Teaching Team: Mrs Barter                                                  chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk

Chestnut Class - Autumn term 2024

Welcome back to school!  It is lovely to see the children after the break and we are all ready to get learning again.  This is just some information about what we will be covering this term, and always feel free to speak to me if you have any further questions.

English

We will be linking all our English work to our topic theme of ‘How did the Romans change Britain?’.  We will be reading stories from other cultures and instruction texts to inspire our own writing. 

Our whole class guided reading will begin with The Magic Finger by Roald Dahl and we will then move on to The Iron Man by Ted Hughes.  This whole class approach gives us the opportunity to immerse ourselves in a text and to develop not only reading fluency but also comprehension skills such as retrieval, inference and prediction.

Spelling will focus on the statutory Year 3 & 4 list, adding suffixes, prefixes and looking at unusual spelling patterns.

We will be covering a wide range of the technical aspects of writing in our grammar sessions including conjunctions, adverbs, propositions, direct speech and tenses.

Maths

We will be refreshing our understanding of place value to begin the year before moving on to addition, subtraction, multiplication, division and length.  We will have dedicated time to work on times tables fluency, but it would be beneficial for children to practise these little and often at home to support this.

RE

We are using the RE curriculum Understanding Christianity again this year and will be examining some key concepts starting with Creation and Incarnation.

Science

Sound and Electricity are our themes for the term and we will be carrying out lots of practical work to help us understand how sound travels and how circuits function.

Time and Place

Our theme is ‘How did the Romans change Britain?’ and we will be learning about life at that time, key historical figures and events.  Our inquiry question is ‘How did the Romans change Britain/” and we will be considering why the Roman invasion was successful, how and why they invaded and the innovations they made.  From a geographical perspective, we will be learning about the major countries and capitals in Europe and the human and physical aspects of Rome’s geography.

Art and design

We will be learning about the work of the artist Giorgio Morandi and using his still life paintings as a platform for developing our understanding of perspective.  We will also be exploring surface patterns and design.

Music

In Year 4, we are fortunate to have weekly ukulele lessons with Mr Lawrence.  Instruments are provided by the school.

ICT

We will be using a new computing scheme to learn  about systems and networks and audio production.

PE

Our PE session will take place on a Monday morning with Mrs Barter and Thursday afternoon with Mrs Tompsett.  Please ensure your child has a labelled PE kit in school all week.

Homework and reading

Homework will be issued on a Wednesday and is due back on Monday.  It is not intended to be overwhelming, but gives your child an opportunity to consolidate on the learning they have done during the week.  It will usually consist of English, spelling and Maths activities.  There will also be a matrix of activities from the wider curriculum for them to select from.  This will cover the long term up to Christmas.

We expect your child to read for a minimum of 10 minutes a day.  We would like them to complete the reading log by making some comments on what they have read each day.  This will be checked on Tuesday and Thursday.  In Year 4, we ask that children take responsibility for changing their books themselves if they are reading from the classroom selection.

If you have any concerns relating to your child and their learning, please do get in touch via the class email address chestnut@st-barnabas.kent.sch.uk .  Alternatively, you can speak to me at release time now that restrictions are more relaxed.  If your query is urgent, please contact the school office in the first instance.

I am really looking forward to working with you and your children this year!

With best wishes,

Mrs Barter