Mrs Foster                     Mr Norman                     Mrs Morse

                               Class Teacher                 Class Teacher               Learning Support Assistant

                                (Monday & Tuesday)         (Wednesday to Friday)                       

Schoop - The school ID is 17699

Twitter - @StDavidsCiWPrm https://twitter.com/StDavidsCiWPrm

Email - year4@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk 

Google classroom code - jhfggxb

Spring Term 2023

20th – 24th February – Half Term

28th February - Greenhouse Immersion Day (Please bring old clothes/wellies for some gardening activities)

1st March – Eisteddfod

2nd March – World Book Day

3rd March – Rags to Riches Collection

13th March – Science Week

20th & 21st March – Parents Evening 3.30-5.30pm

20th March – Islam Celebration whole school day

31st March - End of Term

Easter Holidays – 3rd April - 14th April

Reading

Please bring your book bag to school every day. Children will be reading in school daily and we will ensure your child's book is changed weekly. Please remember to do some reading at home every night. 

Oxford Owl Free E-Books

To access the free Oxford Owl e-books, please visit https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/for-home and log in using the details below. 

Username: severnyear4
Password: severnyear4

Snack

Please bring a bottle of water to school daily, clearly labelled with your name. Healthy snacks can be purchased from the snack trolley (ordered via ParentPay) or brought in from home. 

PE

Please wear your PE kit to school on Fridays. Children should wear black shorts, house colour or white t-shirt and trainers, labelled clearly with their name. They may also wear black jogging bottoms when completing activities outdoors. Mr Smith will be teaching PE on Friday afternoons.

Uniform

Please ensure that all items of clothing are clearly labelled with your child's name.

Spelling

Children will complete spelling and grammar activities throughout the week as Early Morning Activities and during Literacy starters. These skills will be developed in work across the curriculum.

Each week we will focus on different spelling patterns. These will be practised in class and brought home to practise for homework.

We will not test children on spelling patterns weekly, but we will monitor and assess throughout the term.

Please use the Spelling Menu file below for ideas on how to have fun with learning spellings. 

This term, our context will be ‘Greenhouse’, which will have a specific focus on Science & Technology to explore the key question: How do plants grow best?

Within this context, we will be exploring the questions that the children came up with. 

• Why do plants need sunlight to grow?
• Why does it take so long for a plant to grow?
• How does a greenhouse affect a plant to grow?
• Why do plants need water to grow?
• Why do plants need soil to grow?
• Will a plant grow if its in the shade?
• Why do different tyoes of plants take different amounts of time to grow?
• Could a sunflower grow in the shade without water? (they’re called sunflowers but do they always need sun?)
• How many takes does it take to grow a sunflower?
• Which flowers can grow in the fastest amount of time?

For more specific information on the skills that will be taught this term, please view the our Inquiry Planning document for this half term uploaded below

Pupil voice is very important to us at St David's. We look forward to generating more ideas together as a class for our new topic. 

All of our planning will be based around the six areas of learning and experience and the four core purposes.

Here are just some of examples of the things we have been getting up to in Year 4.
Check back here soon to see some more of the wonderful work

and the fascinating experiences we have had in our classroom

in each area of the curriculum.

Our Year 4 VIP this week has been chosen for outstanding enthusiasm for our topic and for brilliant home learning. Congratulations. We are very proud of you.

Homework will be placed on Google Classroom every Friday. Please submit all homework by

the following Wednesday so we are able to look at your wonderful work and send this back

to you. 

Each week, children will be asked to complete either a piece of numeracy or literacy

based homework which will alternate from week to week. There will also be a termly

homework grid sent out based on our topic. Children may do as many homework tasks as

they like over the course of the term. Please see below for this terms homework

grid. Children are allowed to complete their homework in whichever format they wish

to choose. E.g hwb, PowerPoint, on paper, videos etc. 

Weekly spellings will also be taught in class and given to the children to practise at home. 

The children will be rewarded for completing their homework by receiving dojos!

Below is a homework grid that you can use at home to complete some fun and independent

activities linked to our current topic. Please don't hesitate to share any of your wonderful

work with us. Diolch!

Our Christian Value for this half term is Justice.

“Blessed are they who maintain justice, who constantly do what is right.” (Psalm 106:3)

When thinking about ‘justice’, some people think first about giving wrongdoers the punishment they deserve. ‘Justice’ evokes ideas of ‘just deserts’, ’the punishment fitting the crime’, ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’.

However, that would be a one-sided picture of justice. Justice also means giving all people – particularly the poor and oppressed – what it is right and fair for them to have: life, health, freedom and dignity. It is about acting out of a concern for what is right and seeing right prevail. It is about social justice, especially for those who suffer most and are least able to protect themselves.

In Exodus, the people are instructed to deal with everyone fairly and never to show partiality to one group above another (Exodus 23:2,6).The Bible emphasises that ‘The righteous care about justice for the poor’ (Proverbs 29:7).Isaiah says: ‘Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow’ (Isaiah 1:17). Justice is the ‘plumb line’ by which society is measured (Isaiah 29:17). According to Amos, its presence in society should be constant and abundant: ‘Let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream!’ (Amos 5:24)

Throughout the Bible, it is emphasised that justice is immensely important to God. It is fundamental to God’s character. ‘For the LORD is righteous, he loves justice; upright men will see his face.’ (Psalm 11:7)

Justice is not about a culture which encourages everyone to insist on their own rights at the expense of others. It is about a community that knows that everyone’s well-being is bound up with that of everyone else.

A commitment to justice leads to fierce opposition to injustice in whatever form it may be found. Justice is a pre-requisite of peace: without justice there can be no peace.

We will be linking Justice to the story of Jesus in the temple (Luke 2:41-52).

The Welsh language is very important to us at St David's. We encourage both staff and children to use incidental Welsh both inside and outside of the classroom. We enjoy our daily Helpwr Heddiw sessions to support children in learning new phrases by playing fun Welsh games. 

Please see below for some fun resources you can use at home:-

Learn Welsh Games - https://www.learn-welsh.net/welshgames

S4C Education - https://www.s4c.cymru/en/education/tag/36/primary/

Throughout the week please encourage your child children to use our PS3 phrase of the week. If a child uses the phrase or any Welsh questions in class, they can be given a Welsh token. The Crew Cymraeg group will count the number of Welsh tokens our class has gathered throughout the week. During our VIP assembly, the class with the most Welsh tokens win Dylan the Dragon for the week. Each week Dylan the Dragon will have a small scroll in his cage with a reward for the class chosen by our Crew Cymraeg. 

We enjoyed taking part in the Wales World Cup Singalong. You can watch this below. 

You can still visit https://jambori.urdd.cymru/ and click on "songs" to practise them in the Jambori playlist. You will find the lyrics, backing tracks and pronunciation guidance to help learn these songs at home if you enjoyed these songs. 

This half term we will be exploring some Spanish greeting phrases through fun games and activities.

Spanish Greetings and Introductions 

“Cómo te llamas” (What is your name?) 

“Me llamo...” (My name is...) 

“Donde vive?” (Where do you live?) 

“Vivo en...” (I live in...) 

"Cuantos años tienes?” (How old are you?) 

“Tengo … años” (I am … years old) 

 https://www.languagenut.com/en-gb/

Languagenut is a wonderful online tool where children can access resources to support the development of their new language. Each child will have their own log in details where they can gain points for activities completed. Languagenut will also give you the correct pronunciation of words and phrases.​​​​​​

All children should have brought home their login details, however if you need a reminder please contact year4@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk.

At St David's, we are extremely fortunate to have access to a range of different ICT devices. We promote the use of 'SMART' rules daily, as we know how important it is to stay safe online.

Please encourage your children to use these 'SMART' rules at home too. 

For more information about supporting your child with using the internet safely, please click on the following link:

https://hwb.gov.wales/zones/online-safety/key-information/primary-learners/

We are pleased to announce our Digital Leader pupil voice group for this year

We would like you to take part in our 101 Experiences challenge - 101 things for your child to experience during their time at St David’s C.I.W. Primary School. We would be delighted to see our children doing these activities outside of school, so please send in any evidence of each experience to year4@stdavidsciwprm.cardiff.sch.uk 

Each time a child achieves 5 experiences from the same category, they will get a sticker which shows the religious character which symbolises the associated purpose from the Four Purposes of the new curriculum. 

Here are some which have been submitted already:

We are very proud that St David's is a healthy school. We encourage all children to eat healthy during snack and lunch times. 

We are able to provide snack for your children in school at a daily cost of £2 per week / £14 per term. Please pay via Parent Pay.

Please ensure that your child has a labelled bottle in school daily, containing water only. We have fresh drinking water fountains, where the children can refill their bottles.

For advice on how to make a healthy packed lunch, please visit: https://www.nhs.uk/healthier-families/recipes/healthier-lunchboxes/

During our worship time on Mondays, we have been learning about current news, topics and events. Then we have been exploring the key questions linked to these further in class. Here are some of the questions we have been discussing. 

When discussing the Picture News, we have been challenging ourselves to use new, ambitious vocabulary to describe our feelings and opinions.

WOW is a pupil-led initiative where children self-report how they get to school every day using the interactive WOW Travel Tracker. If they travel sustainably (walk, cycle or scoot) once a week for a month, they get rewarded with a badge. It's that easy!

Please support us on our Active Travel mission by encouraging your child to walk, cycle or scoot to school, or use our Park and Stride arrangements at Pentwyn Leisure Centre. This will help keep our bodies healthy and help reduce our carbon footprint.  

St David's CIW Primary School is proud to be a Rights Respecting School, which means we are a community where children's rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted.

This half term we will be focusing on Articles 11, 40 and 41 from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

Throughout the Spring term, Mrs Foster will run the Year 4 Gardening club after school every Tuesday 3.25pm - 4.25pm (beginning Tuesday 10th January). Spaces are limited and on a first come first served basis. For those attending, we are politely asking for £2 per week please (to be paid via Parent Pay) to cover the cost of the gardening resources (eg compost) Please contact clubs@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk to find out if there are spaces to join, or to be added to the reserve list. 

There will be an alternative clubs running in the summer term too. Look out for information on this towards the end of the spring term.  

By clicking below, you can access a range of resources to continue learning at home 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/ - Great online games for curriculum areas

https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/levels/zbr9wmn - BBC Bitesize

http://www.crickweb.co.uk/ks2literacy.html - Lots of online games linked to different areas of the curriculum

https://www.learn-welsh.net/welshgames - Online Welsh games

https://corbettmathsprimary.com/5-a-day/ - Corbett Maths - 5-a-day Challenges

https://whiterosemaths.com/homelearning/ - White Rose Maths - Reasoning Challenges

hwb.gov.wales - collection of online tools provided to all schools in Wales by the Welsh Government

https://www.purplemash.com - award winning cross curricular website for  primary school children. It enables children to explore and enhance their knowledge in a fun and creative way.