1. St James’ Catholic Primary 2015-16 Year 4 Overview Teacher: Miss Stevenson Support staff: Mrs Howarth and Mrs Jenkins

2. What’s New This Year? Specialist Teacher for PE on Wednesdays (Autumn Term – Invasion Games) Computing – Specialist teacher support on Thursdays Learning brass instruments on Monday afternoon.

3. A parent overview will be sent home at the beginning of every term. Our topic this half term is Sparks Might Fly based around our science work on electricity. RE (we follow COME and SEE syllabus) comprises of 10 percent of the timetable.

4. Guided Reading at least once a week linked to children’s targets Independent reading activities linked to guided reading (book reviews, dictionary skills, character descriptions, fact finding etc) Library sessions (everyday except Wednesday) Independent reading each night. Please initial the logs and ensure children fill in all their reading not only school books. This way it can be included in the reading bingo challenge.

5. Genres Autumn: ◦ Fantasy writing based around the class novel The Firework-Maker’s Daughter ◦ Writing explanations based on an invention ◦ Films and play scripts ◦ Fairy tales ◦ Classic poetry ◦ Newspaper reports

6. In Year 4, there is a strong focus on written calculations and place value. Quick recall of times tables and division facts is essential to being able to complete calculations of larger numbers. Children will complete weekly times tables challenges and weekly mental maths tests. Please ensure that your child learns their times tables and completes the weekly MyMaths homework.

7. Individual target sheets for Reading, Writing, Maths and RE, personalised to your child’s needs. Ongoing assessment throughout the year.

8. Homework Spellings set on Monday and tested the following Monday (will form part of Spelling Punctuation and Grammar lessons (SPaG) Maths set each Friday and returned following Friday. SPAG set each Monday to be returned the following Monday. Topic homework (when applicable) Daily Reading and practising Times tables

9. Encourage lots of different reading materials – newspaper, magazines, information leaflets, join the local library, use our library. Ensure homework is completed and returned Encourage daily reading and discussion of book content. Help your child learn their weekly spellings. Help to learn all times tables and divison facts to 12x12 so that your child can can quickly recall these facts. Encourage the understanding of money and change, look at Temperature (negative numbers), Time including 24 hour clock, timetables etc.

10.  Open door policy – feel free to make an appointment in the office if you need to see me.  Looking forward to a year of working hard and having lots of fun along the way!