WELCOME TO YEAR 4

Class Teacher: Miss Hawley

Teaching Assistant: Mrs Fiddes

Learning Support Practitioner: Mr Pickford

Hello and welcome! In Year 4 we work extremely hard to ensure that all children achieve the best they can in all areas. We encourage children to become resilient, enthusiastic and independent learners, who show integrity, tenacity and pride.

Maths

Teaching and learning in maths follows the National Curriculum, which teaches the following main areas: number, measurement, geometry and statistics. Where possible, links have been made across the Maths curriculum to provide children with as many opportunities as possible to apply their knowledge and understanding. In addition to the work we do in Maths, there is an increased focus on timetables throughout Year 4, as the children will be tested on this at the end of the year.

English

English lessons are planned and taught surrounding a variety of texts. In our English lessons this term we will be learning about:

• Narrative
• Explanation texts
• Letter writing
• Diaries
• Non-chronological reports
• Character and setting descriptions

Please support your child by encouraging them to read at home and to practise their spellings and times tables weekly. Children will receive homework on a Friday which will be due in on a Wednesday. 

Texts being covered

Autumn

• Alice in Wonderland

Spring

• Beowulf 
• The Wind in the Willows

Summer

• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

Reading

We encourage children to read every day at home. We expect the children to read at least 3 times a week at home and they must bring their reading book and diary in to school every day! They receive reading miles for doing so and could win the reading miles prize at the end of the year. We complete reading lessons every day and use this time to explore the class text as well as lots of different text types. Here we develop our understanding of comprehension and language whilst fostering a love of reading.

Throughout the year we will be covering many fun and exciting topics following the new curriculum.

Autumn  

• Science- Animals Including Humans,
  Living things and their habitats 
• History- How have children's lives changed? 
• Geography- Where does our food come from? 
• RE- Hinduism. What do Christians believe that God is like? 
  Hinduism - What is it like to be a Hindu in Britain today?
• PSHE- Families and Friendships
  Health and Wellbeing
• Art- Power Prints 
• DT- Structure - Pavilions
• Computing- Coding, Online safety, Spreadsheets
• French – Days of the week, numbers, introducing ourselves, locating landmarks, Christmas.

Spring

• Science- States of Matter, Electricity 
• Geography- Antarctica 
• History - Saxons 
• RE- Christianity- Why is Jesus inspiring to some people?
  How and why do we try to make the world a better place? 
• PSHE- Safety and the changing body
  Citizenship 
• Art- Painting and mixed media - light and dark 
• DT- Electrical systems - torches
  Cooking and nutrition 
• Computing- Writing for different audiences, logo, animation, online safety.
• French – Age, objects, Animals.

Summer

• Science- Sound
  Inventors 
• History- Vikings 
• Geography- Rivers 
• RE- Jewish Festivals and Family Life, the Trinity in Christianity 
• PSHE- Economic Wellbeing 
• Art- Fabric of nature 
• DT- Mechanical systems - making a slingshot car
• Computing- Searching, hardware, making music, online safety
• French – Instructions.

Things To Remember

PE – PE will be on a Tuesday and Wednesday. PE kit must be a plain white polo shirt and plain black shorts/tracksuit bottoms.

Reading – Reading books and diaries must be in each day. Children should read at least 3 times per week at home. 

Homework– Each week children will be set a minimum of spellings and times tables. These are sent home every Friday, due in on Thursday. 

Times Tables - In year 4 we are working towards knowing all of our times tables by year 5, children should be practicing regularly, Times tables Rock Stars is brilliant for this! 

Useful links

Times Tables Rock Stars: Times Tables Rock Stars: Play (ttrockstars.com)

Purple Mash - Times Tables: Purple Mash by 2Simple