Otley and Witnesham Partnership

Mrs Fowler: Monday - Wednesday

Mr Sampson: Thursday & Friday

Supported by: Mrs Leggett and Mrs Utteridge

Welcome to Class 4 at Otley! 

Relationships are really important to us and being part of a small, unique group allows us the time and opportunity to get to know each other really well. Everyone is valued and has a part to play in our class, school and local community. We each have something unique to give! 

Class 4 is taught by Mrs Fowler and Mr Sampson and supported by the expertise of Mrs Leggett and Mrs Utteridge. Being a small and tight-knit group, we have co-created a strong class ethos based on respect, kindness and responsibility. The children are ambassadors for the school and role models for the younger children. Class 4 provides them the opportunity to become Young Leaders in lunchtime games on the playground, as well as additional responsibilities in circle time assemblies with the whole school, managing the library and preparing the hall for assemblies and performances. These opportunities also extend to sports, where there are a number of events and competitions the children can participate in across the calendar, in addition to weekly swimming lessons in the Autumn term.

We favour a cross-curricular approach to learning, whereby many areas of the wider curriculum link to our driver topics in Geography and History. For example, our Britain at War topic in summer will be reflected in our reading and writing sessions as well as our Design and Technology unit on Make Do and Mend.

A Day in the Life of Class 4

After registration, a typical day in Class 4 begins with Mrs Fowler’s favourite lesson: Reading! We enjoy shared reading of our class text and learn the skills of how to skim, scan and identify relevant information efficiently in order to answer different VIPERS questions. This stands for:

• Vocabulary (meaning of words in context, synonyms)
• Infer (read for clues/between the lines)
• Predict (referring to what has been read already and what we know of the characters so far)
• Explain (author choices of language, techniques or layout/presentation in picture books)
• Summarise (stating what has happened, in order, succinctly)

Reading is followed by a Writing lesson, which is linked to the text we are reading. Our first book of the year is ‘Freedom’ by Catherine Johnson; a book that explores the issue of slavery through the eyes of the protagonist, Nat. This will lay the foundations of our History unit on the Maafa in the second half of the term, where we will understand better how the slave trade impacted the lives of the people of Benin, Africa. 

After break time, we have a Maths lesson which always begins with daily practice of number and calculation questions to build their factual fluency, confidence and efficiency as mathematicians. We follow the White Rose Maths scheme, which endorses a mastery approach to Maths learning. Units are carefully sequenced to build upon each other and take the children through the curriculum in a logical and progressive way, whereby the next unit builds on from the previous. The children will regularly have the opportunity to solve problems with access to resources to support them in this. Year 6 children will encounter past SATs paper questions ready for their turn next May.

After lunch, our afternoon sessions begin and this is where the children will acquire knowledge and skills across a wide range of foundation subjects including: Geography, History, Science, RE, Art, DT, PE, Music and French. We are keen to engage the children in their topics and encourage them to bring in things from home that link to these e.g. books, photos, resources, objects etc. We love to show passion, pride and progress in our teaching and learning!

Homework

In Class 4 all homework is given out on a Friday. It is then collected the following Friday. This gives each child a chance to organise their own workload over the week and take on more independence. A typical week’s homework given out would consist of:

• Spelling practice focused on a specific sound/spelling pattern
• Daily reading for at least 20 mins
• Times Table practice (e.g. TTRockstars, Hit the Button, Multiplication Snap with playing cards, writing times tables out, learning times tables songs etc.)

Extra Information

Our PE days are Monday and Wednesday.  Please make sure that your child has their PE kit in school on these days. They are very welcome to leave them on their peg until half term, when they can go home for a wash!  Earrings must be removed and long hair tied back. On Wednesday, we go swimming at Framlingham College so please ensure the children have all their kit (costume/shorts, towel, swimming hat and goggles if desired) is in school each week.

Please make sure that all items of clothing and water bottles are labelled with your child’s name so that we can easily find anything if it gets lost.

Take a look at our latest Class Newsletter to see what we are up to: