~ Welcome to Year 4 ~ 

Your Teachers are Mr Boulden (4B, Year Group Leader), Mrs French (4F),Mrs Leary (4L) and Mrs Dale (across 4L and 4F).

We are supported by Mrs McGinley (LSA),  Mrs Edwards (Cover), Mrs Lochowska (LSA) and Mrs Omoijuanfo (SEND Support) 

mr.boulden@stthomasofcanterbury.thurrock.sch.uk

mrs.french@stthomasofcanterbury.thurrock.sch.uk

mrs.leary@stthomasofcanterbury.thurrock.sch.uk

mrs.dale@stthomasofcanterbury.thurrock.sch.uk

Year 4 dates for the diary: 

Autumn - 

• Half term: Monday 23rd - Friday 27th October

• Parents Consultations: 

• Tuesday 17th October - 3.30-6
• Thursday 19th October - 3.30-6

• INSET Day: Monday 30th October (school closed to pupils)
• Odd Socks Day for Anti-Bullying Week - Monday 13th November
• Wednesday 15th November - Year 4 Mass at St Thomas of Canterbury Church

• Friday 24th November - 4B’s Liturgy
• Tuesday 19th December - Christmas Jumpers, Lunch and Class Party Day
• End of term: Wednesday 20th December at 1:30pm (Early close)

~ Homework Expectations ~ 

Reading for at least 10 minutes each day, 5 times per week, will also be expected as part of your child's homework. It is important to support your child with daily reading as this has a huge impact on their understanding, imagination, creativity and learning across all subjects. In Year 4, it is important to do a mixture of independent reading, reading with an adult and for your child to independently record their opinions about the book in their Reading Record. 

Maths homework will consist of the children going onto Times Tables Rockstars for 10 minutes a day, with a focus being developing understanding, recall and accuracy, in preparation for the MTC in June 2024.

Weekly spelling homework will be set on Google Classroom, where we will be ask the children to learn the words, develop an understanding of the words and be able to create sentences using the words given. Spellings will be taught within weekly sessions, handed out/uploaded on Thursdays and then handed in and tested on the following Tuesdays.

Occasionally, children may be asked to create a project or to conduct some independent research to present in class. 

~Our Weekly Learning Focus~

Week Beginning 9.10.2023

Writing

In Writing this week, children will be identifying the features of a diary entry, exploring how a character is feeling through drama, planning and writing a diary entry (based on our class text) conveying a character's thoughts and feelings, and editing their work. 

Reading:

In Reading this week, children will be focusing on their scanning skills, using key words to find answers in the text more quickly. We will also continue our class text, 'I was a Rat!'.  

Maths:

In Maths this week, we conclude our Place Value block with a carousel activity, to review and revisit prior learning and then complete our End of Block Assessment, to review our learning from the entire topic. We will then begin our new topic: Addition and Subtraction. 

Times Tables:

We will continue to be focus on developing our understanding and recall of the 12 Times Tables, using songs, games and activities to develop a more accurate recall. We will be completing our Memorisation worksheet within our session on Friday, to identify how we are progressing with our grasp of this Times Table. Please see the information on this page for information regarding supporting children with their times tables. 

RE:

In RE this week, children will continue to learn about a religion different to their own: Judaism. The children will be reflecting on the Torah and its stories/readings, and then making links to the Bible and the contents. 

Science:

In Science this week, children will be continuing our topic of 'Animals, including humans' by focusing on construct and interpret a variety of food chains identifying producers, predators and prey.

Geography:

In Geography this week, the children will be using laptops to support them in creating accurate maps of the local area and Grays Town Park, as they continue their field work enquiry into how we can improve our local area, after our local area walk last week.

PSHE:

In PSHE this week, we will be launching Laudato Si', where children will learn about caring for our common home and will be discussing ways we can help the Earth.  

Please be reminded that Year 4 have P.E. on a Wednesday

Please ensure children have the correct uniform - PE for Wednesday, and either the summer uniform or the winter uniform, not a mixture of both, for Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday each week.

~Times Tables~

The Multiplication Check: 

Throughout this academic year, your child(ren) will be working towards taking part and completing the Multiplication Check. The Times Tables Check is administered at the end of Year 4 and helps teachers and school leaders identify which pupils are secure in their multiplication tables and which pupils may need additional support to get there, with unofficial checks taking place twice before the actual check in June 2024. 

Key information: 

• It is an annual check that Year 4s in England have a good level of times tables knowledge. 
• Each child’s results will be known to the school and the government will have a national picture. 
• The MTC is an online test with 25 questions (multiplication only); children must answer each question within a 6 seconds time limit so the whole test will take less than 5 minutes

Our Times Tables sessions:

As part of our continued work on Times Tables this year, the children will be taking part in 2 times tables sessions a week with the aim of developing a speedy, accurate and confident recall of times tables the 2s up to 12s. 

Throughout the year, the children will focus on a range of times tables, with the aim of them making links between them and repeating times tables to develop greater accuracy. Our schedule for learning the times tables will be: 

To support with times tables, the children should be logging onto TT Rockstars weekly, using the usernames and passwords that they have been given. Also, the following website links can be used to access games: 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/7-11-years/times-tables 

https://www.timestables.co.uk/games/

http://www.primaryhomeworkhelp.co.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2numeracy-multiplication.html