Good afternoon everyone,

I hope you have had a lovely week. It has certainly been a very wet one. As you know today is Children in Need and it has been fantastic to see everyone supporting the day with their spotty clothes and incredibly generous donations. The children also took part in a live work-out assembly with the one and only Joe Wicks which brought great excitement and helped us all start the day with lots of energy.

In maths, we have been exploring multiplication and division facts in greater depth. The children have been practising how to use arrays to visualise number relationships and have been learning how to apply known facts to work out trickier calculations. We have also been looking at how we can use number families to show the link between multiplication and division which has helped to build confidence when solving problems.

In English, we have just started reading our new text The Iron Man by Ted Hughes. The children have enjoyed making predictions about what might happen based on the opening chapter and have been gathering quotations to support their ideas. They have also been using similes to help bring their character descriptions to life and experimenting with conjunctions and modal verbs to give clear advice to others. It has been brilliant to see them applying these features so confidently.

In our history topic on the Anglo Saxons Picts and Scots, the children have been learning about the Anglo Saxon migration. They discussed reasons why different groups of people might move from one place to another and considered the question 'Were they invaders or settlers?' with some thoughtful and well balanced class debate.

In our new science topic on sound, the children have been investigating how sounds are made. They explored a range of objects and instruments to see which parts vibrated and how those vibrations travelled to the ear. They were fascinated to discover that even very small movements can create sound.

On Monday, Year 4 will be taking part in an Internet Safety Workshop delivered by the Cybercrime departments at Hertfordshire Police. It was lovely to see some of you at the parent workshop on Wednesday. I am sure you would agree that it was very useful and raised some important points. We will be working closely with the Cybercrime department in the future and hope to welcome them back for another parent workshop soon.

On Thursday, we will be visiting Christ Church for a workshop on Symbols and Pilgrimage which the children have been learning about in class with Mrs Edwards.

Our class assembly is also next week on Friday 21st. We are very much looking forward to seeing you there. The children are excited to share what they have been learning this term.

Have a lovely weekend. Hopefully the weather improves soon.

Mr Chanter