Author: Mr Hayes

Today, children in Year 4 have come to school dressed in yellow and blue in support, not only of children and families in Ukraine, but of all people in the world who are seeking refuge.

We wrote prayers, asking God to help for those who face such danger in their lives that they must flee to seek safety elsewhere. We also gave thanks for those who keep us safe and protect us from harm.

Lily’s prayer:

Dear God,
Thank you for reminding us about the good and bad in this world. Make sure we know about the unseen as well as the people we can see.
Help us to not be selfish and let us recognise what is happening in the world. We have all been selfish before, but please forgive us and change us into good people of the world who care and share.
We all know what’s happening in Ukraine, but help us to remember the others in the world who have no choice to flee their home country.
Forgive us for forgetting but then let us see the right path. You can help us to change our ways through your Holy Spirit.
Amen

Jessica’s prayer:

Dear God,
Help the people who are in need in Ukraine to find a lovely and nice place to stay. Sorry, God, for when I have not given safety or love to people who need it. I wish everyone could have the same safety as I do so nobody gets hurt or harassed.
Amen

It’s been another exciting week in Year 4 with the class a riot of colour as we dressed in green for St Patrick’s Day, followed by wearing red in support of Red Nose Day.

This week is British Science Week. As part of our science learning we found out that if you’re infected with a virus, your body is ready to fight using antibodies which stick to a virus and encourage immune cells to attack and destroy. We grow specific antibodies during an infection or after vaccination. We then had a go at making antibody and virus origami – It was really tricky!

On Friday, we had a workshop from Rock Steady. We all played our virtual drums and air guitars and some of us got to try out the instruments and form an impromptu band. The children have letters about this in their book bags if you would like to sign them up on line to take part in these in-school lessons.

Our new class library books continue to be really popular and it is lovely to see the children so keen to read. Thank you all for your support with this. I have marked each book with a special sticker to show that it is one of our ’50’ top books to read in Year 4. My next step is to make each child a book mark so they can tick of their progress towards reading them all.

Currently, you have donated an amazing 22 books from our ‘wish list’ – Thank you! If anyone else would like to donate a book to the class, the children really would love it. You can click on the link to see our amazon wish list. Books disappear from the list once they have been purchased, so there is no need to worry about duplicates.

Lá fhéile Pádraig sona dhuit!

The children loved wearing green to celebrate the Feast of St Patrick. Thank you to you all for supporting us in this.

A big ‘Thank you’ to everyone who has purchased a book from our class library wish list. All of the books have been borrowed and it is lovely to see how keen the children are to be next to take the books home to share. If you would like donate a book, you can find out which books are still on our list by clicking this link.

Well done everyone – I was so impressed with your creativity and imagination as you found lots of amazing ways to show off your understanding of what is beneath our feet.

Take a look at our slide show to see the great ways that we demonstrated the parts of the Earth.

Well done to everyone in Year 4 for the fantastic effort you made with your World Book Day outfits. You all looked tremendous and we enjoyed hearing about the stories you shared.

This week, we have been busy creating an area in our class where we can enjoy sharing stories with each other. It’s starting to look good already and the children made bunting to share their book recommendations with their friends and decorate the class library. We have great plans to make this area more comfortable and inviting and you can help if you would like to donate a book to our class from our Amazon wishlist.

The children also had a great time today sharing stories with our friends in Year 2. Everyone enjoyed the chance to share a book with someone who they don’t normally get to spend time with, along with the chance to discover some new stories together. We would certainly hope to repeat this soon.

In Design and Technology this half-term, we have made our own prayer journals. We stitched designs before covering our book with felt.

We will be adding prayers to our journals as we journey through Lent.

We’re awash with Roman artefacts as Year 4 have learnt more about life for people in Roman Britain.

As well as an impressive array of weaponry, the children have created replicas of everyday items such a cutlery, earthenware and coins. We also have some beautiful mosaics along with brilliant recreations of a Roman hypocaust and baths.

Great learning, Year 4! (And a big thank you to mums and dads who helped with this challenge).

The children in Year 4 joined classes across the UK for the NSPCC fundraising Number Day.

As well as dressing up for digits, we learnt about the huge impact that maths has on our lives and on our history.

We learnt about the work of Alan Turing and the code-breakers at Bletchley Park, whose mathematical skill brought an early end to the second World War and saved millions of lives.

We then became code-breakers ourselves to puzzle out the riddles and break the cipher.

The design of the Bank of England’s £50 note features the mathematician Alan Turing.

In RE, Year 4 have been learning about the Jesus’s call to his disciples and how catholics answer this call in our lives today.

As part of this learning, we thought about the different communities to which we belong and the commitment that is needed to make these groups work well. We made posters at home to share our learning.

We were stunned today to find that a wall had appeared in Year 4 and cut some of us from the rest of our class.

Not only were we separated from our friends, some of us couldn’t see the board and no-one knew if we had our hand up. There were certainly lots of questions about the unfairness of the situation and we even wrote letters to our friends on the ‘other side’ to share our feelings and ask for help.

Now that the wall has gone, we are looking forward to sharing another story about a wall that keeps people out, Oscar Wilde’s The Selfish Giant.