Dear Parents and Children,

Welcome back to a new school year! We hope you all had a lovely holiday, despite the weather. The children are all settling really well into their new year groups and we have been impressed by their interest and effort in their work.

We have an exciting half-term planned for the children. The main focus of our work this half term will be on ‘The Victorians’ looking at how children’s lives were very, very different not so long ago! This is always a firm favourite with the children and we have arranged two fantastic trips linked to this topic.  The first will be an archaeological dig in Worcester and the second will be to The Black Country Living Museum, in Dudley (letters to follow). In Science, we are looking at separating mixtures of solids and liquids and in ICT we are learning to program a screen turtle to follow sets of instructions to recreate some of the works of the famous Victorian artist, William Morris. Both year groups are now learning new languages: year 3 will be learning French and year 4 learning German. In R.E. we are looking at people of faith and music involves us looking at music as a medium for description, e.g. long sounds describe slow things. In mathematics, we will be looking at place value and consolidating our understanding of addition and subtraction. Our literacy work will encompass narratives and non-fiction texts, linked to our topic ‘The Victorians’.

Your child should have already brought home their new homework books. This year we expect all children in year 3 to read a minimum of three times a week and those in year 4 a minimum of four times a week. In addition to this they will have weekly spellings and numeracy homework. New for this year will be a project based on our topic work. Please continue to help your child with their reading, spelling and maths. Number bonds and times tables always benefit from extra practice! Don't forget discussions involving maths too, like looking at number plates on cars or house numbers (Are they odd or even? What is the value of 7 in 273?)

We greatly appreciate any time that you could spare to come into school and help out with activities in the classroom: cooking, art work, ICT, reading, playing games or sharing any expertise you may have related to our topic work. Please come in after school any day to chat about this.

We'd also like to remind you that all children need a P.E. kit consisting of shorts, a plain t-shirt and pumps. As the weather gets colder, the children will be able to wear jogging bottoms, sweatshirts and trainers for outdoor P.E. lessons. Children with pierced ears must ensure they take out their earrings on the day they have P.E. or swimming.

Finally, we look forward to meeting you all again at the parents' meetings later in the term, but, in the mean time please do remember to share any worries or concerns that you or your child has, we’re always happy to help.

Best wishes,

Hannah Hutchinson ----- Nicholas Perry