PRIMARY 3/4 NEWS LETTER – TERM 1
Welcome back! We hope that you all had a relaxing summer holiday. Primary 3/4 has a very exciting and busy
term ahead of us with highlights including our topic on Endangered Animals, a trip to the zoo, a visit to the
National Museum to see the Super Hero Science show and much more! I have enjoyed getting to know your
children over the past couple of weeks and look forward to working alongside parents to ensure primary 3/4 is a
year of enjoyment and success for all.
ENGLISH AND LITERACY
This term your child will be:
 Continuing to read and write using different genres. This term will focus on the structure of imaginative
stories (beginning, middle and end), recipe writing and information leaflets linked to our topic.
 Continuing to improve writing skills by focusing on vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation
(VCOP).
 Developing questioning skills during reading sessions and beginning to ask complex questions about the
plot and author’s use of style. Children will also be developing their skills in creating their own questions
based on texts read.
 Continuing to use dictionaries and thesauruses to extend vocabulary.
 Practicing their handwriting and presentation skills.
 Developing grammar knowledge and in particular, the correct use of capital letters, full stops, question
marks and exclamation marks.
 Implementing a variety of spelling strategies and will continue to complete a weekly spelling challenge.
This term the spelling focuses will be soft c, silent b, silent w, silent k, wh and ph.
 Develop and share their enjoyment of reading during independent reading times. The children will
continue to enjoy visits to the class library where they will have the opportunity to borrow books and
read for pleasure. Children will show their understanding by independently completing book reviews.
This will further develop their ability to express preferences in their reading and their skills in
summarising.
NUMERACY AND MATHS
This term your child will be: 
 Developing their mental maths skills by continuing to practise their skip counting in a variety of numbers
as well as building their forward and backward number sequences.

Developing their understanding of place value and the importance of ‘0’.
 Exploring a range of strategies for effective mental addition and subtraction based on their
understanding of place value.

Exploring the different ways of collecting and displaying data including bar charts, pictograms and Venn
diagrams.
 Building on their understanding of reading analogue clocks and developing their ability to read digital
time.
HEALTH AND WELLBEING
P.E. lessons will be taught every Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. P3/4 will be developing the skills necessary
for playing invasion type games with a focus on basketball and tag rugby. We will also be building our ability to
cooperate within a team and display the qualities of good sportsmanship. Please support us by providing your
child with a gym bag to be kept in school with a pair of gym shoes, gym shorts and a t-shirt. The p4s will also be
completing a block of swimming. Please ensure children come prepared with kit on Wednesdays.
This term there is a whole school focus on ‘Friendship’ using the Creating Confident Kids Resource Pack. Primary
3/4 will be focusing on the qualities that make a good friend, what we should expect from a good friend and
how we can be good friends to others. We will also be discussing the things that we can do and whom we can
talk to when we feel someone is not being a good friend.
RME -
We will be discussing the importance and significance of “Harvest” and “Succoth”.
SCIENCE -
The p3’s will be investigating different forces as well as looking at magnets. Learning will be
complimented by a trip to the National Museum in September. The whole class will then be looking at how to
categorise living and non-living things as part of our IDL topic. We will also be investigating the ways in which
animals depend on other animals in their habitat by looking at food webs.
DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES - Primary 3/4 will continue to develop their ICT skills through the
continuous use of the interactive Smart Board and I-pads in class. We will have opportunities to work with the
I-Pads in class to access web sites, which will facilitate our topic work. We will also be using the laptops on a
weekly basis so that children can develop skills in word processing and PowerPoint.
EXPRESSIVE ARTS –
P3/4 will be working with the art specialist Mrs. Martin this term where they
will be exploring the use of different materials to create artwork related to our topic. They will also be working
with Mr. Briggs in Music.
INTERDISCIPLINARY STUDY
In P3/4 our main topic study this term is Endangered Animals. We will be using this topic as a context for
developing our skills in mapping and our understanding of food webs. We will also be exploring human impact on
the natural world and the measures we can take to reduce this.
There will be a long-term homework task linked to our Endangered animal’s project, which will be issued shortly
By the end of the term your child will be able to:
Discuss what a habitat is and the different things animals require of their habitat in order to survive.
Explain that there are a number of different habitats in the world and be able to identify some of these on a
map.
Understand what is meant by a food cycle and relate this to why animals live in certain habitats
Begin to understand human impact on the natural world and offer suggestions as to how we can help protect
endangered animals.
A CURRICULUM FOR EXCELLENCE
In Term 1, we aim to reflect the four areas of the Curriculum in the following ways:
Successful Learners: learning intentions and success criteria will continue to be shared through “I am learning
to” statements and lessons will continue to be relevant and stimulating with lots of opportunities for meaningful
learning.
Confident Individuals: pupils will be encouraged to prepare and ask questions and show initiative.
Effective Contributors: we will work in cooperative learning groups and in our House teams to complete a
number of tasks and challenges.
Responsible Citizens: pupils will continue to be encouraged to take some responsibility for their own behaviour
and learning
HOMEWORK
Homework tasks will be given out on Tuesday to be returned on Monday. Spelling should be practised over four
nights (practise all words once on night 1 then repeat night 2 etc.). Throughout the term the children will be
given project-based homework. You will be given details of this at the time, either in your child’s homework
journal or by letter.
Pupils should bring a pencil case, with a sharpened pencil and a rubber to class each day. Please check
schoolbags for letters, permission slips etc.
I look forward to meeting you at our Curriculum Evening on the 15th September.
Miss Stewart