Year 4 Term 2 Newsletter

Teaching Team

4A - Sarah Lazzaro (PLC Leader)

4B - Robyn Apostolopoulos and Rebecca Robinson

Welcome to Term 2

Welcome to Term 2! We hope you all enjoyed a relaxing break and are feeling refreshed for another exciting term of learning ahead. It has been wonderful to see the students return with positive attitudes, smiling faces, and enthusiasm for reconnecting with their classmates and teachers.

This term promises to be filled with engaging learning opportunities, new challenges, and many memorable experiences. We look forward to continuing to support each student as they grow in confidence, independence, and curiosity throughout the weeks ahead.

 Specialist Timetable

Important Dates

05/05: District Cross Country

08/05: Mother's Day Stall & Open Classrooms (2:15pm-3:15pm)

12/05: Special Food Day

18/05: Curriculum Day (no students)

18/05: Parent/Carer and Teacher Learning Progress Meetings (session 1-1:00–3:30pm)

21/05: Parent/Carer and Teacher Learning Progress Meetings (session 2-1:30–3:30pm)

08/06: King's Birthday Public Holiday

19/06: NGV Excursion

26/06: Last Day of Term 2 - 2:30pm finish

Electronic Rolls

Our electronic rolls are legal documents; therefore, we must be accountable for any absences. If you haven't logged the absence ahead of time, please assist with this and inform the school by replying to the text message sent by Compass in the event of your child being away.

Teaching and Learning

Reading and Viewing 

This term in Reading and Viewing, students will continue developing the strategies used by effective readers to strengthen their comprehension skills. Through a range of engaging activities and discussions, students will explicitly learn how to:

• self-monitor their understanding while reading
• identify an author’s purpose
• make inferences using clues from the text and their prior knowledge

As part of our class learning, students will explore the novel Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo. This rich and engaging text will support students in developing comprehension strategies, discussing themes and characters, and responding thoughtfully to literature.

Students will also continue to read one-on-one with their teacher to further develop their individual reading strategies. Personal reading goals will be discussed and practised during independent reading time to support each student’s growth and confidence as a reader.

Writing

This term, students will explore persuasive text types with a focus on understanding their structure and language features. They will build their vocabulary and background knowledge through research and use this information to write persuasive paragraphs that include clear opinion statements supported by relevant details and evidence.

Students will continue developing their ability to organise ideas into well-structured paragraphs by grouping similar ideas together and writing increasingly complex sentences. They will also strengthen their skills in planning, drafting, revising, editing, and publishing their writing pieces.

As part of our study of English Orthography, students will further investigate how the written word works, with a particular focus on how join changes occur when adding suffixes to base words.

Speaking and Listening

Through a range of activities across all areas of the curriculum, students will continue to develop their speaking and listening skills by identifying key points in discussions and contributing actively to class and group conversations. They will practise adapting their language and responses to suit different contexts and audiences.

Using our class novel, Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo as a springboard for discussion, students will be encouraged to share, explain, and justify their thoughts and ideas about characters, themes, and events within the text.

We will also continue to have regular discussions about Learnership, recognising that everyone is on their own learning journey. Students will be encouraged to identify and work within their individual learning zones — understanding that feeling challenged or uncomfortable at times is an important part of learning and developing new skills.

Mathematics

This term in Mathematics, students began by completing our unit on Multiplication and Division before moving into learning about Decimals. Throughout the term, students will also explore units on Length and Area, 2D Shape, Data Representation, and revisit Addition and Subtraction concepts.

Our goal is to support confident, long-term success in Mathematics by helping students develop a deep understanding of mathematical concepts through clear, structured learning experiences. We encourage students to think critically, make connections between concepts, tackle challenges with confidence, justify their reasoning, and embrace the problem-solving process.

Throughout the term, students will collaborate with their peers to strengthen their communication and reasoning skills. Formative assessments and student work samples will continue to guide our teaching and support students in taking ownership of their learning journey.

Outside of the classroom, students are encouraged to continue practising their addition and multiplication facts to improve their speed, accuracy, and confidence.

Humanities

Our Humanities inquiry focus question this term is, "How and why is Australia similar and different to Africa and South America?" Students will investigate the features of each place and describe the characteristics that are similar and different. They will identify and explain how the environment supports the lives of people and other living things.

Students will develop the skills of mapping while learning all about features of a map, such as legend, compass and scale. They will locate places on a map.  They will develop skills in evaluating by considering how and why places are different.

Students will celebrate their findings by creating a Travel Brochure after the unit.

Wellbeing

CEPS VALUES

COURTESY    RESPECT    CO-OPERATION    RESPONSIBILITY 

This term, the value our school is focusing on is RESPECT. Opportunities will be provided for students to explore various skills through age-appropriate activities. Friday afternoon assembly awards will be given to children leading by example. Parents of award recipients will be notified by the classroom teacher via Dojo before Friday’s assembly.

Supporting Learning from Home

Homework

With exceptionally busy lives, we have found over the previous years that many families are struggling to find the time to meet ‘deadlines’ with homework. This year we will provide work throughout the year and are happy to support families with their requirements by reviewing work on request, answering questions, and providing targeted support to students as needed. 

Homework, as detailed below, shouldn’t be more than 90 minutes per week.

Things you can do at home that will support your child’s learning:

• Read! Read as much and as often as you can. Read aloud. Be read to. Share a book. Compare books. Have conversations about what you are reading. Aim for a minimum of 15 minutes at least four nights during the week.

• Maths. Students should spend half an hour every week focused on developing fluency with number facts. They could play dice or card games, help with real-world maths like shopping, or use Mathletics as a study tool (students can choose an activity that suits their needs; teachers can provide guidance if needed).

• Challenge. Students thrive with challenge, but struggle with failure. They only learn to manage adversity by surviving failure. Give them opportunities to fail safely. Eg, cook dinner (almost) on their own, make the shopping list for the week, plan and coordinate an outing with a friend.

Communication

You are welcome to contact your classroom teacher via email through Compass. Whilst families are navigating the transition to Compass, we are also still using Dojo for messages between parents and teachers at this stage. This is likely to be phased out at some stage this year. We are also still currently using Dojo to share learning updates from our classrooms.

With that said, you are always more than welcome to pop into the classroom before or after school if you have any queries or concerns. 

Whilst we endeavour to get back to you promptly, please understand that we are often unable to check these messages until after 3:30pm. If you need an important message to be passed on to your child, we ask that you communicate this via the office (e.g. to advise that your child will be collected early or by another family member). The office will then pass the message on to your child's classroom teacher.

Compass: Compass is the formal tool for communication regarding attendance, payments, excursions, camps, permission forms, school reports, etc.

Please use Compass to advise the school in a timely manner of all student absences.

Early Pick Up: If you need to pick up your child early, please collect them from the office area and be sure to sign them out. You will require an Early Leaver's Pass, provided by the office staff, before we are able to dismiss students. 

You can also keep up-to-date by using the school website and weekly newsletters:  http://www.cheltenhameast.vic.edu.au