Welcome to Ash Class!

Ash Class are our Year 5 and half of our Year 4 children. The other half of Year 4 being registered in Maple Class. 

Year 4 will be taught maths as a cohort, receiving the same input of teaching before carrying out their learning tasks in either Maple or Ash classroom with appropriate support as needed. The work will be targeted to suit their individual needs, and adaptions will be in place for each child as necessary. Year 4 will be taught literacy in either Maple or Ash class depending on their individual needs. These groupings are flexible, and with much discussion and collaboration between all members of staff, the children will be best placed. The foundation subjects will be taught either in cohorts on a rotation basis (Science, PE and History / Geography) or as registration groups (Art/DT, music, computing, French, RSHE and RE) We hope that these opportunities to work alongside their year group peers, as well as alongside those in year 3 and year 5, will greatly benefit the year 4s. 

Communication is key so please check messages on the class dojo - this will be a platform used by teachers to communicate important class based messages. The school office will continue to use email, letters and text messaging to communicate school related matters.

Your support at home will be much appreciated as you continue to listen to your child read, help to learn new spelling patterns as well as revise previously taught spellings and master all the timestables up to 12 x 12.  Do engage in conversation with your child daily, asking them about their day. Visit the local library or museums to encourage their love of learning. 

We look forward to working with you and your children this year. 

Ash Class Team 

The Teachers in Ash Class are:- 

Mrs Murphy (Tuesday -Friday) and Mrs Phillips (Monday) - Class Teachers

Mrs Watts and Mrs Allfrey - Learning Support Assisstants

If you would like to contact our teachers directly you can do so by email. The addresses are set out below. 

Mrs I Murphy - imurphy@fittleworth.school

Mrs E Phillips - ephillips@fittleworth.school

General Information for the Year 2023/2024

Important events throughout the week are as follows:

1. Monday - Reading diaries will be checked

2. Tuesday and Wednesday - PE - children will need to come dressed in their school PE kits

Next- learning opportunities for learning at home:

We have once again partnered with Times Table Rock Stars and can offer their excellent, engaging scheme to all the children in the class. Once I have their logins, I will stick them to their reading diaries. They may not have changed from last year however!

The Purple Mash subscription will also continue this year. Some passwords seem to have changed from last year. If necessary, I will stick their new passwords to the back of the reading diary.

Reading and Reading Diaries:

It is important that your child continues to read at home to an adult. As your child becomes a more confident reader it is easy to think that they can sit and read independently. Whilst this is lovely for them to do it is still important for their fluency and comprehension that they still read aloud to an adult or older sibling. Questioning what they have read, the meanings of words, what might happen next etc are a good way to develop your childs understanding of what they have read.

Our requirement is that your child reads at least 5 times a week and logs this in their reading diary.

Spelling Practice:

Your child will be given a targeted set of words to learn at home for the year. These lists will be based on the Statutory 'Common Exception Words' for each year group. I ask that you gradually practice these words at home, selecting a few at a time (5 or so) until your child is confident with them. Education research shows that spaced, but frequent recalling of information helps to embed it into long term memory. As such I would recommend that you engage your child in regular informal exercises that require them to spell the words from memory, either verbally or in written form. This can be accompanied by practice exercises that help to ingrain muscle memory. Please see the link below for a selection of excellent ideas. I would also highly recommend the 'Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check' model of learning words, as this has again been evidenced as a fruitful method of learning spelling words. Examples can easily be found online.

Timetables

All children by the end of year 4 need to know all their timestables up to 12 x 12. The children will need to sit the Government Multiplication Check in June. The test is 25 questions from a random selection and they have 6 seconds to anaswer each question. We will be working on their timestables within school but it is important that they also practise these at home. Alongside mastering their timestables, it is important that they know the division facts linked with these.

There are loads of websites to help support your childs learning. Below are a few to use including one that is similar to the Speed Test that they need to sit in June.