Beech Class – Year 3/4
Welcome to Beech Class! We are Year 3 and 4 children.
Welcome to Beech Class!
Beech Class in September 2025: Term 1
Welcome to Beech class! We have such an exciting year ahead of us. 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:
We have a very interesting History focus this half term and we will be learning about Roman Britain! We will use our timeline skills to plot the main events of this period, analyse evidence and artefacts to understand how the Romans lived and consider the legacy of the Roman period in Britain today.
We are also busy organising a trip which will act as an awesome celebration of our learning in History – more details to follow as soon as we have confirmed everything.
In Science we are learning about states of matter and will define what is a solid, liquid or gas. We will investigate reversible and irreversible changes and complete our own evaporation experiment. We will also review our learning of the water cycle.
We have both Art and DT lessons this half term; in Art we will be using paints and mixing colours as we learn about colour theory and during DT we will cook a Harvest themed recipe.
Our RE themes this half term are God, creation and fall and our big question is ‘What do Christians believe about God, creation and fall?’
In Music lessons we will be learning about pop music and use the glockenspiels to create music varying in pitch and tempo. We are also squeezing in learning a song called ‘Like a Roman’ which we couldn’t resist learning. We hope to perform it to you all when it’s ready!
In Computing we will be learning about computing systems and networks as well as online safety.
Our PSHE theme is ‘Being me in my world’ and as it is the start of the school year we will be having many class discussions and activities around the classroom culture we would like to create.
In French lessons we will learn numbers to 20, how to introduce ourselves and ask how others are.
In PE lessons with Premier we will play and learn the rules of invasion games, starting with football, and with Miss Mills we will do Forest School.
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
- Completing at least 10 minutes of times table practise every day (for updated details see below) – children will be asked to complete other Maths activities for homework when their times table recall is both fluent and accurate.
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 a paper copy sent home in bags. We no longer complete Spelling tests on a Friday, instead we complete ongoing assessments. Sometimes this will take the form of a traditional spelling test, but this could also be in the form of a dictation exercise. These assessments can happen on any day, they are low stakes and often informal in nature. They will be based on previously learned spelling patterns and rules from that term, that year or even an earlier year group.
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.
