Year 4 - Chestnut 2024 - 2025

Welcome to Chestnut Class home page

My name is Mr Brereton and I am the class teacher for Chestnut and the PE and PSHE lead. 

I enjoy seeing the children working together as a team and learning to develop their skills and grow in confidence.

I have a passion for sport and enjoy supporting Wolverhampton Wanderers and playing cricket for Great Alne CC. 

Autumn Topic-  Invasion

In this term's Invasion topic, children will explore the effects of the Roman withdrawal and the chronology and geography of subsequent invasions. They will study the Anglo-Saxons and Vikings in detail, examining their reasons for invading, their settlements and their everyday life. Your child will also look at monasteries and the Anglo-Saxon legacy. They will consider how we know about life in this period and investigate the Sutton Hoo ship burial. They will learn about Athelstan, an Anglo-Saxon king, and what happened after his death, before ending the project by learning about the Norman invasion of 1066.

Rotary Club Presentation

Dick Dixon, the president of the Warwick Rotary Club, visited Budbrooke this week to present Year 4 children from Chestnut with their dictionaries.

The Warwick Rotary Club organises events such as the Warwick Thai Festival, the Warwick Castle carols and Warwick racecourse bonfire night. The money raised then goes to help with local projects as well as supporting with overseas aid such as providing toilets for schools in West Africa and sending shelter boxes to Libya and Morocco.

The Year 4 children said: “The dictionaries are superb. They have lots of fantastic diagrams with a lot of information about many topics. The dictionaries will be really helpful because we can use them to help spell exciting words in our writing. We have already found information about Beowulf and Anglo-Saxons that we have been learning about in our history topic as well as teeth and the digestive system from our science topic.”

Year 4 Local Councillor Visit

This week, as part of Parliament Week, Chestnut Class welcomed Jan Matecki to Budbrooke Primary School to find out about his role as a local councillor.

Councillor Matecki of the local Budbrooke Ward gave an interesting talk about the role and responsibilities of councillors in the County Council, District Council and the Parish Council including how councillors are chosen and the services each council provides.

The children, who listened superbly all the way through, then asked curious questions to find out more information about the role including what inspired Jan to become a councillor, what makes a good councillor and what he enjoys about his role. They would make very good journalists. It appears that councillors share many values with Budbrooke- confidence, challenge, curiosity, consideration and most importantly collaboration.

Many thanks to Councillor Matecki for taking the time to visit Budbrooke Primary School and sharing his knowledge with Chestnut Class.

Mr Brereton & Chestnut Class

Chestnut Class Reminders:

Chestnut class PE days are Monday and Friday. PE kit should stay in school and will be sent home at the end of every half term.

Children should have a water bottle in school. 

Home Learning:

Home learning will be uploaded each week in the 'files' section at the bottom of this page. There will be three colours to choose from. Your child will be given a colour every Thursday. The colour will be found in the margin of their home learning book. Select and complete the colour your child has been set.

Homework will be handed out on Thursday to be completed and returned by the following Tuesday. 

Spellings-  handed out on 10.10.24

homophones and near homophones

medal
meddle
missed
mist
scene
seen
board
bored
which
witch

Spellings-  to be handed out on 17.10.24

Words with the Ending /shun/ 
Spelt Using ‘sion’
(Root Words Ends in ‘se’, ‘de’ or ‘d’)

division
television
confusion
erosion
invasion
revision
decision
inclusion
collision
explosion

Ways to support your child:

-Practise your child's spellings with them.

-Read (preferably daily) with your child. Try and encourage them to read a range of genre of books and authors. Here are a couple of useful lists of recommended books for year 4 children:

https://schoolreadinglist.co.uk/reading-lists-for-ks2-school-pupils/suggested-reading-list-for-year-4-pupils-ks2-age-8-9/

https://www.thereaderteacher.com/year4

-Practise times tables with your child. Little and often is often the best way with times tables. Purple Mash is an excellent resource which has lots of times table activities on. Here are a few good websites with games that your child can play whilst also practising their times tables:

Each child has login details for www.timestables.co.uk where they can explore and practise the timestables ready for the Multiplication Check towards the end of the school year. 

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/times-tables/coconut-multiples

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10

https://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulations/arithmetic

-Support your child in completing their weekly maths and English/topic homework which (starting from wk beg 9th September) will be handed out on a Thursday to be completed and handed in by Tuesday. . 

Reading:

Any bit of reading you can do with your child will be hugely benficial. The following link will take you to a list of great books that are recommended for year 4 children: https://shop.scholastic.co.uk/products/Pie-Corbetts-Reading-Spine-Year-4-Pack-x-7-9789951118682

This link will take you to a website that will suggest alternative options if your child enjoys one particular author or genre of book: https://www.booksfortopics.com/booklists/branching-out/

Whilst it is great when a child finds an author or genre that they love, it is also important that they branch out and try alternative authors or genres. The guide above will help you make suggestions for your child to try, based on what they know they already love.