Our Library System:

https://ukhosted21.renlearn.co.uk/6705615/default.aspx

Our library system is up and running. Renaissance Reading is an online system where children are tested and their comprehension skills evaluated. The children are then given specific reading targets and a reading range. Children select reading books from their reading range. Children can still progress through to higher ranges. After each book, children are quizzed through the system to ascertain their understanding of what they have read. The link is unique to our school and must be clicked before logging in. Logins are held within school and can be given at child or parent's request.

Welcome to 4SA! 

We are taught by Mr Aisthorpe and Mrs Turner.

Please explore our class page to see our amazing learning.

Our values are behind everything we do at Westgate. Check them out below...

Term 6!

Well done to our recent Teacher Star - Sienna. Well done to our Class Star - Mia. You have both had a wonderful two weeks and deserve these accolades. 

4SA wrote and performed a video to say well done to the Class Star, Mia.

Lyrics

Today is gonna be the day that Mia becomes class star

I’m sure you’ve never seen before the way she shows her workings out

I don’t believe that anybody shows as much excellence as Mia now

And all the positivity is blinding

And all her excellence is undying

There are many things that we could say about Mia now, so I guess we’ll try

I said Mia,

You’re on a higher tier

And afterall

You are wonderful

TTRS

Children in 4SA have made a great start to Term 6. They arrived having defended their Times Table Rockstars title, having got a score better than all other classes in the school combined. A wonderful achievement.

Fluency

The children have got up and practised the Westgate 6 P's of reading today. In the video below, the children are reading Caterpillar by Christina Rossetti. They focused on pitch, power, pace, punctuation, passion and pause.

Deserts!

Children have learned about desert habitats. The children have also looked at how animals in these habitats adapt to their environments. The children used their knowledge to create their own Planet Earth style videos. Below is a snippet from one of our videos.

Term 5!

Whisby Trip

Firstly, we learnt about den building. We used our skills to work as a team and build a den that would be best suited to all weather conditions.

Then, we learnt about what makes an insect, an insect. We learnt about compound eyes, head, thorax, abdomen, two part wings and legs.

After that, we went bug catching. We used a variety of nets to investigate different habitats within Whisby. We caught lots of exciting and interesting bugs and insects.

Finally, we were introduced to the top nine creatures lurking within Whisby pond. We were challenged to find them all. We did! Not only did we find the top nine, but we found a grand total of 16 different species. We had the best day and learnt so much.

Term 5 Week 6 Fluency

Reading in 4SA is not just about reading books and practising comprehension questions. We also focus on the 6P's of reading during oracy and fluency lessons. Here, children of 4SA are practising the very difficult tongue-twisting poem 'Lollity, Poppity Day'. The focus is on: pause, power, pace, punctuation, pitch and passion.

Finishing our Clay Trencadis Animals

Children did a great job finishing their clay trencadis animals in the penultimate week of Term 5. Here are a selection of the finished structures. Not all of them made it intact unfortunately, but the children loved making them and learnt valuable skills. Some of these projects will displayed around the school as expert pieces of learning.

Maths Working

Children have been working hard taking part in all sorts of maths. Here the children are getting to grips with ordering money.

4SA Stars Week 5 

Teacher Star - Milla

Class Star - Amy 

The children described Amy as always smiling, showing great belief, a great role model and a great singer and dancer. Here is the accompanying video shown at the Stars Assembly.

Clay Animals

As part of our Science themed topic, 'All Creatures Great and Small' children have been making clay animals in Art lessons. Here are some pictures of the process.

Opinion Blogs

Children have been working on a difficult question for a period of a few weeks, 'Should Animals Be Kept in Zoos?' Take a look at our wonderful published pieces...

We like to do Class Star a little bit differently in 4SA. Children selected some key words that they felt defined our recent Class Star, 'Flynn'. The words chosen were, "excellence, great effort, teamwork." We then used these words and turned them into a video to show Hollywood support. Well done to our Week 3 stars - Flynn and Ralphy.

Praise and rewards

In 4SA we continue with the following rewards:

Star of the Week - our in class reward system

Teacher Star of the Fortnight

Class Star of the Fortnight

Daily Maths Star

Daily English Star

Star of the Day

Winning House Team - weekly leaders table across the school and termly rewards for the winners. 

Week 1 Stars

Such was the fabulous achievement of our Class Star of the Fortnight, Alfie, it was felt that footballing celebrities were needed to elaborate on his successes. Take a look at a standard silly video enjoyed by the class at the recent Stars Assembly. A fantastic effort has been shown by our Teacher Star, 'Leo'. He has done brilliantly in all lessons and deserves this recognition.

We have made a sprinting start to Term 5. 

Allow me to publicly congratulate 4SA for winning the Easter Times Table Rockstars competition.

4SA had the highest overall score, with a score 3x bigger than the next best across the school. 4SA also had the best overall average across Westgate. Individual honors go to Alfie, who was the highest scoring pupil in the whole of Westgate Academy! A special mention goes to Evan and Leo for getting 2nd and 3rd place respectively across the whole school. This was a great team effort as 18 out of the 23 children in 4SA took part. This is a fantastic achievement and the class should be very proud of this achievement. 

Bug Lady

The children enjoyed a visit from The Bug Lady UK as she helped us launch our new topic of 'All Creatures Great and Small.' The children were up close and personal with some lovely creepy crawlies.

Debate

Children have started work on Zoos and the question: Should animals be kept in zoos? We have looked at the arguments for and the arguments against this statement.

Here is our mock House of Commons debate on the subject:

Term 4!

British Science Week 2022

The children have take part in thought-provoking Scientific experiments as part of British Science Week 2022. The theme this year is growth. The children have experimented with different materials to home penguins. They have used various different materials and tested them against wind and rain. The children have also created their own animals, capable of living and thriving on Mars. Take a look at some photos here:

WORLD BOOK DAY 2022

Take a look at some of our wonderful learning this term.

Below are two videos from our new unit of English: Stories with Imaginary Settings. The children have started to use questioning to evoke the emotions of characters within stories. Here, they are hot-seating the character RJ from 'Over The Hedge'.

We have been writing about stories with issues and dilemmas. Children have really enjoyed the cross-curricular links with modern history.

In Art, children have had a focus on photography. They started by looking at David Hockney, replicating his style and then developing their own style by using iPads to aid photography and editing skills.

In Terms 3 and 4, we learn about Geography. The children have studied and explored regions, and climates and compared different areas of the world to our own landscape in Lincoln.

Term 3

Our focus in term 3 is Europe! We will be focusing on the geography of Europe and immersing ourselves in the European environment. 

Chocolate Persuasion

We have been working on a top secret persuasion unit! We can tell you that we are creating a chocolate product and presenting it to three business 'Dragons' at the end of term. Our chocolate product is related to our European country - Sweden. We have been working for weeks on creating our best writing, making videos and generally having fun with our wonderful chocolate brand.

Exciting DT Project

Our DT this term links in with our Science. We are building up our knowledge of materials and electricity over the term. At the end of the term, we will create our own European monuments. Children are encouraged to bring any suitable recyclable materials in to school in order for us to use in school. We will recycle anything that we don't use. Thank you to those children who have already brought in some materials. We are happy for old cartons, kitchen rolls, plastic etc. If you are unsure, bring it in as we can always dispose of what we don't need.

WOW Days

In our first two days of term 3, we have been looking in detail at 4 European countries. These countries are Sweden, Denmark, Italy and Spain. We have tasted food, listened to music, embraced festival life, played with lego and made maps with pasta. Take a look below at some of the work we have been completing:

Knowledge Organisers

We use knowledge organisers in Topic and Science as a reference for children to check all the learning objectives and coverage for the term. Take a look below...

New Displays

Our displays have been changed to fit in with our European theme.

French

As our topic is Europe, we learn some of the French language in term 3. We are learning about French greetings. Follow the link to see how we teach and learn about the subject...

https://www.languageangels.com/schools/index.php/resources?lid=MQ==&tid=MQ==&uid=MTQ=&lsid=Mw==

PSHE

Our PSHE topic at the moment looks at Money. PSHE links with our Westgate Values. Our values are always displayed for children to see and we focus on one value in every lesson.

Let's Get Active

In 4SA we have regular activity breaks. Getting up off our chairs and being active for two minutes has been proven to increase long and short term memory. Below the children are enjoying rock, paper scissors.

RE

In RE, we learn about lots of different religions. RE takes place on Thursdays. Here is an example of some excellent learning.

Spelling

In spelling we choose words from the National Curriculum for Year 4, statutory spelling lists, exemption words and common words. We use a variety of methods to help us remember spellings. Look at some examples below.

PE

In Outdoor PE, we are learning about Rugby. We have been throwing, catching and learning the basic rules. We are building up towards a game of Tag Rugby at the end of term. In the hall we do Real PE. Real PE teaches the skills and techniques behind sports rather than a given sport itself. Have a look at our skills boards below.

Our Morning Routine

In the mornings we start with mindfulness activities and sometimes silent reading.

What we looked at in Terms 1 and 2

Take a look at our timetable if you would like to see what we do each day.

If children need to find learning, for isolation or any other purposes, this can now be accessed from the Remote Learning section of the website under Year 4.

Topic

Terrible Tudors!

Our Topic focuses on the Tudor period for terms 1 and 2. The children immerse themselves in all things to do with Tudors during these two terms. Our classroom is Tudor themed and our topic runs through all of our other subjects. See our displays and work exemplars below.

Maths

You can follow what we learn each week in maths and all other subjects on the curriculum pages of our website. There are also individual learning objectives within the documents.

Our maths display is bordered to represent Tudor housing. There is a vocabulary list that the children update and refer to in order to expand their technical mathematical vocabulary. We also have a section called 'Let's talk maths' which encourages the children to use verbal and written reasoning to explain their answers. The children are shown how to relate their mathematical concepts to real life situations.

Children have been doing a great job checking their own work with purple pencil.

Maths Diamond Challenge

Oh no! Mr Aisthorpe's Tudor brother has been let loose in the classroom. Diamond Mathematicians, can you complete the questions he has set? 

Remember for an extra challenge to check out these websites and focus on times tables, multiplication and division facts:

The children have been amazing engaging in Times Table Rock Stars. Keep it up and ask if you need your login.

https://ttrockstars.com/   

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button

English

Super Shakespeare! Here are our Non-Chronological Reports that 4SA have done about the wonderful William Shakespeare.

English Challenge

Check out the website curriculum pages to see what we are learning about.

If you want a challenge to help improve your SPAG skills, try these:

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/english-games/7-11-years/spelling-and-grammar

https://www.teachwire.net/news/7-of-the-best-online-grammar-games-for-ks2

https://www.education.com/games/grammar/

Below, children are attempting a grapple group challenge to deepen their understanding.

Children have been working individually, in pairs and in groups to complete learning in English. The English is always linked to our Tudor topic. 

Reading

In reading we focus on PC SLIMER.

Predict

Compare

Summarise

Language

Infer with evidence

Meaning

Explain

Retrieve

We also use the Westgate 6 P's:

Pace

Passion

Punctuation

Pitch

Power

Pause

We do lots of paired work in reading. We have at least 5 lessons per week including: fluency, PC SLIMER, comprehension, library time, vocabulary and reading buddies.

Science

Our Science this term is about sound. Here is some work and examples of children exploring with pitch.

Art

A Tudor rose. In Art, we started by creating our own Tudor roses. The roses display part of our hobbies, interests and personalities. We have recreated a popular image from Tudor times and looked at typical Tudor drawing styles.

Music

Our Music this term is provided by Lincolnshire Music Service and the expert music teacher, Mrs Bourne. The children are learning all about drums from around the world and are getting to try out lots of different drums and drumming patterns. Our sessions take place on Wednesday afternoons 1.45pm in the hall.