Category: Year 4 – St Alban

This week, the children worked hard at making their torches, using their understanding of circuits from their science learning. Some of the work was fiddly and tricky and there was lots of excellent and co-operation and perseverance.

This week the children learnt about the 9, 11 and 12 times tables and different ways of working out the products to equations. The children are improving at representing the calculations in different ways.

At assembly today, the children shared what they had learnt about The Qu’ran with the rest of the school. They have also completed writing fantastic explanation texts about the lifecycle of a flowering plant. This used their knowledge about pollination, fertilization and the growth of plants from year 3 to write detailed explanation texts with features like causal conjunctions, subheadings and lots of correctly-spelt technical language.

Everyone is making good progress in swimming. It was decidedly nippy when we set off this morning! As the weather gets colder, you might want to send your child with a woolly hat for when we leave Westminster Lodge.

Well done to the children who remembered their library books today. We will go to the library every Thursday.

I hope you all have a lovely weekend!

Year 4 explored this today. The Land of the monks is St Albans Cathedral and its surrounding area – nowadays a parkland, the stamping ground of squirrels, dogs and their owners, cathedral visitors and worshippers and people en route to somewhere in town or walking to enjoy the scenery. Several centuries ago it was the site of a bustling, crowded complex of buildings where the various Abbey activities took place. Apart from some walls, nothing remains of the life led by the monks above ground. Today, the year 4 children used topographical (map) evidence and compasses to find where some of these activities took place, and also to find out a bit about the lives of the monks and the Abbot. Everyone found out really interesting things about Medieval monastic life. We also used found the cathedral, the school and local towns on Ordnance Survey maps. Our local knowledge was also enhanced by our walk to the cathedral, when the children walked smartly, showing manners to any members of the public and enjoyed seeing the sights and sounds of St Albans on a typical Friday morning.

Can your children tell you how to use a compass? And can they explain what happened in a scriptorium, Chapter House, refectory or dormitory? What other parts of the abbey can they name?

A massive thank you to the Mums – Mrs Miller, Mrs Watson and Mrs Worsley – who accompanied us and helped with the learning inside and outside. It wouldn’t be possible to do these valuable enrichment activities without this voluntary support. Thank you for offers of help from other parents and I will let you know of other trips later in the year.

Every child in year 4 was a credit to themselves and their school at Wednesday’s Mercy Mass. Along with the rest of the school, their singing was beautiful and rousing and they participated fully and respectfully in the service.

After Mass there were some celebrations inside and out. The children planted violas round the commemorative tree which had been planted earlier in the day. They then chose activities in the classroom, with many children deciding to play “Interland”, the game where the children learn how to be safe online. We also started our learning about Black History Month, learning about Rosa Parks and Martin Luther King from “Horrible Histories” and sharing what we already know about these famous icons.

The classroom is looking bright and interesting with the children’s learning on the wall, including the home learning about Joseph. The paintings were done – carefully – in acrylic paints, throughout the week. Thank you for the painting aprons, at short notice.

The children have been fantastic this week – it’s been such a busy week with demonstration assemblies by our wrap-around clubs, a concert by Rock-Steady Music School, the Year 6 production, the amazing choir sharing their performance with so many of our class taking part and finally, our school talent show. All this, whilst coping with the sweltering conditions – the children have been amazing, treating each other with kindness and patience throoughout the week.

Next week is due to be even hotter and we will do all we can to make the end of term calm and cool. Please help by remembering to send your child in to school with plenty to drink.

Have a lovely weekend and stay safe in the heat!

It has been another action-packed week for Year 4 and the children have been fantastic throughout.

In English, we have begun the last of the books that we will share together – Lewis Carroll’s Jabberwocky. This blend of real words and nonsense has really made us think about the clues we use when reading and how different word classes work.

The children have worked really hard all year and enjoyed getting our classroom ready this week to welcome our families to our open evening.

Our wonderful PTA organised a sponsored ‘Bounce’ for us too and we had a great time on Wednesday afternoon being put through our paces on the inflatables. Thanks to everyone who sponsored us and helped raise funds for our school.

Thursday brought our sports day and we all did our best, cheered on by our parents. We ended the day with a much-deserved ice lolly.

Last week, we had a fabulous day at the Royla Botanic Gardens, Kew – It was our first school trip in ages and we reallyu enjoyed ourselves! Thanks to Mrs Coupland and Mrs Pickering for helping us to have a great time.

We also enjoyed learning about the Jewish faith as parts of our ‘Other Faith’ learning in RE. We learnt about the Jewish Holy text, The Torah.

Too hot or too cool to join in with my Dad-dancing in today’s assembly, the children were less reserved in Thursday’s rehearsal and threw some amazing shapes. Relive the magic this weekend with our video…

We are looking forward to our class trip on Tuesday to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew. The forecast is currently for sunny intervals and a high of 23 – much more bearable than today’s temperatures, but the children will still need to dress for the weather – sun screen and school caps are a must, as well as comfortable shoes or trainers for all the walking we will do. The children should wear school uniform.

It would be a good idea to pack an extra drink or two for our trip in addition to that included as part of our packed lunch. A small, draw-string style backpack would be a handy way to carry this around, if you already have one.

Please make sure that you have given your child any medication needed – such as travel or hay fever – in plenty of time to ensure that they enjoy the day. Our journey to Kew will take about an hour.

I hope the sun continues to shine over the weekend and that you all have a Happy Father’s Day.

We’ve had another busy week together in Year 4 and the children have enjoyed the start of our new design and technology topic, learning about structures and designing pavilions. We’re looking forward to getting some ideas for our own designs when we visit the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew in the coming weeks. In the meantime, here are some photos of our first investigation of structures where we experimented with the strength of different shapes.

We are also hoping that our trip to Kew will provide inspiration for our new art topic where we are learning about the art and landscapes of Henri Rousseau. Watch this space in the weeks ahead to see our evolving artwork.

Finally, you can forget the jubilee concert: Year 4 have shown themselves to be true rockstars as they have worked so hard to improve their rapid recall of multiplication tables facts. They will get the chance to try out this knowledge next week when we take part in the national multiplication tables check.

Have a lovely weekend!