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. 
• 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 - We will begin the term by exploring persuasive letters and speeches, using the fantastic Malala’s Magic Pencil as our core text. We will investigate the use of conjunctions, adverbs and prepositions to link texts together, and identify differences between spoken and written arguments. We will complete the unit by writing persuasive letters of our own. Later in the term, we will switch our focus to non-chronological reports. We will learn to use commas, pronouns and the present perfect tense to make our writing clear, as well as exploring the use of organisational devices like subheadings and glossaries. All this will support us in writing our own reports on the subject of play.

Maths - Our main focus at the start of term will be on multiplication and division strategies. We will learn to use formal written strategies to multiply and divide 3-digit numbers by 1-digit numbers (solving calculations like 216 x 3 or 342 ÷ 6). We will then use these strategies to solve a variety of problems. Later in the term we will be developing our understanding of position, direction and co-ordinates, plotting and translating shapes and beginning to identify acute and obtuse angles within them. Throughout the term, we will also continue to practise and learn our tables facts, aiming to recall all our facts up to 12 x 12 in preparation for our tables check in June.

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 - Earlier in the year we investigated the Romans, and now we’ll be going back even further and thinking about what life was like in Britain before the Romans even arrived. We will begin by looking at the Stone Age and finding out what life was like thousands of years ago. We will then explore the technological changes that occurred across the Bronze and Iron Ages slowly changed ways of life, introducing new clothes, homes, weapons and jobs. We will look for evidence of all this in our local area, such as the hill forts found across North Herts and the Six Hills burial mounds behind Asda. All of this will help us to make the most of our trip to Celtic Harmony Camp in June, when we’ll get to experience a taste of Iron Age life!

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