if you have ANY concerns during the year then come and see us. We will always help you if we know about anything that is worrying you. We want to keep everybody at Ghyllgrove safe, happy and achieving.

Miss Adams