Elder Class 2025 - 2026

WELCOME TO ELDER

Class teacher - Mr M Thomas

Learning Support Assistant - Mrs Rowlands

Mrs Turner teaches on Tuesday mornings, Mr Heathcote teaches RE on Friday mornings and Miss Graves teaches French on Friday afternoons.

Mr Parrish teaches PE on Tuesdays and Thursdays.

Elder class strives to live the values and vision that we have for our school life.  In the thankfulness and trustworthiness we demonstrate around school, we follow our faith that making wise choices and always striving to do the right thing by ourselves and others allows us to grow in confidence and maturity.  The wisdom that comes from endeavouring to make these wise choices enables us to make the most of the many opportunities we have to shine in Elder class.

Currently, Elder are exploring our local area and how the land, including rivers, has been used across it and the rest of the UK over time.

Our DT project will be to design and construct a craft which can transport items across a river which will link to our learning about the River Weaver and the role it has played in supporting and developing our area from the Stone Age to the modern era.  Our One Big Adventure will be an exciting trip to the Anderton Boat Lift where we will investigate how and why the canal and lift was built and discover the national importance of Northwich. We will gather facts to answer our One Big Question: ‘Was Northwich was the centre of the industrial world?' Rivers will also play a role in our science lessons as we learn about the water cycle which will then lead into our learning about plants: the conditions necessary for their growth, their parts and functions and their life cycle. Our vehicle texts will be Marc Martin’s stunning A River and Grahame Baker-Smith’s beautiful The Rhythm of the Rain which will provide multiple opportunities for writing in our English lessons as well as supplementing our understanding of land use and the water cycle.

Rivers will also inspire our music lessons as we learn how changes in pitch, tempo and dynamics can be used to create different effects before combining these in our own water-inspired compositions.

In art, the local area will be the subject of a landscape piece which combines the use of cloth, thread and paint. We will showcase our understanding of changes in land use over time in our computing lessons by recording and editing a podcast.

Our RE lessons will see us learning about Proverbs in the Bible as well as exploring other wise teachings found in other world faiths. We will also develop our understanding of Christmas – its themes and deeper meaning – and link our learning to the Jewish festival of Hannukah. In maths, we will focus on Number and Place Value as well as addition and subtraction.

Our Courageous Advocate for this term is the environmentalist and yachtsman, Sir Peter Blake. We will learn about his inspiring life and work which will in turn inspire our One Unselfish Act which is to work with the Rivers Trust on a project in the local area.

Reading plays a fundamental part in all areas of the curriculum and is a gateway to imagation and adventure. Over the year, we will immerse ourselves in high quality texts which will help to drive our learning. In class, we have access to a wide range of fiction and non-fiction books which we are able to use not only within our Guided Reading sessions, but also when appropriate in our curriculum lessons to support our learning. We want our children to develop the love of reading and stories that their wonderful imaginations deserve so we do all tnat we can to encourage positive attitudes towards reading. If you are struggling to motivate your child with reading at home, please feel free to ask Mr Thomas for ideas or pop a note in their home/school contact book.  

Home reading expectations are detailed below, but should your child express an interest in a particular author, series or genre, please let us know and we would be delighted to order books from our library partners free of charge.  Visits to your local library are also encouraged!

PE will take place on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Please ensure your child comes to school in their PE kit on these days.

Homework, reading and spelling

We ask that your child reads at home at least four times a week for 10-15 minutes. For those who are still on the reading scheme, we ask that an adult supports them. In Year 3, children may start to record their own reading in their Home-School contact books; parents just need to sign off each entry. Please ensure that your child has also recorded a word or short phrase that they liked and want to use in their own writing or a word or short phrase that summarises their reading.

NumBots or TT Rockstars should be practiced at least three times per week for a minimum of five minutes per session. This will be checked on Friday mornings. 

All Elder children will receive personalised spelling lists to practice at home. These are based on the statutory spelling lists, available at the bottom of this page. Please practise these three times per week in your homework book. There will also be a SPaG or Knowledge Organiser worksheet to complete each week in their homework books. Homework books will be sent home on Fridays and returned on the following Thursdays.

If you have any questions or wish to share your child’s out-of-school achievements, please don’t hesitate to contact me through the Home-School book. We love celebrating our children' successes!