Year 3/4 - Woodpecker

Welcome to the Year 3 and 4 Phase at Arley Primary

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For our Year 3 pupils, this is the start of their Key Stage 2 experience where we encourage pupils to continue to work independently working to the best of their ability.  For our Year 4 pupils, they will also maximise their learning by applying the work ethic they started to develop last year.  We strive to develop pupils who will lead their own learning and always want to challenge themselves through a thirst for knowledge. We have high expectations for all of our pupils in Year 3 and 4. 

This is the very first mixed KS2 year group to be introduced at Arley Primary.  There are two classes: Year 3/4 Woodpecker (Mr Elmer’s Class) and Year 3/4 Owl (Mrs Orton and Mrs Gandy’s class).  These classes work together during the afternoons on a new exciting Creative Curriculum whose focus has shifted from skills to a knowledge based curriculum.  Our topics for this year are: Extreme Earth; The Struggle for Power (which includes local history of the Battle of Bosworth); and the Industrial Revolution.  All pupils will also be provided with a new passport to enable them to join the other pupils in our new “Arley Goes Global” initiative.  This will provided pupils with a wider world knowledge and appreciation and mutual respect of other cultures and religions. 

At Arley, we use continual assessment to target key skills in English and Maths. Every morning, the two classes will be taught in three different groups with Mrs Riley teaching the third group. This enables us to teach smaller groups and really target pupils’ needs in key Reading, Writing and Maths skills. Mrs Riley also runs a regular phonics group for those pupils who still need previously taught phonemes reinforcing. 

The Maths groups is organised as follows: one straight year four age appropriate group run by Mr Elmer; one straight year three age appropriate group run by Mrs Riley; and a third group for pupils who may need additional support and still need to consolidate basic Maths skills run by Mrs Gandy.  Mrs Gandy’s maths group always has a Teaching Assistant (Miss Cunningham) to support.  Our other TA, Mrs Graham, works with Challenge and Catch-up groups within the class; enabling us to be flexible to the needs of the children.  All work is planned around the White Rose materials; developing the pupils’ reasoning skills. 

The English groups are organised in a different way. As a school, we are always striving to develop children’s vocabulary. Research has shown that exposing children to a higher vocabulary and rich texts will help children to use a range of different language in their writing. Therefore, Mr Elmer, Mrs Riley and Mrs Gandy each have a mixed ability smaller group of children in the morning.

Children will continue to have spellings and tables to learn; tested on a weekly basis; and of course we all know the value of reading a variety of texts on a regular basis.  See if you can also widen your own child’s vocabulary through the introduction of new words and remember reading with your child will also help.  The children will collect stickers on their bookmarks each time they read at home. 

We work closely together in the Year 3 and 4 Phase ensuring that we provide your child with “new beginnings and endless possibilities.”