Category: Year 4 – St Alban

The children used acrylic paints to create self-portraits using the photos you sent in. I love the way each one is unique, and looks like the painter, even though many of the features are identical.

The children continue to love investigating electrical circuits and very much enjoyed exploring insulators and conductors. There were some “eureka” moments which was great to see.

In learning about how Samuel and David were called to serve God, we did a “hot-seating” activity, with “David” being questioned about how he felt when he was anointed and realise he had been chosen by God.

They have also continued to deepen their understanding about Greek society and made these informative and attractive posters containing what they have learnt. They will see some real artefacts and find out more on our trip on 15th November to the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge which I am very excited about. (I would’ve liked to have gone sooner but the afternoon clay session wasn’t available before then and I wanted to make the trip a full day to justify the cost of the coach.)

Sadly we didn’t have ukelele this week as Mrs Newman needed to run her child’s ukelele assembly! But the good news is that there will be two sessions next week.

It has been lovely to touch base with you all about your children’s progress. I hope that you are as proud of them as I are. They’ve already come a long way in year four and I know that they will continue to shine and excel.

This week Black History Month was marked by learning about Benjamin Zepahanian’s work and life with Mrs Gallaher; and we are now reading exploring “The Undefeated” by Kwani Alexander.

We all really enjoyed the excellent year 6 assembly. As well as hearing the important messages about the Mercy charism and about the life of Catherine McAuley, it was wonderful to see some older siblings speaking so well and setting high standards for the younger children at school.

The children’s thoughts on St Alban are now on the wall and in a book.

I hope you all have a lovely relaxing weekend and look forward to seeing you all at consultations next week.

It’s been a busy, varied week in year 4 – the best type of weeks. Many of the class stood for school positions with very well-prepared speeches confidently delivered. Well done to the children who were elected and also very well done to everyone who stood and made the elections possible.

On Wednesday we walked to St Albans Cathedral, just like millions of people have done over the years. While we were sitting in the nave a Roman soldier came to berate us! We found out about Roman life in Verulamium (which learning will be useful in January when we learn about the Romans) before acting the story of St Alban, in different parts of the cathedral. (The class was in two groups.) We also visited St Alban’s shrine. The guides were very complimentary about the children’s conduct round the cathedral and their respectful attitude throughout. I was very proud of them all as they were excellent representatives of St Adrian’s School and they walked back up to school very quickly, spurred out no doubt by the thought of lunch.

Thursday’s swimming was done in the smaller pool as the floor in the larger one was being mended. The children still did lots of good practice on their skills. On Friday the ukelele lesson was a lot of fun.

We will be moving on from place value to addition/subtraction soon. The current tasks on MyMaths have been written in line with the White Rose materials and reflect exactly the learning we have done and so are very useful in reinforcing skills. Please do log on to MyMaths and complete the learning. The log-in details are in the reading books. If you have any problems logging on please do let me know.

Thank you for sending, on paper or email, the photos and painting aprons.

The children showed fantastic partner-working, initiative and perseverance this week as they were presented with boxes of components and wires and asked to “make a circuit”. The delight when they made the lightbulb come on, or the buzzer vibrate was genuine and wonderful to see.

They role-played what Panther and Cheetah could say to each other and really got into character.

Next Wednesday we will walk to the cathedral. We’ll be back in time for school lunches, so no packed lunch will be needed. Let’s hope the weather is as glorious as it’s been this week! Regardless of what it is like, I think we’ll have a very interesting and inspirational time learning about the saint which gave our home city its name.

As part of our learning about “The Midnight Panther”, some children made this wonderful collage of Panther trying to be as regal as Lion.

I hope you all have a wonderful, relaxing weekend.

Thank you for the hats for swimming! And for all your support in sending your children to school with what they need every day. The class is responding really well to the new routines in their new year and settling down to calm, reflective work while showing great independence.

We’ve started the new topics in science, history and art and visited the library for the first time. We’ve made great inroads into place value, using resources to represent numbers to their thousands and also to remember the significance of the all-important place value holder.

We’ve introduced some friendly competition in the class, as the children chose names for their tables. They chose the theme of “gemstones” and debated amongst themselves, on their tables, which name they would like for their table. The classroom door is now beautifully decorated with images associated with St Alban, the year 4 class saint. (Any illustrations which could not fit on the door are in a book to be displayed in the classroom.)

Mrs Newman delivered her first ukelele session and the children can already strum some notes in time.

It was lovely to see so many of you at “meet the teacher”. I’ve put a link to the slides on Google Classroom.

This week’s spellings and Maths activities will be on Google Classroom. Please let me know if you have any queries. Have a great weekend!

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.