Author: Owner

Core Values for the Autumn Term

Year 4 Newsletter: Autumn 1

Each month, we focus on one of our eleven Catton Grove core values. The chosen value flows through all that we learn in the month. It helps us grow as individuals and as part of a wider community. Each week children will be chosen to receive a certificate for showing engagement with the core value we are focussing on each month.
This half term, our values are:

Wisdom is about using what we have learned and experienced to help make great decisions. We will learn to make wise choices in a range of ways to help ourselves and others now and in the future. You might make wise decisions to help you with your learning or perhaps you will use your wisdom to solve a problem that no one else has solved.

Year 4 Staff
4R
Mr Rhodes
(Year Lead)
Mrs Neville
(Lead TA)
Miss Wilson
4H
Mr Huckle
Mrs Berry
Mrs Vaitkus
4MB
Miss McInnes
Mrs Browne
Mrs Hawkes

Welcome Year 4 pupils, parents and carers!
The Year 4 team are so excited to work with you all this year. We have got an exciting year ahead of us, stuffed to the brim with incredible topics to learn about including: Ancient Romans, Ancient Greeks and Rivers! We will have unforgettable experiences such as visitors, trips and activities that you will talk about and remember for the rest of your lives.
As a Year 4 family, we will all be working hard to help our pupils continue to grow into incredible, independent learners and individuals who will change the world. It will take a lot of resilience from everyone—so we will be focusing on this value for our transition week!
Please read on to discover more about the amazing things we will be learning up until October half term.

Unity is about working together as one team or family. By sharing ideas and solving problems in unison, we can improve the world we live in. It’s also wonderful to unite together to celebrate our incredible achievements. We can unite as a class, a year group, a school or as a wider community to make amazing things happen!

Important Dates:
Transition Week:
6th—10th September
Book Weeks:
11th —21st October

Book Fortnight:
11th —21st October

Transition Week
During our first week in Year 4, we will be taking time getting to know each other and establishing important rules and routines. This allows everyone to feel safe, comfortable and confident and means we’ll be more successful with our learning.
We will continue to have a focus on keeping ourselves safe and healthy by reminding ourselves of important measures such as our hand hygiene rules.
Throughout the week, Year 4 will be exploring the idea of having Healthy Minds through drama and philosophy activities. By the end of the week, we will have created and recorded a piece of drama for others to watch, enjoy and learn from.
We will also have a week of Inspirational Maths. We will explore a range of useful strategies the children can use to overcome mathematical difficulties and become successful mathematicians.
Writing
To begin, we will establish our key ‘ready-to-write’ expectations, including handwriting, spelling, punctuation and grammar skills. These skills will be developed in a range of fun short-burst writing activities. We cannot wait to see what our writers create! We will also be exploring the poem ‘I Wish’. Using our Talk 4 Writing approach, we will explore the poem, learn it off-by-heart and then create our own poems inspired by ’I Wish’. We will also have Book Fortnight where all our lessons will focus on the text Amazing Grace.
Reading
We will be exploring high quality texts on a 1-1 basis, in small groups and as a whole class. We will listen to them read aloud as often as possible to check their decoding and fluency. The children will continue to use the Accelerated Reader programme to check their understanding of what they have read. To help accelerate your child’s progress, please encourage them to read their books as regularly as possible at home.
Maths
The children will further explore the importance of place value—the value of each digit in a number. They will also build on their prior knowledge of addition and subtraction and learning to ’play’ with numbers to help solve problems. including multiplication and division equations.

Year 4s will also be completing a ‘Multiplication Table Check’ to see how confident and fluent they are with their times table knowledge. We will use Times Table Rockstars and a range of other strategies to help embed these important facts.
Science
In Science, we will be learning all about animals (including humans) and their diets. We’ll be investigating different types of teeth, how food is digested by our bodies and the varied diets of creatures all around the world.
History
During our first term, we will be learning all about the Ancient Greeks! Who were they? What were their greatest achievements? How have the impacted our lives today?
RSHE
Families and friendships will be the focus of our RSHE lessons for this half term.
Computing
In computing, we will be developing games and reminding ourselves of key e-safety rules.
Art
For Art, we will be developing our painting and layering skills to create Ancient Greek inspired pieces.
P.E.
4R—Mondays and Wednesdays 4H—Tuesdays and Wednesdays
4MB— Tuesdays and Wednesdays
Catton Fridays
Each Friday, children will explore a ‘hot topic’ - an important topic occurring in the world. They will use drama and philosophy skills to form and articulate their own opinion on this topic.