Year 4 - A very warm welcome to Year 4!
Dear Clover and Ivy,
We hope you have had a wonderful summer break and are just as excited as we are to start a fantastic new school year! We are so delighted to welcome you all into Clover and Ivy Class.
It’s completely normal if the children—or parents!—have a few butterflies about coming back after a long break. Please rest assured that our top priority is making sure every single child feels safe, happy, valued, and ready to have the best year yet!
Here is everything you need to know to get us off to a flying start... 🎉
🌟 The First Two Days: Happy Hearts and Minds!
We are easing into the term with our special Zola Happy Hearts and Minds Week on Thursday 3rd and Friday 4th September! Before jumping into our usual timetable, we want to make sure each child feels settled, supported, and ready to learn.
During these first two days, we will spend time playing fun team-building games and sharing summer stories so the children can form strong classroom friendships. We will also introduce our new daily routines step by step so everyone feels totally comfortable in their new space. To help the children reflect on how they are feeling, we will explore the Zones of Regulation together, and we will be introducing our classroom 'Ask it Basket' where they can drop in any questions, worries, or thoughts as they adjust to the new term.
Pencil cases and Belongings✏️🎨
To help everything run smoothly, please make sure every single item coming into school is clearly labelled with your child's name. This includes everything from jumpers, coats, and shoes to pencil cases, lunch boxes, and water bottles—we all know how easily new jumpers go on an adventure, and labelling helps us get them right back to their owners! It is also always worth popping a raincoat in their bag each morning just in case the weather turns.
Children are welcome to bring their own pencil cases packed with their everyday school equipment! However, please don't worry if they don't have one—we will absolutely have plenty of supplies on hand in class so that no child ever goes without. If your child received a pen last year, please ensure they bring this back in to school with them.
PE👟
Our weekly PE lessons will take place on Mondays with the fantastic Deanes PE coaches. Children should arrive at school wearing their full PE kit, which they will stay in for the entire day. The children will be welcomed by Mrs Gilder-Coker on Monday morning before they start their PE lessons.
Spellings📝
For spellings, we will have a dedicated lesson every Monday to learn our new rule or pattern. Our weekly tests will take place on Friday mornings, and we will post the upcoming week's list online every Friday afternoon. This means that the children will have a whole week to learn them before the next test! Please note that there will be no spelling test on Friday 4th September. Our very first test will take place on Friday 11th September focusing on Homophones: accept, except, knot, not, peace, piece, plain, plane, weather, whether.
Reading🎟️✨
Reading at home makes such a huge, difference, and we place a massive emphasis on reading for enjoyment! In the first few weeks, we will read with all the children to assess where they are and send home appropriate books to share together. If your child already has a favourite author or loves reading books from home, that is wonderful and completely fine to continue! Please remember to log their reading on Boom Reader each week. We will be sending home their logins for this soon, If your child reads 4 or more times in a week, their name will be entered into our weekly reading pot, and our lucky winner receives a golden token to pick a shiny new book to keep from our library vending machine! Each child who reads 4 times or more will also receive 4 Dojo's!
📚 What We’re Learning This Term!
We have so many exciting topics lined up for the Autumn term ahead!
In English, we are diving into the classic story Charlotte’s Web, where we'll use drama, poetry, and debate to write our own narratives and persuasive letters.
In Maths, we will become Place Value pros as we read, write, order, and compare numbers up to 10,000, practise rounding, and even crack secret codes by learning Roman Numerals up to 100.
History will take us back in time as we explore the world of the Romans, the fierce warrior queen Boudica, and daily life in Roman Britain. Inspired by this, our Art lessons will unleash the children's inner sculptors as they study artist Edmonia Lewis and create their own 3D Roman bust sculptures.
Meanwhile, Science will get us hands-on with the States of Matter as we explore solids, liquids, and gases, and Spanish will kick off with a fun 'Welcome to School' unit covering classroom commands, numbers, days, months, and everyday objects.
In PSHE, we are starting with Forming Respectful Relationships—we will cover our Mental Wellbeing unit later in the year, as we are exploring so much of it during our first two days back.
Finally, we have an awesome Roman Workshop coming to school later this term, so keep your eyes peeled for more details soon! 🛡️
Our doors are always open, so if you ever need a quick chat or have a question, please feel free to catch us at the end of the day.
We are so excited to see all those smiling faces coming through the door on Thursday morning!
Warmest wishes,
Mrs Galer, Mrs Gilder-Coker, and Miss Moffat
