Welcome to  Pankhurst Class – Year 4

Named after Emmeline Pankhurst (and exploring the value of democracy) – She is best remembered for organizing the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. Born in the Moss Side district of Manchester to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 14 to the women’s suffrage movement. She founded and became involved with the Women’s Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women. When that organisation broke apart, she tried to join the left-leaning Independent Labour Party through her friendship with socialist Keir Hardie but was initially refused membership by the local branch on account of her sex.

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Welcome to Year 4: Pankhurst Class 

Autumn Term 2021.

Welcome back to the start of what should be a fantastic school year. I am excited to be your child’s teacher and look forward to working with you to ensure your child is happy, supported and challenged in their learning. I trust you all had a good summer and are looking forward to, fingers crossed, a more normal school year. You may have heard already from your child that we have talked about happy learners being better learners and this is certainly a motto that I will be sticking to throughout this year. I am fully aware of the potential impact the last couple of years has had on children and I will be ensuring that the year 4 team do all we can to help them manage their emotions so that they feel good about themselves and their personal achievements to grow as people.  

This year the class is named after Emmeline Pankhurst, reflecting the British value of democracy. Emmeline Pankhurst is best remembered for organizing the UK suffragette movement and helping women win the right to vote. Born in the Moss Side district of Manchester to politically active parents, Pankhurst was introduced at the age of 14 to the women’s suffrage movement. She founded and became involved with the Women’s Franchise League, which advocated suffrage for both married and unmarried women.

Learning Experience:   Our first topic this year is called Vile Vikings! History, Geography and Art and Design will be taught through activities linked to this topic. In science we will be learning about states of matter. We will also have weekly music lessons including a whole class Ukulele session starting from Monday 13th September for 10 weeks. In RE. we will be following the Living Difference III Hampshire curriculum, we will be looking at the concept of Good and evil, focusing on the Hindu celebration of Diwali. Later in the term we will be moving on to look at the Water Cycle in Geography and Sound in Science. 

HPE: our HPE (Health and Physical Education) lessons will be on Monday and Wednesday.  Each week we will be covering a variety of skills for different games and sports.  Please ensure that your child is wearing their P.E kit to school on these days, this includes suitable footwear and warm clothing for outdoor lessons. Long hair must be tied back and earrings removed.

English: We will be seeking inspiration for our written work from a range of sources including short animation films and fantastic story books. Throughout our English and guided reading lessons we will be using drama techniques and lots of discussion to develop our vocabulary. We will develop the skills of inference and deduction by reading a wide range of different texts and authors, we will have regular reading skill sessions. You can help at home by encouraging your child to read regularly including reading aloud to help develop fluency and expression. It would also help your child to talk about the plot and to have any tricky words explained to them. Grammar, Punctuation and Spelling will be taught daily and children will be given lots of opportunities to write in a variety of ways in a variety of styles.

Maths: This term there will be a focus on Number and Place Value. I cannot stress the importance of this strand of Maths enough. We will become fluent in working with numbers that are represented in many different ways and children will be supported in developing their reasoning and problem solving skills. Children are required to be fluent in all their times tables and the appropriate division facts by the end of year 4. Your help at home in practising any tables which your child needs to learn will be very useful. TTRockstars (TTRS) is an amazing resource to help your child with this. Login details for TTRS have been sent home already but if, for any reason, you need an additional copy, please ask!  

Homework:  Weekly maths activities, (including tables), English (including spellings) and/or topic related homework will be given out each week. Your child will receive it on a Friday and it will need to be handed in on the following Thursday. Spelling tests will take place on Thursday.

Daily Reading:  We are continuing to promote daily reading as a key way to develop a love of books and a love of learning. We will be reading in school but there is no substitute for children reading at home. We have returned to the reading record (replacing the electronic version that was trialled in year 4 last year) and this will be checked weekly. Please use it to record when your child has read at home. Children may also use it to record when they have read independently.

Please also be aware of the school Amazon wishlist, as we try to develop and update our class libraries. More information on this can be found on the school newsletter and the link can be found on our school Facebook page.

A final note to remind you that, as the children are beginning to move more freely around the school it is easy for them to misplace their belongings. Please ensure jumpers, water bottles etc are clearly named or we cannot guarantee we will be able to relocate these for you.

If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact one of the Year Four Team:

Mr Woodhouse, Mrs Stubbs and Mrs Turner

Homework

You can view and download your child’s weekly homework and tasks from below!