Year 4 - Kestrels
Welcome to Kestrels!
Hello and welcome to Year 4!
Staff
I am Miss Giles, the Kestrels' class teacher. Mrs Patel is in class to support the children's learning and Mrs Duckett supports individual pupils on a 1:1 basis.
You can contact me via the school office, or at the usual email address.
kestrels@stmatthews.blackburn.sch.uk
Curriculum
To find out more about the wonderful things your child will be learning each term, please look at the class newsletter at the bottom of the page.
Five Important Messages
At the Meet the Teacher event, I shared five key messages with parents about how they can best support their child with their learning. A link to the powerpoint is at the bottom of the page.
Becoming a Super Learner
In the Kestrels we reflect on our learning continuously throughout the week. However, every Friday, the children will undertake a deeper thinking task where they will be asked about what has been successful with their learning for that week. They will also think of ways in which they can make improvements to their learning approach for the following week. Please talk to your child about this and see what they have decided their 'Super Learning' targets will be and ask them how they are getting along with them.
Working at Home
Your child will have home learning activities each night, so please can you make sure that your child has their purple book bag with them before they set off for school each morning.
Each Tuesday they will bring home two reading books, so please ensure that your child reads and has their reading record signed 4 times per week. Try to ask them finding and thinking questions about what they have read.
Every Friday they will also bring home their weekly spellings which need to be practised each night.
Homework will be set online each Monday & Thursday. Activities to be completed will either be on Learning by Question (LbQ), Mathletics, Times Tables Rockstars or Purple Mash. The Kestrels have their login details, so please encourage your child to go on these sites to complete homework linked to the week's learning.
Mathletics - https://login.mathletics.com/
Mathletics activities are set that are specifically differentiated for your child to make good progress. Please complete the tasks and earn those certificates!
Times Table Rockstars - www.ttrockstars.com
Keep practising ALL the times tables that you have been set
Purple Mash - https://www.purplemash.com/login/
Purple Mash is a fantastic tool that has lots of different activities for your children to explore. It is used in school to help children with their learning across many areas of the curriculum. To log in to the website, you will first need to find the school’s login page by clicking on ‘Find my school’s login page’. Then you will need your child’s login details which were sent home at the start of the Autumn term.
Learning by Question (LbQ) - https://www.lbq.org/
A teaching app with activities to support all areas of the National Curriculum.
Topmarks Education- www.topmarks.co.uk
An excellent website with games and activities to support many areas of the National Curriculum.
Oxford Reading Tree - www.oxfordowl.co.uk
A great website from the makers of Biff and Chip books. This gives access to a huge range of ORT books which your child can read. A very useful site.
The Week- Junior Schools- magazine.theweekjunior.co.uk
The Week is a magazine covering a variety of topics and issues in a child-friendly manner.