Year 3 & 4 Newsletter 24/02/2025

​Spring Term:
​When do I? Where do I?

​Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome back! We hope you all had an enjoyable and restful break! Last half term, we worked incredibly hard across the curriculum! Our clever children have continued to work
their socks off and we are so pleased with the work they have produced and the enthusiasm they are showing in their own learning.
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When do I? Where do I?
The children have been working hard and have already produced fantastic work. This term there is a history and geography focus across school. With the title of our quest being ‘When do I? Where do I? We are stepping into the shoes of historians to make comparisons between the past and present and as geographers to explore our local and national areas. This term children have taken on the role of Junior Government Ministers! Year 3 have been exploring sports and leisure, learning about the impact football clubs, such as Stockport County,
have on their local area.

We have plotted routes on maps, created our own questionnaires to interpret data and used compass points and coordinates to locate places. We loved our trip to Edgeley Park and we have also visited the National Football Museum to learn more about pioneering figures, such as Lily Parr. We took part in a workshop, explored the exhibitions and even got to take part in a penalty shoot out! In our workshop, we got to explore primary and secondary sources and we loved impressing the staff with our fantastic knowledge! At the beginning of the term, Year 4 stepped into the shoes of a Hazel Grove soldier, as they were enlisted into WW1!

They have explored how and why the war started and have created their own timelines to retell the key events in their own words. They have compared maps of German territories, before and after the war, and have used their historical and geographical understanding to keep evacuees safe, by suggesting the safest locations for them to stay. Year 4 are very much looking forward to their trip to the Stockport Air Raid Shelters in March, where they will explore the impact that the war had on those nationally and how evacuation impacted daily life.

Reading
As always, reading is a very important part of learning at Norbury Hall. We encourage children to develop their reading skills and want to inspire their own reading for pleasure.
To benefit your child, we are asking children to read at home at least three times a week and for this to be recorded in their reading records. This will be checked daily, during the school day.

​Book Fortnight
As we return to school, it is the start of our whole school Book Fortnight. We will start the fortnight with the story of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. This year, our theme is food poverty and hunger. Each year group will look at a range of age appropriate books to help
develop an understanding of the importance of eating a balanced diet to keep healthy, why food is important and how we can reuse and repurpose food items.

Cooking
Alongside our reading focus, each year group will be looking at an aspect of Design Technology, (cooking and nutrition). Year 3 and 4 will be identifying food groups, discussing
what we need to make a healthy diet and exploring the origins of our food. We will also be designing and making our own soup, using our slicing, cutting, chopping and grating
skills. Each class will get the opportunity to design, prepare, make and taste make a dish which includes fruit or vegetables. Children will look at health and safety when cooking and
use different skills when making their dishes. School will be providing the ingredients for these lessons. Please speak to your child’s class teacher if you have any
concerns about allergies whilst cooking.

Read dating
For Read Dating we ask the children to bring in to school their favourite book from home, to share with their peers. The children will have the opportunity to share their book
and discuss why and what it is they enjoy about their book. This could be a story, a non-fiction text, a cook book or even an atlas. Year 3 have enjoyed their session already!

Reading den
As in previous years, our Library will be transformed into a magical reading den. All children across the school, will get the chance to reading in the den with their class, across the
fortnight. This year’s den will be The Bucket’s house from Charlie and The Chocolate Factory. Once the children step inside, they will be transported to the inside of the chocolate factory.

Please see the grid at the bottom of the Newsletter for key dates for Book Fortnight for Year 3 and 4.

Home Leaning Competition
For home learning, we would like to ask the children to create their own book character from a repurposed or un- used healthy fruit or vegetable. Also, we would like the children to write a label for their book character telling us their character is and also display their name  and class  on it. Once the competition is over, the fruit and vegetables will be put into our school composter, which will then in turn be used to grow more fruit and vegetables.  Entries need be in school on Monday 3rd March.  Please see Mrs Adnett's Newsletter for ideas.

Mrs Garrett
​KS2 Leader

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​Key Dates:
Monday 24th February 2025
Book Fortnight begins
Tuesday 4th March
Parent Teacher meetings
Wednesday 5th March
Dress up day for World Book Day
Thursday 6th March
Parent Teacher meetings
Friday 11th April
School closes for the Easter Break