Class Davidson
Welcome to Year 4 and 5 where we love to learn
In our class we have 29 children who are taught by our Deputy Head Teacher Mrs Davidson and our fabulous Teaching Assistant Mrs Brown!
Summer term revolves around completely embedding the skills we have learned so far and developing our stamina and perseverance in all tasks that we take on.
English: We are basing our shared reading and writing on a wonderful text: ‘Goodnight Mister Tom’ by Michelle Magorian. Our exploration of this book will engage children with a story with which they will empathise. We will explore themes and issues, and develop and sustain ideas through discussion, enabling children to make connections with their own lives. Pupils will develop creative responses to the text through drama, storytelling and artwork. We are also working on some extended pieces of writing such as – persuasive letters and diary entries (‘in role’ as a character) in order to explore and develop empathy for the characters.
Across the curriculum, children will write with confidence for real purposes and audiences. Later in the term, we will be researching information in order to create our own non-fiction ‘Tourist Information’ writing that is linked to our geography topics.
Maths: We are working on our understanding of fractions, decimals and percentages.
This is followed by statistics; exploring ‘measurement’ (time & converting units) and finally we will look at the properties of shapes.
We are enjoying practising our ‘Rock Star’ tables; trying to improve our speed with our times tables. Children are also encouraged to log on at home to do daily practice on Rock Star maths- as this will support in developing their quick recall of facts.
It is our aim to become more proficient / fluent at applying our maths skills in problem solving and mathematical reasoning.
RE: Universal Church- world: God’s people; Reconciliation – inter relating- Building bridges
Other religions – Hinduism & Judaism
Science: This term as we are studying ‘Properties and changes of materials.’ This will be followed by us studying ‘Animals including humans’.
History: We are studying Anglo Saxon and Scots settlement – exploring the question: What happened to Britain when the Romans left?
Art : Drawing and printing artefacts from Anglo Saxon.
Spellings: Spelling rules are taught on a Tuesday, when we are given words, which follow a particular rule, alongside some common exception words. Our test (using different words from that spelling pattern) will be on the following Tuesday. Our spellings are becoming much more complex so they must be practised even more often at home.
Reading: We are continuing to develop ‘Accelerated Reader’ programme, whereby children take Reading Practice quizzes – which asks questions that measure their comprehension of a book. Children are encouraged to take these levelled reading books home and to read for a minimum of ten minutes every day. We have a dedicated ‘Guided reading’ session in class each day and whenever possible we have individual ‘one-to-one’ readers – but children do need much more. Working both at home and in school will help your child improve his/her reading skills immensely. Thank you in advance for all your support at home.
Children are also encouraged to log on to Lexia at home to do daily practice, as this will support in developing their quick recall of phonics and words.
Water Bottles: we have purchased water bottles for every child in class. All the hard work makes us thirsty and we need to stay hydrated.
We offer a morning snack of each day – for only £1.00 a week. Please send money in to Mrs Brown. Funds raised from this are used to buy extra resources for our class.
Don’t forget that we are able to access Lexia, Rock Star maths and Active-learn maths at home. Get logging onto those laptops and iPads… If pupils have forgotten their log-ins they should ask staff in school to write it down.
Finally, Mrs Davidson has an open-door policy – so if you have any questions or concerns please contact her to discuss them. She is keen to work in partnership with you so that your child is happy and continues to make great progress.