Year 3/4

Welcome to the Middle School

Dear Middle School families,

Welcome to Cheltenham Primary School's Middle School for the 2024 academic year! To our new families and those who have recently joined our Middle School community, we extend a warm greeting. The journey ahead in our Middle School is filled with excitement as we eagerly anticipate a year packed with incredible events and engaging learning activities. In the first couple of weeks, we have focused on building connections, establishing routines, and setting behaviour expectations. This sets the stage for creating a positive learning environment and laying the foundation for your child to thrive as an active and engaged learner. We look forward to the collaborative efforts of teachers, students, and parents to make this school year memorable and successful. Together, we aim to foster an environment that nurtures curiosity, encourages growth, and supports the holistic development of each student. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to the Year 3 / 4 team.

Introducing the Middle School team:

What we are learning about in Term One

Setting our students up for Success - Grow Your Mind - Well Being Program

The Grow Your Mind program is an empowering and positive mental health program dedicated to building resilience and promoting overall well-being. It is a comprehensive approach to nurturing mental and emotional health in all aspects of a child's life. What sets "Grow Your Mind" apart is its innovative approach, establishing a direct link between social and emotional education and the intricate workings of the brain. With the use of animal analogies, the program deals with complex concepts for our young inspiring minds. It also aims to foster understanding while creating a shared language for discussions surrounding mental health and well-being.

Mathematics

Year 3/4 students will spend Term 1 consolidating and then extending fundamental mathematical concepts, while nurturing critical thinking and problem-solving skills. They will focus on mastering the place value system up to 10,000, identifying odd and even numbers, and advancing their understanding of addition and subtraction. Students will explore practical applications for temperature by developing proficiency in interpreting Celsius and Fahrenheit scales. They will also tackle time-related skills, reading analogue and digital clocks, and calculating elapsed time. Finally, Year 3/4 will enjoy learning about location and mapping, enhancing spatial awareness and map interpretation.

Through the power of ‘yet’ and the importance of making mistakes to help us learn, we are encouraging students to approach Mathematics, and all our curriculum areas, with a growth mindset. In Mathematics, this includes learning and understanding the many different strategies to approach a question and discovering which strategy works for you. 

Literacy - Reader’s Workshop: 

The use of the Reader's Notebook model has highly effective outcomes and improved engagement for our literacy lessons. This approach guides students in selecting books that align with their reading comprehension, commonly referred to as their ‘Best Fit Books”, and dedicating substantial time for independent reading. A crucial element of this strategy involves providing students with the opportunity to engage in authentic discussions and “wonderings” about their chosen books, creating a supportive atmosphere for learning. Recognising the significance of student engagement, the freedom to select their own books is encouraged, aiming to instil a lifelong love for reading. With the guidance and enthusiasm of our passionate Middle School teaching team, students can acquire the skills to choose their “Best Fit Books” and uncover the immense joy associated with reading.

Literacy - Writer’s Workshop

The Writer's Workshop serves as a unique space for students to compile and nurture their

 thoughts, emotion and ideas to act as a springboard for inspirational writing. To develop this creative process, we encourage students to bring in visual representations, such as: pictures, magazine clippings, photos, movie/concert/plane tickets etc. These items should reflect their interests, passions, hobbies, connections with family and friends, or simply aspects of their individuality. We will use these ideas to help write a variety of writing structures for different audiences. If there are specific photos or keepsakes that you prefer not to be permanently affixed in their notebooks, please inform us. 

Ultimately, Writer's Workshop focuses on the process of writing and helps students develop as writers through regular opportunities to write, read, and share their work. Our Year 3/4s can explore their ideas, receive feedback, and develop their writing skills through a series of mini-lessons, independent writing time, and peer and teacher conferencing.

We will be combining this with the 6+1 Writing Traits program to help our students become confident and effective writers by teaching them six key characteristics of good writing, including: Ideas, Organisation, Voice, Word Choice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation. Through experience, we have seen this approach help students develop strong writing skills and a love of writing (or at the very least an improved attitude!)

‘Local Government’ for our Civics and Citizenship topic

Our Inquiry topic for Term 1 is Civics & Citizenship. Students in Year 3 and 4, will investigate the roles of the local government, reviewing the various services they provide. They will learn to distinguish between rules and laws, recognizing the significance of these regulations in maintaining order and promoting fairness. Through interactive and thought-provoking activities, Year 3 and 4 students will develop a keen understanding of the democratic processes, local governance and the importance of rules and laws in fostering a just and cohesive society. Specifically, students will learn to:

• Identify how and why decisions are made democratically in communities.
• Explain the roles of local government and some familiar services provided at the local level.
• Explain how and why people make rules. 
• Distinguish between rules and laws and discuss why rules and laws are important.
• Investigate why and how people participate within communities and cultural and social groups.

Setting up Google Drive and Google Classroom

We have already set up Google Drive and Google Classroom, which are powerful tools that make it easy for students and teachers to collaborate, share, and access information. With Google Drive, students can store, access, and edit their work from anywhere, on any device. How great is that?

Google Classroom, on the other hand, allows us to create and manage assignments, give and receive feedback, and communicate with our students and parents, all in one place. 

NAPLAN

NAPLAN is in mid-March this year. This means results will be available earlier in the year to inform and support us to evaluate our teaching and learning programs to support students and ensure they are gaining important literacy and numeracy skills.

In both the literacy and numeracy tests, students demonstrate their understanding of specific grammar rules or processes for solving an equation, however, they also show their ability to navigate multiple-choice questions, interpret instructions, and understand how to write for a specific audience and purpose. 

We want our Year 3s to have secure abilities in literacy and numeracy, and to have the self-management skills to do their best under pressure and time constraints. For our Year 3s it is essential that we build their confidence so that they have the best opportunity to show what they can do.

Leading into NAPLAN, we aim to prepare our students by making sure that they are familiar

 with the format of these tests and the structure of the questions. What is most important is that our students don’t fear NAPLAN.

How you can help with student's learning at home

• Cooking involving measurement and temperatures.
• Using and paying with money.
• Telling the time and calculating time duration e.g. When does basketball start and finish?
• Use a calendar to calculate durations of weeks/months.
• Use time management skills to help around the house e.g. Dinner takes 20 minutes to cook in the oven, tell me when it is ready?
• Using maps to find locations.
• Create a map or timeline based on the story they are reading.
• Verbalise a summary of the page/chapter/book they are reading.
• Explore non-fiction books focusing on the different ways information is presented.
• Playing games such as: monopoly, scrabble, boggle, chess or online math games.
• Writing reports/stories about their sporting games or hobbies.
• Keep a diary to complete ‘Short Burst’ recount writing about a day, week or weekend.
• Find and practise 5 new words they see from their reading book

Notes/reminders

• If you would like to help to improve our Class Libraries, please could you donate children’s reading books to class teachers.
• Please keep collecting pictures and clippings for your child’s Writer’s Notebook.
• Continue to sign reading logs in student diaries.
• To start the year please ensure students with iPads have downloaded the following apps: Drive, Docs, Sheets, Slides, Classroom and Epic. 
• Please contact your child’s class teacher if you are interested in being the class Social Rep.

Term 1 Important Dates:

4 March - District Swimming  

11 March Labour Day Public Holiday

13-20 March NAPLAN

21 March School Photograph Day

Term 2 Intensive Swimming Program (more information to come through Compass soon)

28 March Last Day of Term 1, 2024. Dismissal at 2:30 pm

Year 3/4 camp is booked for Term 4. If you have any questions please let us know. It is encouraged for students to participate in a sleepover and start practising packing bags in preparation.

Parent 'Meet and Greet' Meetings

Parent teacher ‘Meet and Greet’ meetings will be in person and scheduled for the 20th and 27th of February between 3:40pm and 5:50pm. Details for bookings are on Compass. 

Please feel free to make an appointment if you feel that you need to discuss any issues, concerns or have any queries regarding the curriculum. Our doors are always open so please don’t hesitate to contact us. 

All further updates throughout the term will also be in the School Newsletter and through the Compass app. 

Thanks again for your support and we are looking forward to a brilliant 2024!

Kind Regards,

The Middle School Team

Trevor Snelling, David Senior, Jessica Kennedy, Caroline Wainrib, Michael McKinnon and Tom Perkin