Welcome to our class page! My name is Miss Patchett and I am the class teacher based in Lapwings four days a week. We also have Mrs White who will be teaching Lapwings all day on a Thursday.

On this page, I will outline what our Spring Term 2 curriculum looks like. If you have any questions about this or anything else, please do not hesitate to contact me; my door is always open. Otherwise, please email: admin@starcross-primary.devon.sch.uk

Key information

• PE days are Monday and Thursday. Please come in wearing your PE kit.
• Spelling is set on a Monday via Spelling Frame, where children can practice their spelling. We will then complete a spelling test at school on a
• TTRS is to be completed at least three times a week as well as reading at least 4-5 times a week. Please record any reading at home in their reading records. Records are checked every Friday morning.

Here is a weekly timetable for Lapwings. This term our school theme is ‘Super Scientists’ and our Year 4 topic is ‘What did Edison and Tesla harness?’

Our Whole Class Reading focus on a Monday and Friday will be The Great Chocoplot by Chris Callaghan. The Great Chocoplot is a fast-paced, funny children’s adventure about friendship, loyalty, and doing the right thing.

The story follows Jelly, a clever and determined girl who discovers that the world’s chocolate supply is under threat. A powerful and secretive corporation is plotting to take control of chocolate production, putting small, ethical chocolate makers at risk—and potentially ruining chocolate for everyone.

Our WCR sessions are supported by the Ashely Booth reading scheme and this term, Tuesday-Thursday, we will be looking at texts exploring Earth Day/bees, electricity, songs from musicals, novels and migration.

In English this term, our first text is called ‘Isle of Tum’ located just north of Antarctica. This model text will be explored in class to help pupils write their own setting descriptions.

 Our key objectives will be to:

• Use noun phrases expanded by the addition of modifying adjectives, nouns and preposition phrases e.g. the teacher expanded to: the strict maths teacher with curly hair.
• Focus on using apostrophes for plural possession
• Use commas after fronted adverbials
• Plan, draft and proof-read a story with the purpose of entertaining the reader

After this first unit, we will complete a second unit on Thomas Edison and Nikola Tesla, creating biographies.

Maths

This half term in Maths, our focus will be decimals. We use the White Rose Maths scheme for Maths lessons, as well as daily flashbacks to ensure that previous learning is embedded. We also have a times table focus in preparation for the multiplication times table check in the Summer as well as mastery maths for 10 minutes a day.

Science

In Science, our focus will be electricity. Children will explore common electrical appliances, build and draw circuits, investigate conductors and insulators, look at conductivity within a circuit as well as exploring why a circuit might not work.

Design Technology

In DT, our outcome will be to make a buzz wire map/game. We will explore different mechanisms, use our knowledge from our science topic of electricity, explore games that use electricity and design, create and evaluate our own buzz wire map/game.

PE

Lapwings PE days are: Monday and Thursday. This half term our focus will be athletics and alternative sports.

French

In French this half term, we will be focusing on ‘Ma famille’ In this unit pupils will learn the names of family members, describe their family and ask questions about each other’s families.

RWE

Children will focus on the key question ‘What does it mean to be a Hindu in Britain today?’ In this unit, pupils build on their understanding of Brahman and look at lived reality through examining Puja at home, worship in the mandir, and the festival of Diwali. Pupils will reflect on the idea of dharma through two stories which will sow seeds for examining this concept in more depth in Upper Key Stage 2.

PSHE

In PSHE, we use the scheme Jigsaw. This half term, we will be looking at ‘Relationships’ This unit will focus on jealousy, love and loss, memories, getting on and falling out and girlfriends and boyfriends.

Music