Beech Class

Welcome back everyone!

The first text we are going to look at in English is a book called “Window” by Jeannie Baker. It’s lovely - just wait until you see all the beautiful collage illustrations! In the text, a mother and a baby look together at the view from their window. As the pages turn, the baby grows up, and gradually the scene before him changes. What do you think it means for a book to be a window? After “Window,” we will move on to read “Escape from Pompeii” by Christina Balit. This text tells the tale of that fateful day in AD 79 when the volcano Vesuvius erupted, and the town of Pompeii was lost for nearly 1700 years. Children will be looking at letters, journalistic writing and diary entries.

In Maths, the school year starts with work on place value. Following, place value, children will look at addition and subtraction strategies including making exchanges.

Our Topic is “Invicta: The Romans.” This covers Geography, History as well as Art and Design.  You can expect to learn about the origins of Rome, examine its social structure, look at its human and physical geography and make your own Roman mosaic.

In French, the first subject area of the new school year is “Getting to Know You.” Pupils will find out how to introduce themselves, say their age and explain how they are feeling.

RE learning starts with a unit of work on Creation. Children will study the traditional Creation story as found in the Book of Genesis. They will consider how if mankind is made in God’s image, there is such wonderful diversity in His world.

For Science this half term, the ‘States of Matter’ unit will teach children about the differences between solids, liquids and gases, classifying objects and identifying their properties.  

Autumn 2 has been an incredibly exciting and eventful half term jam-packed with events and learning.  We welcomed Mrs Rushton back – she now teaches Mondays to Wednesdays, with Mr Daniel on Thursdays and Fridays. The learning in Beech Class has been stratospheric! In English, pupils studied the renowned poem “I Am a Roman Soldier”, by Josiah Wedgewood. Children approached the reading of the work with the knowledge of their topic learning and were able to empathise with the character, his bravery and his melancholy. They also produced their own poems from the opposing point of view titled, “I am a Celtic Soldier.” After their unit of work on poetry, Beech Class looked at non-chronological reports and even produced one of their own comparing and contrasting Mounts Etna and Vesuvius.
In Mathematics, children tackled Multiplication and Division. Applying their ongoing learning of the multiplication tables really helped them to grasp new concepts. This really showed the day of the big ‘Top of the Rocks’ showdown with all the other schools in the Our Lady of the Magnificat MAC. Using the TT Rockstars website, Beech class scored brilliantly up against their challengers, representing their school superbly.
Beyond the classroom, year four pupils have been fortunate enough this half term to take swimming lessons every Friday. On Friday, 8^th December, pupils went to see a pantomime at the Roses Theatre in Tewkesbury … and, as if all that wasn’t enough, to supplement their studies, Beech Class took part in a full-day's Roman workshop, during which we learnt lots of additional knowledge about The Romans from an ‘actual’ Roman centurion! It’s been a great half term and we can’t wait for Spring when we begin our new Topic “Reign Over Us: the Tudors!”

Spring term this year is all about the 'Terrible Tudors'. In our history topic we will be going back in time to learn about the Tudor monarchs, how their influence can be seen today and what Tudor life was like.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory by Roald Dahl is the text that we are studying in English. The children will be developing their inference skills, writing for a range of purposes and challenging their reading skills by retrieving information from within the text. 

In our maths topics this term the children will be tackling fractions, perimeter and measures.

Physical Education this term will have the children testing their balance, rhythm and grace in gymnastics and dance.

In French, the children will be learning about how to say and follow instructions within the classroom setting. 

In our science lessons, the children will be completing their animals unit before starting the new unit - electricity.

We are very much looking forward to the exciting term ahead!

This term we are continuing our Tudor topic focusing more closely on the key Tudor monarchs, what life was like for people living in Tudor times and important events that have shaped life today. 

In science we have just started our new unit all about electricity. The children will be learning about what powers appliances, how to create a simple circuit and how to add motors and buzzers into a circuit. 

Maths this term will focus on multiplication, division, mass, capacity and decimals.

Computing will see us begin our animation unit where the children will work to create their own mini animations. 

Finally, we are very nearly at the end of our class text, Roal Dahl's ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ (which has been a fantastic read) and we will begin our new text, ‘My Friend Walter, by Micheal Morpurgo, which we will also be using as our writing focus. 

This term is all about the beautiful world that we live in. We are going to become more expert geographers as we will be learning about countries, continents, oceans, seas, and capital cities. We will also be learning about map reading and how to use Atlases to research our planet.

In English, we have started our new class text, 'The Matchbox Diary'. Over the next seven weeks, the children will be writing detailed setting descriptions, writing letters and diary entries and delving into poetry.

Our science unit is ‘sound’. We will be investigating how we hear, as well as completing investigations to build on our understanding.

In maths we are revisiting fractions and decimals. We will then be moving onto money, time and shape.

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