WELCOME TOYEAR 4PARENT’S INFORMATIONReturning to school – Tuesday 1st September 2020

Meet the Team:

The class teachers and teaching assistants have been working hard to get everything ready so that your child can safely return to school.

Chameleons – Miss Mohamed

Class 9

Iguanas – Miss Chopdat

Class 8Toucans – Ms Hewitt

Class 7

Mrs Asra Mrs Gill

Coming to school and home time

•Your child will be starting school on Tuesday 1st September.

•Please arrive at school at 8:40am.

•You must collect your child promptly at 2:50pm

•Please ensure that you arrive promptly at these times to help maintain the safety of children, staff and parents. Other year groups will be arriving at different times.

•Please follow the one-way system, which is clearly marked with arrows. You will enter alongside the car park and exit using either the gate onto HarringworthRoad or the playground gate to Whitehall Road.

•Year 4 children will line up outside the mindfulness garden. This is also where you will collect your child. The class teacher will be waiting in the correct position for their class.

•If your child has a packed lunch, they will bring this with them into the classroom.

•If you have children in a different year group, please take them to the Reception playground (opposite our lines), where a member of staff will supervise them until it is their time to line up with their class.

What your child needs to bring

•We have provided all of the equipment the children will need for their work in the classroom. Each child will have their own pack of equipment to minimise any sharing. Please do not allow your child to bring a pencil case or items from home.

•The water fountains in school have been turned off to avoid children sharing these so it is important that your child brings a fresh bottle of water each day. Please use reusable bottles! We encourage your child to bring a piece of fruit as a snack. This must be in a sealed tub. Both the container and bottle should have your child’s name clearly marked.

•In the classroom, children will place their bags and coats on the back of their own chair. Please ensure that their bag is small; a drawstring back would be ideal, or the book bags that some children have.

•It is important that your child does not bring their PE kit in a bag. On PE days your child should come to school in their PE kit and they will wear it all day.

•Please remember to bring any school reading books on the first day. We will put these back on shelves after we have quarantined them.

•Your child should also bring the summer activities that they completed.

Please let us know...

•If your child is going to be absent, please inform the school office.

•As always ... please ensure all items of school uniform are labelled with your child’s name.

•If there are any changes to your contact details, please inform the school office as soon as possible. It is important that we have the correct contact details in case we need to contact you during the day.

•If there is important information that you would like the teacher to know, especially anything that might be affecting their mental health and wellbeing since the school closure, please contact us using the email; we can reply by email, or give you a phonecall.

•You can contact the teachers on our email: year4@whitehall.leicester.sch.uk

•You can contact the office on the school email: office@whitehall.leicester.sch.uk

PE: when is it and what does your child need?

Year 4 classes have PE on the following days:

Toucans: Tuesday and Wednesday

Iguanas: Wednesday and Thursday

Chameleons: Wednesday and Thursday

PE will be outside so please ensure their clothing is suitable for going outside. They will be wearing their PE kit all day.

A reminder of outdoor PE kit:

· A plain white T-shirt (football shirts and heavily patterned/colourful clothing is not permitted)

· plain black or grey jogging bottoms/tracksuit bottoms, and a jumper or hooded top for when it is cold.

· Predominately white or black trainers if possible (for Years 3 - 6)

Please remember that your child should not be wearing any jewellery on PE days. Jewellery worn for religious reasons needs to be covered safely.

Our curriculum plan will be starting after a few weeks. Here is a summary of the plans for the year.In the first 4 weeks, we will be focusing on supporting the children back to school and establishing the foundations for learning.

Term English Maths Science Creativity and RE

Autumn 1 Fiction: Christophe’s Story

Operation Gadgetman

Number and place value, addition and

subtraction, properties of shape,

multiplication and division, fractions and

position and direction.

States of Matter Stone Age to Iron Age

Autumn 2 Non-fiction: Rainforests.

Poetry: Creating Images

Fiction: Sounds Spooky…

Addition and subtraction, decimals,

mass, multiplication and division

including number and place values.

Rainforests

Spring 1 Fiction: The Spiderwick

Chronicles

Non-Fiction: electricity

Number and place value, addition and

subtraction, properties of shape,

multiplication and division including

number and place value, fractions and

length.

Electricity The Romans

Spring 2 Non-Fiction: Sikhism

Poetry: Exploring Poetic Form

Fiction: The Iron Man

Addition and subtraction, addition and

subtraction, multiplication and division,

decimals and perimeter and area.

Sound Sikhism and Christianity

Summer 1 Non Fiction: Volcanoes,

Earthquakes and Mountains

Number and place value, addition and

subtraction including money, properties

of shape, multiplication and division,

fractions and volume and capacity.

Living thingsHumans and Animals

Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Mountains

Summer 2 Non-fiction: discussion and

persuasion

Poetry Unit: Poems about

Animals and the Outdoors

Addition and subtraction including

money, decimals, positions and

direction, multiplication and division and

statistics.

Foundation subjects

Term French Music Computing PSHE P.E

Autumn 1On y vas

(All aboard!)Pulse We are Toy Makers/Designers

Programming an animationScratchLego Wedo

Community; Belonging;

Keeping myself safe; E-

Safety; Positive (growth)

mindsets

New beginnings

Invaders (football)

Step to the beat

Germ busters!

Autumn 2L’argent d’poche

(Small change)Voice We are Toy Makers/Designers

Programming an animationScratchLego Wedo

Community and belonging;

Friendships; Families & it’s

okay to be different;

Celebrating differences;

Acts of kindness

Dynamic Dance

Mighty movers (boxercise)

Healthy lifestyles: you are what you eat!

Spring 1Raconte moi une

histoire

(Tell me a story)

Rhythm We are Toy Makers/DesignersProgramming an animationScratchLego Wedo

E-Safety ; Keeping safe &

Making choices; Physical

Health; Mental health

Gym sequences

Boot camp

Healthy body: Inside out!

Spring 2Vive le sport!

(Long live sport)Pitch We are Toy Makers/Designers

Programming an animationScratchLego Wedo

Mental health

RSE

Keeping Safe

Cool Core (pilates)

Gymfit circuits

Healthy body: Blood and guts!

Summer 1Le carnaval des

animaux

(Carnival of the

animals)

Technology &

Structure – Classical

music

We are Toy Makers/DesignersProgramming an animationScratchLego Wedo

Mental health

CommunityYoung Olympians

Fitness frenzy

Healthy mind: Healthy body

Summer 2Quell temps fait-il?

(What is the

weather like?)

20th Century Music –

Musicals

We are Toy Makers/DesignersProgramming an animationScratchLego Wedo

Aspirations

Making choicesStriking and fielding

Nimble nets

Healthy mind: Going for goals

This plan gives an overview of topics, however they may be changed due to the recovery plan needed at the beginning of the new school year.

EXPECTATIONS IN YEAR 4

A few reminders about expectations of behaviour and attitudes that we will be expecting from the children now that they are in Year 4.

Homework

We value the role that parents play in supporting children's learning, therefore we will continue to set homework tasks every week. To restrict any viral transmission between home and school, homework will initially be on sheets, rather than a book. This will not be marked by the teacher, but the teacher will record that it has been completed.

Homework may include consolidation of the learning or preparation for a writing piece, e.g. research.

We are continuing with weekly spelling and multiplication tests. The Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check is due to take place in 2021, so we will be giving plenty of opportunity for children to show their speed and accuracy with all of their tables up to 12x12.

Children will be guided initially and then be expected to become independent in taking responsibility for their own learning in the tasks they have been set.

Code of Conduct and expectations

We have high expectations of behaviour when children are in school. At the beginning of the school year we remind the children of the Code of Conduct and the Golden Rules.

In order to keep all of our children, staff and families safe, we have introduced hygiene and social distancing rules. These will be shared with the children in the first few days. Please ask your child about these safety measures as this will help them to remember what the expectations are and understand their importance for keeping us all safe.

One key difference the children will notice is that all of the tables are facing the front of the classroom and that they are not able to mix with children in other year groups. Throughout most of the day, children will stay with their own class. At playtime and lunchtime they will for a year group “bubble”, but will be playing at a different time or in a different area to other year groups.

Golden Rules

These are our school’s Golden Rules:

Be honest

Be kind and helpful

Work hard

Listen to people

Look after property

Be gentle

Which one does your child think is the most important?

Reading and Spellings

• The best way for your child to improve in reading is to READ! Please find a quiet time for your child to spend about 20 minutes reading every day. We will be checking that they have completed their reading record to show that they have been reflecting on what they are reading.

• Initially, levelled reading books will only be used in school. The book your child brings home will be from a limited selection, kept in the classroom. This will help us ensure that books are not mixed across different bubbles. Please spend time sharing this book as it may be a more challenging book than they can read independently, but it will have been their choice. You can help them by talking about the text and checking their understanding.

• We will have a spelling test weekly. The words to learn will be based on specific patterns within words, or be linked to the words in the Year 3/4 list from the from the National Curriculum 2014. You can find this list of words inside your child’s spelling record book.

• We recommend that you encourage your child to have a go at the words, then concentrate on the difficult ones, taking just 2 or 3 at a time, until they are confident.

ASSEMBLIES & MEETINGS

In order to keep our school as safe as possible we will not be holding assemblies

in the school hall. Classes will share assembly themes in their own classes. This

will include class assemblies during the Autumn Term.

Assembly dates are: Iguanas - Friday 30th OctoberToucans - Friday 6th November

Chameleons – Friday 13th November

Class assemblies will be performed to the other 2 classes in the year group and

shown on the interactive boards in the other classrooms around school.

Unfortunately, it will not be possible for parents to come in to watch class

assemblies. If this changes, or we are able to provide recordings of the

assembly, we will let you know.

Instead of the usual Parent information meetings about maths and english, we

will present this information as online tutorials.

Trips and visits

Although trips form a valuable part of the learning journey in school, we are unable to begin any visits, or have visitors to school until further notice.

We will be making the best use of on-line resources in order to enrich your child’s learning

Other safety measures in place

As well as staggered starts and finishes there are other changes to the school day, which have been put in place to ensure the safety of our school community.

Each year group has staggered playtimes and dinner times, with separate zones for each year group.

Corridors have markings to ensure everybody walks on the left when moving around school.

We have hand sanitisers at entry points to school.

Children will be shown how to wash their hands correctly and encouraged to avoid touching their faces.

The catch it, bin it, kill it system will be taught.

Children with packed lunches must bring these into the classroom – they will not be stored in the dining room.

Contact us:

If you have any questions for your child’s teacher, you can ring school to arrange a time for the teacher to phone you.

You can leave a message on the year 4 email address:

year4@whitehall.Leicester.sch.uk