Hello,
We hope that you have all been having a good week so far and that you have been enjoying the moments of sunshine this weekend!
This week, the children took part in an Ash Wednesday service at St. Peter’s Catholic Primary school on Wednesday 26th February 2020. The service provided an excellent opportunity for our whole school community to join together in prayer and worship. Ashes were distributed as a symbol of God’s forgiveness of our sins, which enabled us to then embark upon our spiritual journey of 40 days and nights until the celebration of Easter. The children had behaved respectfully during this service and they were each able to make their own Lenten promises to Jesus during the calm moments of reflection across the service. Please see the photos below…
On Friday 28th February 2020, the children had an exciting visit from a children’s theatre and drama company. The Robin Hood workshop was a fun opportunity for the children to work in groups and take part in a variety of games and speaking and listening activities. In particular, Year Four enjoyed taking on the role of different characters in the story as the class created freeze frames for individual scenes. Please see photos of the workshop below…
In Maths, the children have been learning how to use a variety of different strategies to add three numbers together. Through the context of money and ‘cinema combination’ problems, both classes have been learning how to identify number bonds to 10p and 100p (or £1) across sets of numbers, using colouring pencils to ‘match’ bonds together to support the mental addition of money values in pence. Where the problem solving tasks involved the ‘carrying’ of numbers across tens or hundreds boundaries, each class then identified the ‘expanded column’ method as an appropriate strategy for solving 3-part addition sentences. As the week progressed, Year Four used metacognitive strategies such as ‘evaluate’ and ‘number talk’ to discuss the suitability of their chosen strategies for various challenge tasks that had involved the use of addition. Next week, we look forward to revisiting our learning on subtraction through the use of ‘smart jumps’ (e.g. 148 – 39 can be solved by calculating 148 – 40 + 1) and expanded column subtraction (including the use of exchanges for hundreds and tens values where necessary).
In English, the children have continued their learning on Climate Change. This week, Year Four have planned and drafted their persuasive letters to Greta – next week, we look forward to editing, publishing, then evaluating our final pieces of writing before posting them to Greta Thunberg! We have been delighted by the children’s awareness and interest towards matters such as Global Warming, the burning of Fossil Fuels, plastic waste in the sea and the rapid Deforestation of our Tropical Rainforests. As a result, our students have produced a selection of passionate and factual letters that shall no doubt encourage Greta Thunberg to continue her campaigns and encourage others around the world to take better care of the environment. We would like to say a big well done to all of the children in Year Four, for their excellent use of Climate Change key words, facts and statistics in their writing.
We look forward to seeing you all on Monday – don’t forget to complete your Spring Term Reading passports as well as your spelling, Sumdog and Times Table Rock star homeworks for this week!
With best wishes,
Miss Honeywell, Miss Jackson-Nash and Mrs Cairns.