Welcome to Year 4S

Happy New Year! I hope you have all had a lovely, restful break. Welcome back to the first half of the spring term. I am looking forward to settling the children back into school life in Year 4. Please feel free to chat to me on the door if you have any questions or queries. Alternatively, if you are unable to speak with me, my email address is 4s@stpatricks.sefton.school. I will respond to any emails within 48hours, in line with our school's communication policy. 

Mrs Williams

General Information

Our spring term will begin with our Religious Education theme of 'Community', exploring our Big Question - What Makes Community? We will consider the communities which we belong to, then the life of the local Christian community. Our English lessons will focus on the text Mufaro's Beautiful Daughters, an African tale by John Steptoe. We will write our own narratives and explore how this story links with the Catholic Social Teaching principles of The Common Good and Preferential Option for the Poor. In Maths, our first unit this half term will continue with Multiplication and Division, before moving on to Length and Perimeter and Fractions and Decimals. I am excited to begin our new History topic, travelling back in time to explore the achievements of the Ancient Greeks. In Science, our topic will be Animals Including Humans.

Communication

Please let the school know if any of your contact details have changed (phone number, email, addresses) if we need to call home or contact you.

Homework

Homework will be set every Monday at 4.30pm. We will upload this on Purple Mash, to be completed by the following Monday at 4pm. The children will be tested on their spellings on Monday mornings and times tables during the week. We encourage the children to practise their times tables each night using the Times Tables Rockstars website. Please try to ensure your child completes their homework every week, as well as reading each night.

Reading

Reading is a key focus for us in school and we work hard to promote the children's love of reading. Each week, the children will take part in a reading lesson and guided reading sessions based on a focus text. During these sessions, we focus on key reading skills, such as as vocabulary. inference, prediction. explaining, retrieval and summary. I will upload these texts each week to the Reading section at the bottom of this page, so you can discuss them further with your child. 

Times Tables Links

Making sure that the children can quickly recall all the times tables facts will really help their learning in Year 4. It would be wonderful if you could support your child with recalling their tables facts and accessing their Times Tables Rockstars account each day for ten minutes. This will enable them to draw upon this fundamental knowledge in many areas of Maths.  These websites help the children do this at their own pace and in a fun way.

https://ttrockstars.com (children can use their school login)

www.purplemash.co.uk (children can use their school login)

www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

PE

This half term, our PE lessons will take place on Monday and Thursday. The children should wear their PE kits to school on these days.  Please ensure your child has the correct PE kit – branded shorts etc are not part of school uniform.  On cooler days, the children may wear jogging bottoms, but they must still wear their school cardigan or jumper – no hoodies. The children will continue their Swimming lessons on Thursdays and the final lesson will be on 30th January. They must continue to have the appropriate equipment (hat, goggles etc) and please note that no jewellery will be allowed when swimming. If your child wears earrings, they must be able to take them out and put them back in themselves. Thank you for your help with this. Girls must wear a one-piece swimsuit and boys must wear close fitting, lycra swim shorts. Many thanks.

Uniform

Please ensure that school jumpers and cardigans are labelled with you child's name. If a jumper or cardigan is misplaced during the school day, it is easier to return this to the correct pupil if it is named. 

Medical

If your child has a medical condition that staff need to know about, please inform the school as soon as possible. If your child requires an inhaler, or any other medicine, please ensure it has been handed into school, and is not out of date. 

Snack

As we are a ‘Healthy School’ we would like to remind parents that a healthy snack at playtime is encouraged. Please refrain from sending any chocolate or sweets into school as a snack.