Kingfisher Class

AUTUMN 2025 CLASS NEWSLETTER – KINGFISHER CLASS

Dear Parents and Carers,

How lovely to welcome our new Year 3 children and Year 4 children back after the summer break. We are really excited about the academic year ahead and would like to share a few changes and a little information about what we have planned for the Autumn term. Mrs Evans will now be teaching on Mondays to Thursdays and on Friday mornings, Mr Hipwell will do times tables and spelling tests, hand out new spellings, and teach some maths and RE; Mrs Coduri will teach PSE and PE on a Friday afternoon. The first set of spellings will come home at the end of next week (no spellings or homework this week, as you already know!).

Our first Autumn topic is looking at British History from the Stone Age to the Iron Age’. We’ll find out what is meant  by the term ‘prehistoric’; look at the first human species; the development of technology - from stone to metal - and the change from hunter gathering to farming.  The second, smaller topic, towards the end of Autumn, will be about ‘Healthy Me’, which will also link to PSE, Science and Cooking and Nutrition in D&T. More details about these topics and specific subjects will soon be available in the topic knowledge organisers on the school website.

In RE, under the overarching Big Question: Do beliefs make any difference to someone’s life?, we will first study a unit about ‘How Christians show that reconciliation with God and others is important’ followed by a unit about ‘How Muslims may show their submission and obedience to Allah’.

Our learning in Science will be about ‘Rocks, Soil & Fossils’ followed by ‘Animals including Humans: Keeping Healthy’.

In Music with Mr Haynes, the children will be continuing to play recorders and learn more about music history, sound exploration and beat. ICT, will include learning about databases, making PowerPoints with hyperlinks and using Scratch to make a racing game.

Our Literacy will be inspired by the book: ‘Stone Age Boy’ and children will work towards writing a letter in role as a character who has fallen back in time. There will be some factual writing, some poetry and an ongoing focus on Wilby’s ‘non-negotiables’ for writing, spelling and handwriting over the coming term.

Maths will continue to follow the ‘Power Maths’ scheme and initially we’ll be re-visiting number & place value, money, addition & subtraction, multiplication & division and times tables. Children will be able to make use of manipulatives in lessons and will be encouraged to draw and use formal written methods to work out solutions.

Art & Design, which is linked to our topic and science, will include a look at early human mark-making,  prehistoric art; children will be doing some observational recording of rocks and fossils; mono-printing using carbon paper;  block printing using polystyrene (an impressed technique) and printing using relief (collagraph printing). Design & Technology in the second half of the Autumn term will be Cooking & Nutrition: Seasonal Cooking - designing and making seasonal vegetable tarts.

In order to promote a love of reading, we will be reading a class book four mornings a week, starting at 9.45 / 50am, straight after registration. All children will read / listen along with their own copy of the book, and we hope to enjoy quite a few different narrative genres over the academic year. Therefore, PLEASE do ensure your child is in school on time, so that they don’t miss out on part of the book we are reading! We will also do other types of reading during each week (including comprehension and fluency).

As usual, children will also bring home a book at a reading level to suit their stage/ ability, which will be logged in their little orange book as usual. They will now also have the opportunity to also choose a book from the school library each week, for their enjoyment and to share with you. Please can we ask that you support your child by continuing to read regularly with them using their ‘levelled’ book – and by enjoying their chosen library book with them. (Please bear with us whilst we get the systems going! More will be explained about reading, spellings and times-tables in due course.)

PE: Please ensure children come to school in their PE kits on a Friday: blue or black shorts / joggers; a Wilby PE T shirt, trainers and a school jumper. Please can all PE kit be clearly named - thank you!

HOMEWORK

(You have already received some information about the following, but just to reiterate!)

SPELLINGS:

• On Friday’s, spellings, sentence writing and times tables homework will be set by Mr Hipwell. This must be completed every week and handed in the following Friday. Mr Hipwell will also mark the spelling homework and carry out the regular weekly spelling and times tables tests on a Friday. (THIS MEANS THAT WE HAVE CHANGED OUR REGULAR SPELLING AND TIMES TABLES TEST DAY FROM MONDAYS TO FRIDAYS.)
• On the Monday to Thursday of the following week, Mrs Evans will teach the spelling rules to go with spellings handed out on the previous Friday. So, while children are learning spellings at home with you, they will be doing further work on them in school in conjunction with handwriting.

INFORMATION ABOUT LEARNING SPELLINGS AT HOME:

1. Look at words on the spellings list - what spelling blend do they recognise? Are there words within a word? etc.
2. Look, say, cover and write the word (using the two sheets provided/ stuck in their spelling homework book).
3. Try to write the spelling without looking at how to spell it and finally…
4. Check and correct their spelling.

As mentioned, children will have two ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write and Check’ practise sheets stuck into their spelling homework books each Friday. These sheets show the children the correct way to form and join their letters. Children should really try to make their handwriting on these sheets the best that it can possibly be.

Sentence homework: Your child will also need to choose three of their spelling words to write in a sentence. They must write their sentence as neatly as they can in pencil and underline the spelling that they are learning within the sentence.

TIMES TABLES: We will follow the times table system, where pupils move from colour-band to colour- band, learning new times tables as they go – and earning certificates. We will hand out (at the Welcome session) and also email a separate information sheet all about the Colour Band System for learning times tables soon.

Year 4 pupils will take the Government Multiplication Check early next Summer. We will focus on doing timed tests on a Friday. Pupils will be allowed 6 seconds per question in line with the Gov. test. Although this might seem quite ‘scary’ at first, 6 seconds is in fact plenty of time to answer questions when facts are known securely. We’ll be teaching children and giving them lots of support and encouragement in lessons too. Each Friday, children will know which multiplication facts to learn / focus on for the coming week. Please look in the children’s spelling & times tables homework books to see which they should be learning. (*More information / weblinks to help you support your child’s times tables learning, practice and testing will be sent home separately, in due course; this will give much more information about our approach to learning and testing progress in times tables.)

OTHER HOMEWORK:

On Thursdays, an additional homework task will be set by Mrs Evans which should be handed in the following Wednesday. This could be a variety of different things over the term. Most often, it is linked to our maths but may be linked to English, topic, art or it may be to research something linked to another area of the curriculum.

MORNING SNACKS & WATER BOTTLES:

Please can you send children to school with a fruit / healthy snack for morning break (no nuts please!).

Some of your children may get hungry and we do not always have enough left-over fruit from KS1 to go around.

Please can you also send in a named water bottle daily. 

* CLASS WELCOME SESSIONS! *

This year, we are inviting parents to a short ‘Welcome’ session for each class.

Kingfisher’s session will be after school on

 Monday 15^th September (in the classroom).

The session is a chance to say hello, give you more information and an opportunity to answer any questions. *For parents / carers who can’t make it, please don’t worry as all information about spellings, times tables and reading etc will also be shared on Class Dojo as usual. 

Thank you so much, as always, for all your support and please don’t hesitate to contact us should you have any concerns about well-being or educational needs. We look forward to welcoming those of you who can make it on Monday September 15^th after school – but please do continue to use Class Dojo to contact us or phone to make an appointment if you would prefer an opportunity to discuss anything further.

Kindest regards,

Mrs Evans and Mr Hipwell

LINK TO SUBJECT KNOWLEDGE ORGANISERS:https://www.wilbyprimary.org.uk/Knowledge-organisers/)