And just like that, our first half term in Year 4 is over! I’m not quite sure where the last 8 weeks have gone, but what a great start to the year we’ve all had!

This week in English, we have been writing our persuasive speeches to finish our unit on The Greenling. After spending the last couple of weeks learning about persuasive language, the children were finally able to put their skills to the test! We also had some children volunteer to perform their speeches in front of the class, and I have to say, they made some very convincing arguments! It was really lovely to see them speaking so confidently and really trying to persuade the audience.

In Maths, we have been going back over everything we have covered since the start of the year, including rounding, column addition and column subtraction. It has been a really useful week identifying any little gaps in understanding and giving some of those trickier concepts a go. I have been particularly pleased with how much more confident they are all getting with column subtraction, especially exchanging across zeros, which certainly caused some confused faces when we first started!

We’ve also managed to squeeze in some Halloween fun during Guided Reading with ‘the mystery of the stolen pumpkin’. The children have absolutely loved this little mystery and have spent the week gathering clues from texts, investigating suspects and trying to figure out who stole the pumpkin. We’ve had some brilliant discussions and lots of different theories of whom the culprit might be.

It was really nice to see so many of you at Parents’ Evening. Thank you for coming in and taking the time to chat. I hope you found it useful, and it was lovely to have the chance to talk about how they are all getting on.

I hope everyone has a fantastic half term! The children have certainly earned a break after their hard work since September. Enjoy the lie-ins (hopefully!) and I look forward to seeing everyone in November!

Ella