Haydonleigh Primary School

Haydonleigh Primary School

I am talented, together we are amazing !

Haydon Court Drive, Swindon, Wiltshire, SN25 1JP

admin@haydonleighschool.co.uk

01793700443

Y4

Class 13                     Class 14                    Class 15
 Mrs Park                   Mrs Davies              Miss Van den Daele

  

Year 4 Teaching Assistants:

Mrs Ainsworth            Miss Thompson           Mrs King

 

 

HAYDONLEIGH 100 - Click here to view 100 books to read in Year 4!

PE IS ON TUESDAYS AND THURSDAYS 

 

PE

Year 4 PE timetable:

  • Class 13 - PE on Thursday  (Swimming every Tuesday from 5th September- 10th October)
  • Class 14 - PE on Tuesday and Thursday (Swimming every Tuesday from 17th October- 28th November)
  • Class 15 - PE on Tuesday and Thursday (Swimming on Tuesdays or Thursdays from 16th January - 28th March)

*On class swimming days your child should come to school in their normal school uniform please
(not PE kit, to make pupils highly visible as Haydonleigh pupils during the trips)*

On standard PE days, your child should come to school wearing their kit - black shorts/black jogging bottoms, a t-shirt in their house team colour, a plain light grey hoodie and sports trainers. Please ensure all items of kit are labelled with your child's name.

WEEKLY HOMEWORK EXPECTATIONS IN YEAR 4 

Homework will be explained, discussed, reviewed and celebrated in class on a weekly basis.

Homework books and Reading Records need to be brought in every MONDAY in Year 4. 

  • Reading - The children need to read 4 times across the week and record this in their reading record.
  • Spelling - The children need to practice their spellings 5 times across the week in their homework book (1 column per practise). 
  • Maths - Play on TTRockstars for at least 30 minutes in total across the week. If you cannot log in to TTRockstars, practise your times tables in your homework book and let your teacher know. Ask your child to show you their 'fluency' on the website, this shows the questions they are struggling to answer quickly and accurately. 

All children have been given their TTRockstars login details to glue in their homework books. 

ADDITIONAL HOMEWORK GUIDANCE

During Year 4 we continue to build greater independence and responsibility in our pupils, promoted through a number of activities and additional responsibilities, including weekly homework. Homework provides an opportunity for pupils to develop habits and routines at home.

Should children not complete their weekly homework as detailed below, they are supervised during a breaktime to complete 5 minutes of the missing activity/ activities each week. This is to encourage good habits and fluency in reading, maths, spellings and build homework routines for their educational journey. Please ask your child's teacher should you have any queries about their homework:

  • School reading books - All Year 4 pupils are encouraged to read at home at least 4 x per week for10 minutes on each occasion. Please encourage your child to read, to an adult where possible, and record this in their yellow reading record. Yellow reading records should be brought into school every Monday to be checked (although we encourage children to bring them in daily to keep their current reading book up to date). 
    Children should record at least4 reads in their yellow Reading Record with the relevant dates alongside a brief comment on their reading eg questions raised, favourite parts, predictions on what might happen next.
    We ask parents/guardians please to sign/initial their children's yellow reading record weekly, to acknowledge their child has indeed read at home.
    During Year 4 pupils will bring home a 'coloured reading band' book (to read for their homework) and a library bus book (to read for pleasure).
    Children must bring in their books every Monday, but can bring them in on any school day to swap books when they have read the entire book. Children will choose their new books themselves, with an adult checking the suitability of their selection. 
    Should pupils not complete their reading homework as detailed above, with 4 dated entries alongside a parental signature, they are supervised to read in class for 5 minutes of their breaktime each week.
    Click on the link below to view some questions that you could use to initiate a discussion with your child about what they have read:

    Reading Questions  - useful link 

  • Maths- Log on to Times Table Rock Stars and play for a total of 30+ minutes every week (https://ttrockstars.com/). If you do not wish to play this game, you can practice your times tables in your homework book instead. 
    Times Table Rock Stars / tables practice activity will be checked every Monday.

    Completing this times table practice will help prepare your child for the maths curriculum in future years, and builds accuracy and fluency.

    Should pupils not complete 30 minutes + weekly, they will be supervised to complete a times table activity for 5 minutes of their breaktime each week. 
    Scroll to the bottom of this page to find more information about the Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check.
    Year 4 Calculation Policy - useful guidance

    Times Table Rock Stars - https://play.ttrockstars.com/ 
     
     

  • Spellings- The children will be given spelling sheets to bring home at the start of each term. Children should copy out weekly spellings 5 x every week in homework books, and bring these in to school to be checked every Monday. Every Monday there will be a spelling test.
    If your child participates in the 'Precision Teach' group, they will bring home an alternative spelling sheet to complete at home instead, 5 times per week. 
    Spellings are set on a Monday and tested the following Monday morning, so children have one week to learn their words. You'll find lots of suggested spelling strategies in their homework books. Children will be told their spelling scores to build their independence and self-reflectiveness. Please discuss your child's score with them. Please ask your child's teacher if you wish to clarify any scores. Any ongoing concerns regarding pupils' spelling scores will be discussed with parents. 
    Should pupils not complete 5 columns of spellings per week (or their 'Precision Teach' spelling sheets), they will be encouraged to rehearse their spellings for 5 minutes of their breaktime each week to catch up. 

Spellings lists:

Please click below to open termly spellings:

Term 1 Spellings

Term 2 Spellings

Term 3 Spellings

Term 4 Spellings

Term 5 Spellings

Term 6 Spellings

Please click the link below for the recommended Year 3/4 spellings list:

Year 3/4 spelling word list

Swimming for 2023-24

As you may already be aware, a few of our Year 4 swimming lessons this term were cancelled due to pool closures. Therefore, please find below an updated list of swimming dates for class 15. All pupils will still complete a total of six one-hour lessons. These lessons take place at The Highworth Rec on Tuesday or Thursday afternoons. When swimming, pupils will have an early lunch at 12pm and leave during the main school lunchtime (12.30pm). Hot meals can still be booked on swimming days. The children will be transported by coach to and from the pool, where swimming instructors will teach the children. Your child’s teacher will be in attendance alongside a small group of parent volunteers for each lesson.

 Class 15 Miss Van den Daele swimming dates:
Thank you for your understanding with the unanticipated changes to the dates of our swimming sessions.



The final two dates Class 15’s swimming sessions are:

  1. Tuesday 16th January

Tuesday 23rd January (cancelled)

Tuesday 30th January (cancelled)

  1. Tuesday 6th February
  2. Thursday 22nd February
  3. Thursday 29th February
  4. Thursday 21st March
  5. Thursday 28th March

A reminder that on Thursday 28th March, standard school uniform should be worn as normal.

However, as Thursday 21st March is also the date of our Viking Dance performances (sent in separate letter) children are welcome to come to school in their PE kit on this date, with their swimming kit in a separate bag please.

On any other weeks, children may continue to wear their regular PE kit on Tuesdays and Thursdays when we are not swimming, as we will follow our normal PE timetable.

 

Swindon Borough Council provides a small grant towards the cost of funding these lessons. However, for swimming to go ahead we will need to ask for a voluntary contribution of £33. This helps pay for the hire of the pool, transport, instructors and lifeguards and works out at approximately £5.50 per lesson.

Class 15 please make payment on the SCOPAY app by 20th November.  Payment online is confirmation of parental permission for your child to attend. If you have problems making a payment online please inform the school office.

I hope you will agree that these lessons give your child the opportunity to become a proficient swimmer and provide good value for money.

On swimming days school uniform should be worn as normal. Your child will need to bring in a separate bag: swimming costume/swimming shorts, towel, carrier bag for their wet costume, hairbrush/comb and something to tie back long hair. If your child has a verruca(s), a pair of verruca socks must be worn during the swimming lesson please.

Please do not hesitate to contact your child’s teacher should you require further information.

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

Year 4 pupils take part in a 'Multiplication Tables Check' practise in June. Please watch the short video below then read on to help you understand how your child participates in these checks.

Click here to watch a short government video about the check

Click here to read the government's guide for parents and guardians.  

How can you support your child?

Please do encourage your child to play Times Tables Rock Stars at home. All children have been given a username and password for this excellent website. Ask your child to show you their 'fluency' on the website - this shows the questions they are struggling to answer quickly and accurately. The ‘Soundcheck’ option in the game is a great place to practise for the check. We love to celebrate the effort children put in to further improve their maths, at school and at home, especially those who find their times tables tricky. This demonstrates a great growth mindset and builds their overall confidence in maths.

If you do wish to practise with your child at home, you’ll find further suggested activities above, under the ‘links’ section. Even fun activities such as playing board/ card games, baking and shopping will help your child’s confidence in maths grow.

What do you need to know about the Multiplication Tables Check at Haydonleigh?

1.    We love maths - it’s an awesome subject to learn and to teach!

2.    Maths is a big subject and we appreciate there’s more to it than times tables and there’s more to times tables than learning them off by heart. However, a lot of the rich, interesting maths is all about number relationships and these are hard to fully grasp without fluent recall of the tables. For that reason, learning the times tables is fundamental – they are a key facilitator in maths - we’ve always believed this.

3.    We’re not worried about the checks and they’re not a surprise to Haydonleigh teachers. We’re already in a good place with learning the tables and the expectations are in line with the National Curriculum, so it’s business as usual for us!

4.    The results of the check are not published publicly, there’s no pass or fail, there’s just a score out of 25 marks. 

5.    The checks consist of 25 questions. The questions will only be multiplication and they will go up to 12×12. There’s nothing novel about the questions and they don’t require any problem solving.

6.    The checks are all about remembering the multiplication facts. That doesn’t mean we’ll forget all about the concepts, patterns, structures and relationships in multiplication. We’re going to be learning those too, partly because they go hand in hand with excellent recall.

7.    There are concerns shared in the public domain that this is “yet another test”. The government has been careful to call it a “check” and that’s what it is, a pit-stop check. The check will tell us which multiplication facts the children are not yet secure with, so we can address these in school.

8.    The questions are relatively simple, age-appropriate, and the test only takes 2½ minutes.

9.  We don’t wish the checks to be stressful for our pupils. For that reason, we will actively downplay the checks in school and won’t repeatedly refer to the checks in class. Please be supportive and refrain from referring too often to the checks at home too.

10.  As far as our pupils are concerned, when it comes to the day itself, they’re going to have the computers or tablets to rehearse their times tables. This is something we often do, especially with Times Table Rock Stars, so the children will notice little or no difference on the day.

11.  Your child will have had opportunities to practise using the software in school, so will be familiar with the format before the check itself.

12.  If you are practising with your child, remember you’re practising for the benefit of their wider maths education, not for them to just get a high score.

13.  Please be supportive of our approach -it’s important that we get behind the checks for the benefit of all our children.

Should you have any questions about the Multiplication Tables Check, please speak to your child’s class teacher.

Useful Links

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