Beech Class – Year 3/4
Welcome to Beech Class! We are Year 3 and 4 children.
Welcome to Beech Class!
Beech Class in Term 2
Welcome to Beech class! We hope that the information below gives you a good insight into what we will be doing this term.
Class Teachers:
Mrs Mitchell will teach every Monday, alternate Thursday mornings and every Friday.
Mrs Grindle will teach every Tuesday, every Wednesday and alternate Thursday mornings.
Miss Mills will teach every Thursday afternoon.
Teaching Assistants:
Miss Middle – mornings
Miss McDermott – Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday
Miss Ward – Wednesday
Here is what we are learning about this half term:
Our learning in Term 2…
We have a Geography focus this half term and we will be learning about The UK. We will recap our learning on the different countries and capital cities of the UK and define the UK, Great Britain and the British Isles. We will focus on the physical geography of the UK, learning about the mountains, rivers and coastline and thinking about what physical features
In Science we are learning about electricity. We will learn what a simple series circuit is and identify different components that can be added to this. We will construct simple series circuits for ourselves, trying different components, such as bulbs, buzzers and switches. We will draw the circuit as a pictorial representation, not necessarily using conventional circuit symbols at this stage.
This term we will focus on DT, rather than Art, and we are learning how to sew to help us to create Christmas stockings! We will learn how to sew felt together for both functional aspects and visual appeal such as adding decoration.
Our RE big question is ‘What do Christians believe about incarnation?’ In Music lessons we will be learning about Country music and use the glockenspiels to create music varying in pitch and tempo. In Computing we will start our coding unit using code.org. Our PSHE theme is ‘Celebrating Differences’ which links to whole school events such as Anti-Bullying week. In French lessons we will learn the days of the week and the months of the year. In PE lessons, the children will learn netball from Mrs Grindle and Miss Mills, and we will also be taking them swimming from Week 4 onwards: Tuesday 25th November will be our first swimming lesson.
- PE lessons will be on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please send your child to school wearing their PE kit.
- Children need to have in school every day a spare pair of shoes or wellies for our Adventure Play and Paddock area.
- It is important that children always have a coat in school as we will be outside as much as possible in all weathers.
In Maths we are continuing to embed our addition and subtraction skills before moving onto multiplication and division. The children will be using the column method for addition, subtraction and multiplication and using their times table knowledge and grouping and sharing to support their understanding of division.
Weekly Home Learning Tasks
Your child’s reading record and scheme reading book needs to come into school every day.
Please ensure your child is:
- Reading every day and noting this in their reading record.
Reading, Spellings and Times tables
Your child will have two reading books that they use at school. One will be a levelled scheme reading book that will go home and be brought into school every day. The other will be a book that they keep at school to read for pleasure. Your child will be assessed on their book level by the class teacher and teaching assistants at regular intervals throughout the term.
Spellings lists will be shared on Class Dojo weekly, and we will carry out a test every Friday. Sometimes this will take the form of a traditional spelling test, but this could also be in the form of a dictation exercise.
Times table practise will be checked and monitored every week. Children will be tested on their times tables alongside their Maths lessons so will not have a regularly scheduled times table test. We encourage children to use Times Table Rockstars for their daily practise – specifically the Garage mode. Please leave the ‘Gig’ mode for us to use at school, as it forms part of our regular assessment plan. Within these modes the game assesses your child’s speed, accuracy and fluency, and adjusts their difficulty level accordingly. If a child has 100% accuracy but takes too long to answer the questions, they will not progress. Both elements are important when learning times tables. If your child is not yet confident with their times tables, please see the Parent Guide for TTRS which explains how to adjust the settings (e.g. turn the timer off) whilst they build their fluency and confidence. We highly recommend that children practise their times tables using an online resource several times a week, this is because at the end of Year 4 children have to complete a statutory times table test using a Chromebook at school. The test gives the children 6 seconds to read, answer and type their response to a times table question before moving on to the next question.
Login information for any online resources has been stuck into the inside cover of your child’s reading record.
If you have any questions or queries, please do not hesitate to contact Mrs Grindle and/or Mrs Mitchell on Class Dojo. However to report absences, illness or update on medical appointments or results, please phone or email the school office.
