Welcome to Year 4
Teachers:
Mrs Morgan Mr Garbett
Teaching Assistants:
Miss Turton Miss Elsie Miss Hawkins Miss Hodges
Year Group News:
Welcome to Year 4
Hello again from everyone in Year 4. We hope you have had a nice Easter break.
Last term, the children really enjoyed our chocolate topic and learnt so much! Thank you to everyone who came and enjoyed our chocolate making morning at the end of last term. It was a lovely morning and it was a great opportunity to share all the successes of the spring term.
This term, we will be looking at The Ancient Egyptians and how their lives were different and similar to ours.
Ancient Egypt is a fantastic topic! It is full of amazing ideas and gruesome facts!
We will be looking at mummification, the gods and pharaohs and what life was like for someone living in Egypt at that time. If you have any interesting Ancient Egyptian knowledge, photos or artefacts, please do let your child bring them in to share with the class, as this really makes our topic come alive and gives the children lots of great ideas.
Reading
Reading is fundamental! It is extremely important for learning and being independent and it can also bring a huge amount of joy. If you don’t enjoy reading, then you just haven’t found the right kind of book for you yet.
Last term, we really pushed hard to make sure the children were reading books that were the right difficulty for them. It was great to see so many of them choosing larger, more complex stories. It’s always a push in Year 4 to get children to move out of their comfort zone and start reading a larger book. We have to keep reminding them that, although it takes longer, it is really worth it 😊
In Year 4, we continue to expect children to read 3 or more times a week at home. When they have finished the book and are ready, there will be chances for children to take their Accelerated Reader quizzes in the morning in class. Children, who pass quizzes, will earn teachers awards, when they pass their targets.
Audiobooks are a great way for children to experience rich language and enjoy a story. There are lots of great audiobooks online that can be found for free. If your child listens to an audiobook and wants to take an Accelerated Reader quiz on it, they can. However, we ask that when they are doing the quiz, they select the button that says “I was read to”, just like they did when we read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory to them.
Here's a website you can use to check if there is an Accelerated Reader quiz on a book you want to read:
Times Table Rock Stars and Homework
Knowing your times table facts quickly and securely is a fundamental skill.
Around 40 of our children are now able to score 25 out of 25 on a soundcheck! This is amazing news and shows just how much progress they have made in their multiplication knowledge.
To help the children learn their multiplication facts, we will continue to do lots of work and practise of them in school. To help your child, we recommend they play 10 minutes of Times Table Rock Stars games 3 times a week. Doing practise in this way, little and often, has a huge impact on learning and is great fun.
Things to remember
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- Our reading records will be checked on Friday. Remember to read 3 or more times a week
- Healthy Snack – Birchfield is a healthy school and we encourage our children to eat and live healthily. Make sure your child has a healthy snack to keep them learning at their best. We recommend any dairy, meat or fruit for this
Mobile phones
A polite reminder that the Birchfield site is a no mobile phone zone. That includes the playgrounds and the walkways around the outside of the building. We know that people lead busy lives but where there is a phone, there is a camera and we want to make sure that all of our children remain safe. We really thank you for your support in this.
Hot weather
The weather will be getting warmer and warmer over the next few months.
Children are advised to bring sunhats, sunglasses and drinks bottles for particularly hot days. It is very difficult for us to apply sun cream on children at school, so it will need to be applied to them by you before school.
Thank you for all of your support. The children seem to be in a really great place for some fantastic learning and progress. We have already made so much progress and we can’t wait to keep that ball rolling this term.
The Year 4 team
Mrs Morgan Mr Garbett Miss Elsie
Miss Hawkins Miss Hodges
Year Group Information
Spellings
Online safety
As always, please let us know if you have any major concerns regarding internet use and safety. The link below is to a fantastic resource that covers all aspects of internet safety and provides step by step guides to improving internet safety in the home.
year 4 news letter summer ancient egyptian 2025.pdf
year 4 summer term homework.pdf