St Michael's Primary School, Withyham

 Miss Staples teaches Year 3 and 4 and believes in making lessons both exciting and interesting but also providing memorable learning opportunities. This year our curriculum has a range of topics including Stone Age, Changes in Movies and rivers, mountains and water cycles.

Miss Staples is also supported by Mrs Rowland Smith, who provides a valuable role for all of the children in Silver Birch Class in the mornings and afternoons.

What are KIRFs?

To develop your child’s fluency and mental maths skills, we are introducing KIRFs (Key Instant Recall Facts) throughout school. KIRFS are a way of helping your child to learn by heart, key facts and information which they need to have instant recall of. 

KIRFs are designed to support the development of mental maths skills that underpin much of the maths work in our school. They are particularly useful when calculating, adding, subtracting, multiplying or dividing. They contain number facts such as number bonds and times tables that need constant practise and rehearsal, so children can recall them quickly and accurately.

This term we are focusing on Ancient Greece, where we will start the term with using a museum box of artifacts from the Hasting Museum to make the topic come to life. Getting the children to predict what they think they are used for and why they were made. We will then learn about the different Greek myths, where we will focus on Theseus and the Minotaur and Pandora's box, among many others. In English we will writing a descriptive narrative and then a Newspaper article, where Zeus visits St Michaels school and we will read 'Zeus on the loose.' In DT we will be making a mediterranean meal and some clay pots.

In term 2 we will continue with a focus on Stone age but more within our DT lessons where we will design and make our own stone age houses, using wood, saws and paper. We will also focus on land use in Geography and how land was used for farming and the difference between rural and urban areas. We will make our own bread as well. 

This term, in Silver Birch we will be learning about Stone age, starting off by exploring the timetline from Paleolithic Period to Neolithic Period, all the way to Iron age. We  will be looking at the life of a stone age person- their homes, what they would eat and how they would live. We will also be learning about the stone age paintings, Also, we will have a focus on rocks in Science. In Art, we will be making some clay pots inspired by stone age.