The Fishes (Y4)

Welcome to the Fishes!

The Fishes class teacher is Mrs Orriss who, with the help and support of Mrs Garner, will maintain high expectations for attitudes to both learning and behaviour in order to support, enhance and stretch children’s learning.

This year the Fishes class will cover a variety of topics. We will begin with place value in maths, progressing to written methods of addition, subtraction, multiplication and then will work on division. Following this, we will then move onto fractions and decimals. Throughout the year, we will also focus on strategies to help the children with their mental maths and in particular their recall of times tables up to 12x12 in readiness for the Multiplication Check which the children will sit in June.

In English, we will develop our writing skills so our writing becomes more cohesive and includes more intricate grammatical features, such as fronted adverbials, conjunctions and embedded clauses. The children are read to in class regularly, which exposes them to books that they may not be able to access independently, this exposes them to a range of vocabulary and gives them ideas for their own independent writing. 

Our work in humanities covers a broad range of topics. In R.E. we look at different religions, beliefs and practices in. Geography focuses on the structure of the earth, how and why volcanoes and Tsunamis are formed, we will be looking at the Rainforests of the world, and the effects of deforestation, and mapping skills. In history lessons, we discover why the Ancient Egyptian Civilisation was so successful; why Romans wanted to come to Britain, and look at how and why crime and punishment has changed over time. Our science topics this year include electricity, sound, living things, states of matter and teeth and digestion.

To offer a broad and balanced curriculum, we also teach the children ICT skills. We will begin with e-safety before moving on to the mechanics of computing. The children will also look at what it means to be a responsible digital citizen. In French, we develop our vocabulary and children will be encouraged to practice their new-found language skills.

This year in art, we will be focusing on using our art pencils to create tone and texture. We will look at the work of some famous artists. In DT Children will design and make an Egyptian Cartouche, Roman mosaics and do some cooking – evaluating their products against their designs. I am pleased to say that music lessons will now resume. Children will be able to sing, play instruments and hopefully compose a piece of music. P.S.H.E. will focus on supporting children to understand and celebrate that they are all different and help prepare them for the changes they may face when living in the wider world.

For a successful home-school partnership, communication is key. The easiest way to contact us is through  Class Dojo, as we are often we are unable to see e-mails sent from the office whilst we are teaching. The Class Dojo App is always open, so we can see if a message has been received. If you need help connecting to Class Dojo please do not hesitate to e-mail me

Kind Regards Mrs Orriss (Class Teacher)

e-mail: [email protected]