What's Happening in the Classroom

Year 3/4

The Year 3/4  class has put into practice the theories behind Challenging Learning. Across the curriculum, the children have been using dialogue to spur conversations about the topics, giving critical feedback using the success criteria and focusing on growth by being comfortable with the amount of struggle and challenge presented to them.

For Writing, the children significantly improved in describing their narratives' settings and characters. Using visualising, explicit teaching strategies and scaffolding, the children could use their five senses and knowledge of adverbs and adjectives to give imaginative descriptions. They also participated in a learning gallery where they read their classmates' Writing and provided feedback on their descriptions. It was a successful activity where the children gave valuable feedback not on how good they were at drawing or how neat the handwriting was but on the content and the number of descriptions used.

In Maths, there were lots of dialogue using Four Corners, Think-Pair-Share and WAGOLL (What a Good One Looks Like). The children started using the Launch-Explore-Connect model when learning about Fractions. The students were initially presented with a problem to solve. With the help of a partner or through class discussions, they figured out how to solve the problem. It is essential that they learn how to struggle at first, to estimate and check but most importantly, not to give up easily!

The children also had a go at building up their skills and knowledge in Religious Education in a challenging way. They used creative methods to retell the parables they were learning at school. One example is the scripture jump, where the children enjoyed acting out essential parts of the play. What is important here is that everyone has an opportunity to act out a role and work cooperatively in a group.

The Year 3/4s can't wait to show everyone at school how they have been using Challenging Learning in their day-to-day learning at Holy Family.

Cristina Elicano

Year 3/4 Classroom Teacher