Category: Year 4 – St Alban

It was lovely to see so many parents and children on Wednesday after school, to enjoy the work done by your wonderful children, in a relaxed way. We shall starting sending things home now.

Thursday is sports day. Please send your child in with a T-shirt in their house colour and, of course, a full water bottle, school hat and wearing sun tan cream.

We all had a fantastic day at Kew Gardens, learning about plants and exploring a fraction of the many beautiful and amazing things at this world-famous site. The children were enthusiastic, energetic and represented the school very well. Emma, the teacher, said how much she enjoyed their sense of fun and excitement. She led sessions where we learnt about plant explorers from the past and today and the equipment they need : can your child tell you why you need a trowel when you go looking for plants? The children practised describing plants, using knowledge from their time at primary school such as the names for parts of a plant. They also classified leaves using a key where they thought of the yes/no questions themselves. The children became acquainted with the resident geese, young and old, who appreciated some left-over breadstick and would have happily shared the rest of the children’s lunches, too. The weather was perfect and thank you for sending the children so well-prepared, with everything you were asked to provide. We were all amazed by The Hive, which will give us some insight into what a “pavilion” is in our D&T learning. The plants in the Temperate House and outside the Palm House provided opportunities for the children to practise their sketching skills which they have been learning with Mrs Bartley. The children will use what they did and learnt today in learning back in class.

A huge thank you, as ever, to the parent helpers. Wednesday is not an easy day to get time away from work and we really appreciate the effort made in coming and having to make up for the lost time in either work or jobs at home. Thank you also to Miss Jilly, from the office, who came with us – there aren’t any photos of her, unfortunately. Again, I am sorry for the high cost of the event but we did have a great day, and a full one as they journey there was completed in just under an hour.

We have learnt more about Anglo-Saxon life this week, focusing on the justice system. Some children recommended a very severe punishment for a misdemeanour in school, so I think they understand the general principle! Our RE topic is “Building bridges” and the children showed good insight into the “bridges” which act as bonds between children and how these need to be strong for relationships to flourish. The children have really enjoyed the beautiful book called “Cinnamon”. They have been putting themselves in the position of the lead character and are writing a diary entry by her.

I have been impressed by the children’s understanding of decimal fractions this week. Some more children have “gone green” on TTRS and all are making progress in learning the TT facts. Please keep this up.

I hope you all have a lovely, relaxing weekend.

All our learning was school-based this week, with a visit to church halfway through. For a short week, the children have completed a lot of learning. In the last term of year 4, they are showing the maturity and stamina for learning and writing which are good to see.

The sunshine was welcomed by everyone, with playing on the field at playtime and learning cricket skills on the field for PE very much enjoyed.

I am convinced there will be many doctors, surgeons and dentists from this class in the future, going by the great interest the children have in acquiring knowledge about the body. They loved following the progress of food through the body and this week were fascinated in the functions and structure of teeth. There will also be some CTOs, I am sure, going from the way that the class is enjoying learning about computer networks and the internet. They are all doing very well understanding decimals. Please keep up practice and progress in times-table fact learning. A few more children have “gone green” now and we need to see more children doing this.

The week was finished with a trip to the library, always a highlight. The children are ready for their weekend with you and I hope you all have a great time together. I look forward to seeing them again on Monday.

As geographers, this is what year 4 have been doing this week. Geography is about the interaction of humans with their physical environment, local and global. Year 4 has considered the global perspective through exploring “Plastic vs Planet” and the local one by doing field-survey on litter – plastic and non-plastic – round the school. The children found out that the amount of plastic litter really affects the environmental quality of an area. We discussed how the quantity of plastic we use on a daily basis can be reduced. There was some shock at the quantity and type of litter left in the area, particularly as some of it came from a very popular local fast food outlet! This led to an interesting discussion about how necessary fast food is. Due to the children’s loathing of cigarette butt litter, the conversations took in the piece of news that this generation of children will not be able to purchase cigarettes legally. Such is the range of discussion in human geography when cross-curricular discussion is encouraged and we step outside the school gates. The children’s behaviour was excellent on our journey round the school and they loved seeing the school from different perspectives, piecing together their various memories of different walks over time.

The children chose images of the local area to represent what they saw. The photos are realistic rather than clasically pretty!

Back at school, the children worked well together to present the data using Google Charts. They wrote reports on what they had done, what they found out, their conclusions and recommendations.