With the sun smiling at last, we have enjoyed a fun and varied week to end the term.

In RE we learnt about the significance of the story of Ram and Sita in the Hindu celebration of Diwali – ‘The Festival of Light’. The practice of lighting diva candles to mark the triumph of good over evil brought about some good discussion of the significance of light within different cultures. Children enjoyed creating their own colourful Rangoli patterns that are used to attract the Goddess Lakshmi into homes.

Following on from the brilliant BAE systems assembly, children have worked in small groups to create and advertise their own incredible robot designs in English. We had a great range of ideas from ‘Helpers at Home’ to ‘Robo Pilots’, all with ingenious features. The children did really well presenting their ideas to the class, engaging their audience with actions and intonation.

Maths this week has focused on developing children’s written methods for multiplication and division. Using practical resources and pictures, pupils have learnt the bus-stop method for short division and used this to investigate rules for divisibility. These rules state that a number will divide exactly by 3 if its digits add up to a multiple of 3. E.g. 66 will divide by 3 as 6+6=12, and 12 is a multiple of 3. Similarly, 234 will divide by 3 as 2+3+4 = 9 and 9 is a multiple of 3. Did you know that a number will divide by 9 if its digits add to 9? Maybe children could use their skills to prove this is true over the half-term holiday?

Have a wonderful, sunny and safe half-term. We look forward to seeing you back in school on Monday 5th June.

The Year 4 Team