What a great week to round off a busy half term!  The children have had a wonderful Fluffy Friday today, learning new skills and making new friends. 

We were pleased to see so many of you on Wednesday night at the High Ashurst meeting.  For those of you unable to attend, we have already sent the PowerPoint presentation and kit list by ParentMail. Please let us know if you have any questions at all!

Dapdune Wharf Trip

We are taking the children, class by class, down to visit Dapdune Wharf on 16th June (Sarah’s class), 19th June (Ben’s class) and 20th June (Sheena’s class).  We still need parent helpers for Sarah’s class on Monday 16th – we leave school around 9 am and return by 1.45. Please let Sarah know if you are free to help! 

The children will need a packed lunch on the day of their visit.  We will keep an eye on the weather too, to see if we need sunhats or waterproofs!  More information after half term. 

Maths

We have been doing some times table practice with iPads to get the children used to the format of the MTC that will take place during the first two weeks of the new half term.  We have been sharing ‘heat maps’ with the children (They should have brought them home to show you!) so they can see where their slower responses are for questions they are less confident with.  We would really encourage you to help your child over the holiday to log on to TT Rockstars and direct them to the ‘soundcheck’ facility.   

In other maths lessons this week, the children have been learning how to write fractions as decimals.  We also looked at halves and quarters as decimals and made the connection between money and writing decimals. 

English

Continuing our work on making balanced arguments, we had great fun yesterday taking up a debating challenge!  The children first discussed whether cats or dogs are best, then thought carefully and developed arguments for the question, ‘Is it ever acceptable to tell lies?’ This exercise really encouraged the children to listen to each other, acknowledge another point of view and then respond with a differing opinion – all without shouting! 

Spellings for this week: 

More prefixes!   

disappoint, disagree, disobey, misbehave, misspell, misunderstand, misinterpret, return, recycle, rearrange.  

We will check these on 2nd June. 

RSE 

Yesterday, we had our Science/RSE (Relationship and Sex Education) lesson with the children.  We were very impressed with their thoughtful questions and comments about what they learned about how their bodies will change during puberty. We have a ‘questions box’ for any child that thinks of something they would like to know, but we also hope that they will ask you at home for any clarification or reassurance.  Further lessons are given in Year 5 and 6, which talk further about human reproduction and sexual development. However, in Year 4 we only talk about how their bodies will develop in order to reproduce.