PE

Swimming—flotation aids will be provided by school

Sparrows and Starlings: Wednesday

Swifts: Tuesday

Please ensure your child brings in a full swimming kit:

Swimming costume/ swimming trunks and jelly shoes/flip flops

Clean, dry towel and swimming hat if your child has hair longer than shoulder length.

Goggles are optional.

Home Learning and Supporting the Curriculum at home

We have attached a selection of Knowledge Organisers for you to use to support your child’s learning at home. These set out clearly what we expect children to learn and remember in that subject. Please use these at home as conversation starters to reinforce and help embed your child’s learning. Please encourage your child to log into TT Rockstars on the Sound Check as often as possible. This will help alongside the dedicated sessions we do in school to boost their fluency at times table recall. Children should be fluent in tables up to 12x12 by the end of Year 4. The Sound Check will be similar to the Year 4 Multiplication Check that all children in Year 4 will undertake in June. You will also be receiving log ins for SumDog, and Spelling and Maths Shed. We are now using a spelling scheme of work called No Nonsense Spelling that is built on progression of sounds and builds on children’s prior knowledge. Please continue to use Spelling Shed for practice.  

Reading

In school, children are encouraged to read daily. They take quizzes on Accelerated Reader (AR) about the books they have read, and earn points for this. Children are also expected to log on to AR at home to quiz on the books that they read at home. At the end of the half term, we will be giving certificates to every child who reaches their own individual target for points earned. To support passion and progression, we expect children to read daily at home for at least 15 minutes. Please support and encourage your child in this by listening to them read aloud often and talking about what they have read to help develop comprehension skills and develop an inquisitive nature about books.

School Value

This half term, in our Class Assemblies and PSHE lessons, we are learning about the value of Respect and how we can express this in different ways throughout our lives.

British Value

We will be learning about tolerance and linking this to the skill of respect because it is a key skill for life in Britain.

Our Curriculum

Children in Key Stage 1 and 2 will enjoy a long and short enquiry each half term.

Long Enquiries

A long enquiry typically lasts five weeks and allows us to teach a subject, such as history, in depth. Clear expectations of what will be learned, is shared with parents and pupils through a Knowledge Organiser.  At the end of the work, we plan to use Enquiry Quizzes on our iPads to see how much each child has remembered.

What are the human and physical features of Africa?

In our long Learning Enquiry this half term we are learning about the continent of Africa. Children will discover that there are different climate zones in Africa and the effects these have on the people who live there, and the natural features found there.  They will understand how the rainforest biome differs from the desert and the effects this has on the continent of Africa.

Short Enquiries

A short enquiry can last anything from 1 – 3 days and adds breadth to our curriculum.

What are the features of our local eco systems?

Children will visit our Woodland Camp and Scadson Woods to study the plants and animals that can be found there. We will be learning that Scadson woods is an eco system and what this means.

Maths

Maths is taught in separate year groups, so your child may be moving rooms and teachers during maths time. In Year 3 maths, children are learning about the place value of 3-digit numbers and counting up to 1000 in different multiples. They will understand the place value of hundreds, tens and ones.

In Year 4, children are learning about the place value of 4-digit numbers and counting to 10,000 in different multiples. They will order and compare numbers up to 10,000. They will learn to count in multiples including 25 and 1000.

Literacy

Children will write a story based on ‘The Beasties’ by Jenny Nimmo. They will be focusing on using correct capital letters and full stops with adjectives to describe nouns. Children will then write a non-fiction piece in the style of ‘Outdoor Wonderland’ by Jeffery and Licken.

Dates to remember

Monday 19th September—School closed for State Funeral

Friday 23rd September—Tempest photographer in school for individual pupil photographs.

Week commencing 17th October—class trips to Scadson woods for our Geography Short Enquiry.

Friday 21st October—Last day of the half term

Messages

Please continue to contact the school office by email admin@preston.torbay.sch.uk or phone 01803 607075 with any questions or queries. There is also lots of useful information, as well as event dates and term dates, on our school website  https://www.preston.torbay.sch.uk/

School App

Our school app is the best way to get information about dates and events going on in the school. Search for ‘School News’ in your app store.