Dear parents and carers,

Teachers across the school are doing an amazing job of planning high quality work for your children to complete whilst at home (and for those in school).

As you are aware, the government has set very clear guidance regarding the amount of time which should be spent by children on schoolwork.

The amount of remote education should be a minimum of:

• key stage 1: 3 hours a day
• key stage 2: 4 hours a day (this is from Y3-Y6)

We have ensured that a wide range of subjects are covered within this time and are particularly mindful of the need to ensure children have time away from screens.

That said, we remain keen to stress how vitally important it is that your child is reading every single day; and while at home, we have provided online resources to facilitate this.

Reading underpins every subject that is taught in school and is a life skill your child will need above everything else. We have tried hard to ensure that part of your child’s school working day includes meaningful and progressive reading.

Each year group has a specific time each day where your child should be reading. In year four, children have access to Fiction Express (start from level 1) and Oxford Owl to access online books. Please note that Oxford Owl is free to subscribe to and contains books which link to our colour reading bands at school. Every child has a virtual reading diary on Google Classrooms and should be accessing this daily.

Please let us know if you are struggling to access these resources or need more support.

World Book Day 2021

Next month on the 4^th March is the annual celebration of reading across the country! As we expect to still be in a lockdown situation, Newdale would like to introduce an Alice in Wonderland whole school theme. We hope that by having one theme, this will support families who have children in multiple year groups. More information will follow, but we would heartily encourage dressing up for those who enjoy this and of course a mad hatter’s tea party of your own!

Kind regards,

The Year 4 Team

You spoke, we listened…

Thank you to all the parents who completed the online survey. Please see below how we are addressing points shared with us.

Suggestion:

An opportunity for the children to talk to their friends.

Action:

Weekly Show and Tell/Celebration Assembly via Teams on a Friday at 2:30pm

Suggestion:

Children seeing both Year 4 teachers on live lessons.

Action:

Both teachers are now delivering live lessons. Please note that initially it was just Mrs Fenn as we were all finding our feet with working remotely whilst managing children in school too.

A quick reminder about live lessons. These are held twice a day: for Literacy (9:30am) and Maths (11am). In school, we would normally dedicate 1 hour to each of these subjects. The live lessons usually last between 15-20 minutes (however the actual Teams session is longer as we wait to ensure children have all logged on and then have a chance to ask questions at the end). This leaves the remaining time for children to complete their work and for adults in school to mark and return it to children. For those parents who are not aware of this already, both Mr Jackson and Mrs Fenn have vulnerable and key worker children in their classrooms whilst they deliver these live lessons. In addition to these live lessons, other work is set daily for children to complete such as spellings and Guided Reading. Subjects such as Science, History, RE, PE, Computing etc are set weekly. To support children with lessons such as Computing and Life Learning, we attach a PDF information sheet, which is a copy of the flipchart we would normally share with children in class. Children need to read this information first before starting their task. With regards to the amount of work set daily, the government have made it statutory that key stage two children must receive four hours of learning/work per day.  The amount of work we set reflects this guidance.

There were some issues in the survey  which we were not aware of. Please remember if you are having any issues, or have any questions,  email our dedicated Year 4 account: newdale.year4team@taw.org.uk. As we are sure many parents who have used this would agree, this is an efficient way to communicate with the Year 4 team, and resolve problems quickly.

Many thanks

The Year 4 Team

Well done everyone for continuing with your home learning. We are so proud of your determination and perseverance. This week, Miss Cook and Mrs Bishton are looking at children’s work in the following subjects on Google Classroom:

RE

E-Safety (Computing)

Life Learning

History.

For a chance to receive a special virtual sticker from them, make sure you submit your work for these subjects. Make sure you try extra hard as there are only a few stickers to be rewarded. Make sure it is your work which stands out from the rest!

Many thanks

Year 4

Please note that although we are not changing the times of our live lessons, Literacy will now be at 9:30am and Maths at 11am starting Friday 22nd January 2021.

Many thanks

Y4

Thank you to the Y4 parents who have completed this survey so far.

If you have yet to do so, please could you complete this survey as soon as possible as it is important that we know your thoughts on the online learning offer in Y4. As this is the first time we have used Google Classroom and Teams for live lessons, it would be interesting to know your views.

https://forms.office.com/Pages/ResponsePage.aspx?id=2s8TOK9SpUy44yMVeXcKujfWR1zrUJ1JhQgacqv0-RBUQUcwTEc3ODlOMlhIMjEyRVVUTVFaVUwzTS4u 

As with all surveys, we analyse them carefully to ensure we are continuing to improve our provision.

Many thanks

The Y4 Team

Both of the Y4 bubbles in school will have a Forest School session on Thursday 28th January, which will be led by Miss Taylor. Miss Taylor is Forest School trained and will be carrying out exciting activities with the children such as fire making. Please feel rest assured that this will be carried out safely and will give the children a sense of what its like to sit around a campfire. Please ensure that children bring in their Forest School clothes on this day.  Please note that this is a PE day so children will still be expected to come into school in their PE kits.

Many thanks

Y4

Y4 PE days in school are on a Monday and a Thursday. Last week, they had PE on a Tuesday, but that was an exception.

Many thanks

Y4