Welcome to Badger class! Our teacher is Mr Jones, who has joined our school this September, after 10 years working at other schools in Stevenage. He really enjoys sport and English, and is keen to make sure that our lessons are fun, inclusive and inspirational!    

• Our curriculum map - find out about our current topics
• Our latest school newsletter
• Meet our school councilors, Lacey and Daniel

Home learning ideas:

• As always, tables facts will be really important to us this term, so it would be brilliant if you could work on learning these at home. Focus on one table at a time and try:
  • Making-up rhymes to help remember number facts (“4 x 6 is 24, bears growl and lions roar!”) 
  • Looking for numbers in that table in the world around you - on doors, car number plates, in phone numbers or when you’re out shopping. 
  • Writing-out tables with finger paints, chalk or water-on-tarmac, or make them from playdoh. 
  • Chanting, singing, whispering... Say tables out loud together whenever you have the chance. 
• Each week we are set spellings to learn. Click here for guidance on strategies you can use to support your child in learning these at home.  
• We will be exploring persuasion this term, so keep an eye out for examples of this genre in the world around you, like adverts on YouTube or in magazines, or speeches being made by politicians on TV. How effective are they? What makes them persuasive?
• In history, we're learning about Ancient Britain. Archaeologists have found a surprising amount of relics from the Stone Age and Bronze Age in our local area, and you can find examples in Hitchin museum. Go to their website at www.northhertsmuseum.org to find out more about visiting. 
• In geography, we will be learning all about France, so this would be a great opportunity for any family members who have visited the country to share their experiences. What did they see, do, eat and drink? How similar or different was it to the UK? Has anyone seen the Alps, visited the Louvre or been up the Eiffel Tower?
• Investigate what magnets stick to - fridge magnets work fine, and you can investigate lots of different materials around the house. Try different metals and help your child discover that magnets only stick to some of them (mostly iron and steel).
• There’s some great advice on talking to children about online safety on the NSPCC website at www.nspcc.org.uk/keeping-children-safe/ We also use lots of resources from the UK Safer Internet Centre: saferinternet.org.uk/ 

Our latest news:

• We loved getting involved in this year’s Science Week. We particularly enjoyed the senses trail, trying to identify objects using just one of our senses. We also took part in the Knex Challenge, building model helicopters in pairs. During the week we also got to take part in a session with Teaching Talons, who introduced us to some of their amazing animals and built egg-drop contraptions which could safely carry an egg from the roof to the ground.  
 

 
•  On 27th February, we came to school in red, white and blue to celebrate USA Day and round-off this term’s geography topic. During the day we took part in three very different activities. First up, we were introduced to American Football, learning the names of key positions, practising a play and scoring a touchdown. For the second session, we made apple pies, slicing apples and rolling out pastry. Finally, we created American flags, choosing unusual tools to paint the stars and stripes.
 

 
• In history, we have learnt about the Romans and how they shaped Britain. To accompany our history learning, we have looked at a vast range of Roman mosaics, studied how they have been created and then designed and created our own mosaics. We explored the story of Boudicca and what challenges she faced. We spent three lessons studying, designing and creating our own Roman shields, which you can see below. 
 

 
• At the beginning of December, we went to our school trip to Hazard Alley. Through hands-on scenarios - like crossing roads, spotting fire risks, and learning about stranger danger - we discovered how to stay safe in everyday situations. The immersive environment gave us the chance to practise real-life skills in a fun and memorable way, boosting awareness and confidence. It was a day filled with teamwork, laughter, and valuable lessons that will stay with us long after the visit. 
 

 
• Our Year 3/4 Rapid Fire Cricket team were in action at the Stevenage Festival this term. After winning their heat, they qualified for the finals event in February. They played brilliantly, securing silver medals after finishing in second place and missing out on gold by just one point overall!
 

  
• We were delighted to be joined by so many of our parents and carers for our Stay and Read event in October. We talked about the reasons why reading regularly at home is so important, explored some of the things we can do to make it an enjoyable experience and shared lots of our favourite books. A big thank you to everyone who made time to join us in class. 

We have been learning about... 

Science - As part of our work on plants we carried out investigations to discover what they need to survive. We tried growing them in the dark, with no water or sealed in plastic bags (to give them no air). We recorded our observations carefully and used these to draw conclusions about the conditions needed for seeds to germinate and grow.

English - We have all been really trying hard to develop our writing this term, focussing on adding fronted adverbials (with a comma), using expanded noun phrases and similes when describing characters and settings, and ensuring that speech is accurately punctuated. Along with making sure our handwriting is the best it can be and all our spelling is tip-top, it’s a lot to remember all at once, but we have been working hard to draw all of these skills together and produce finished writing that we can be proud of. Over the last few weeks we have been working on writing stories inspired by the fantastic book Leon and the Place Between - and you can read a few extracts from our finished pieces below:

In a dark, cold, beautiful room, a little girl called Maren lived in a peaceful, warm house. She was the only child and her father had surprisingly passed away due to cancer. This all happened when she was five years old, and it made her very depressed. Six years later, when she was at her window, she spotted a weird looking creature in the centre of her garden. It was standing on her favourite flower, but when she blinked it disappeared in a flash. “What was that? I hope it does not come back!” Maren gasped in horror... 

By Atarah

The dark, purple portal was terrifying. All around me there were so many swirls. There were purple, pink and blue swirls around everything. Quickly, I turned and saw a strange figure! I ran for help. I ran faster and faster, because the strange figure was getting closer and closer all the time. Suddenly, the stranger shouted, “Come here!” 

Then I replied, “No, you monster! Leave me alone!” 

By Albi

This term's topics

English - Our next writing unit will see us creating our own adventure stories, using The Girl Who Stole an Elephant by Nizrana Farook as our core text. We will use this fantastic story to inspire our own character and setting descriptions, developing our use of sentences of different length to vary rhythm and engage the reader. We will then explore the plot structure, identifying how the author has used lots of ‘rise and fall’ elements to make the adventure particularly exciting. Finally, we will use all of these skills to write adventure stories of our own. After that, we will try to squeeze in a quick poetry unit before the end of term, using Marshmallow Clouds by Ted Kooser as our core text.

Maths - We’ve got lots of topics to pack into the last few weeks of the year. First up is time, where we’ll be developing our understanding of 24 hour time, checking we can read analogue clocks accurately and developing our problem solving skills. After that it’s statistics, where we’ll revise our understanding of bar charts and then move on to reading and interpreting line graphs. Then it’s on to negative numbers, using the context of temperature to help us to understand that 0 isn’t always the lowest you can go… Finally, we’ll be returning to shape, identifying acute and obtuse angles, learning about different types of triangles and plotting coordinates. Along the way, we’ll also continue to practice tables facts every day.

Science - We will be exploring different types of forces, including pushes, pulls, gravity and friction, and thinking about the way that these affect the way that objects move in different situations. We will design and carry out fair tests to see which materials create the most friction, and to discover which materials stick to magnets. We will also investigate different ways in which we can measure forces.

Humanities - In history, we will continue to explore the technological changes that occurred across the Bronze and Iron Ages, which (slowly) changed ways of life and introduced new clothes, homes, weapons and jobs. All of this helped us to make the most of our trip to Celtic Harmony Camp in June, when we got to experience a taste of Iron Age life! In geography, meanwhile, we will be exploring France! We will begin by locating France on a variety of maps, atlases and globes, and will use this understanding to identify reasons why France is important to the UK. We will use maps, photos and videos to explore a range of environments and climate zones within the country, and will compare life in France with that in the UK.

Take a look at our curriculum map for more information on our topics.