Dear Parents,
Welcome back and a Happy New Year! I hope you have had a pleasant Christmas break and that you have managed to
spend some quality time with friends and family. Mrs King and I are back, rejuvenated and ready for a fun and busy
Spring term. Thank you very much for our Christmas gifts and I must say that the Christmas trees which you attached
your messages to were an inspired and much appreciated idea.
Some of the areas that we will cover this term include:
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We will continue our work on the Tudors looking at areas such as the Armada and life in Tudor towns.
In English we will be looking to develop descriptive writing using ‘Where the Wild Things are’ as our
inspiration.
We will continue working through the Year 4 maths curriculum starting with work on fractions and fractions
of amounts.
Science will begin with a look at keeping warm and then move on to solids and liquids
In the first half term boys will be playing tag rugby (football boots needed) and girls will be switching to
hockey (gum shields, shin pads, long green socks and hockey sticks (optional) needed.
Turbo tables tests are on Monday mornings and spelling tests will be on Thursday mornings.
The children will also be giving a short presentation (5 to 10 minutes) on a topic of their choosing (agreed with me) to
the rest of the class. The reason for doing this is to bolster public speaking and presentation skills and, from
experience, children have enjoyed researching and putting together a presentation on a subject that interests them.
Previous examples have included famous people from history, countries, sports, musical instruments and even the
history of sweets. The main areas of focus are on the preparation, the way they give the presentation and how well
they answer questions from the class at the end. I will explain this in more detail to the children this week.
The homework timetable will be as follows:
Monday
Maths or
English
Tables
Reading
Tuesday
Maths or
English
Spelling
Reading
Wednesday
Mental Maths
Spellings
Reading
Thursday
Verbal
reasoning (in by
Monday)
Tables
Reading
The following is a table of what kit is required each day:
Day
Monday
Tuesday
Wednesday
Wear to School
P.E. Kit (Gymnastics)
Uniform
Uniform
Bring In
Uniform
P. E Kit
Also Bring In
PE kit if needed
for clubs
Uniform / P.E. kits on Uniform if coming in PE
Thursday
alternate weeks
kit.
(Outdoor
Education
–
see newsletter /
diary for dates
Uniform
Art Apron (stays
Friday
in school)
Instrument (if in
orchestra)
Please make sure that our children have the correct school kit e.g. if they are wearing a base layer, it must be the
official school base layer.
Some important dates for your diary include:
Friday 7th January
Monday 12th January:
Wednesday 14th January:
Friday 6th February:
Wednesday 11th February:
Thursday 12th February:
Friday 13th February:
Friday 13th March:
Wednesday 18th March:
Friday 27th March:
Coffee afternoon 3p.m. in Year 4
Credit assemblies begin
Wednesday after school clubs begin
Books come home for the weekend
Parents Evening 4.30 to 7.00 p.m.
Parents Evening 6 to 8.45 p.m.
Half term begins 3.30 p.m.
Drama presentations 9.00 – 11.00 a.m.
Final Wednesday clubs
Final assembly 11.00 a.m. – 12.00 p.m.
As with last term, it is much appreciated if your child could be in the class at 8.40 p.m. The class register is taken very
promptly at 8:50. If you should arrive after that time please go to the office to register them. Please also take the
weather forecasts into account when packing your children off to school and make sure that they do have named hats,
gloves and scarves as necessary.
Finally I would like to thank you all for your help and support last term and I have to say that Mrs King and I were
very impressed with the children’s whole approach to school last term. Long may it continue!
Ian Martin