Year 4 2023 - 2024

WELCOME TO YEAR 4  

Here you will find information about Year Four!

This year children begin their swimming lessons. Children will need to bring their swimming kits with them every Friday. Information about what children will need to bring will be given during our first week back. 

Reading books and diaries should be brought into school each day as we aim to read with children as often as possible. 

Children will also need to bring a water bottle with them every day.

English

In English we will be using a lot of wonderful books. We will be developing our reading and writing skills in line with the National Curriculum for Year 4. 

We use 'Cracking Comprehension' for our guided reading. We will look at a range of texts includeing fiction, non-fiction and poetry. We then spend time talking about what the text is all about before anwsering a number of questions. 

We follow the school writing structure (this is on the English page) to teach writing. We use some amazing books to teach from and engage the children in wonderful stories, non-fiction and poetry. We look at different types of writing and learn how to write in that genre of writing as well as learning all our spelling and grammar for year 4.

We have a PASSION for reading and really enjoy reading lots of stories together. Our love of reading texts are always such fun and we enjoy having time togther to enjoy a good story.

Maths

We are following the National Curriculum for Year 4. We use White Rose maths, Nrich, Deepening Understanding and many more resources to ensure we teach the mathematical concepts required and challenge children to develop good problem solving and reasoning skills. This year we will cover place value, addition and subtraction using four digit numbers, measures, geometry, fractions and decimals. More detailed infomration is in the leaflet sent home at the beginning of the year.

Times Tables are a key part of our mathematical learning in Year 4. Your child will take a times tables check at the end of the year. This is a test supplied by the government not a school based assessment. Your child will get 25 questions of mixed times tables from 1x table to 12 x table. They will get 6 seconds to answer each question. Your child therefore needs to learn their times tables fluently so the know them quickly and out of order.

Times Tables Rockstars is used in school and every child has a log in that they can use at home. Your child has been given this log in but if you need it again please ask.

There are lots of fun sing alongs on youtube that will help your child to learn their times tables too.

Homework

Every week your child should be reading (every night if possible). They should also be learning their times tables from 1x tables to 12x tables. Your child gets spellings to learn, they are always stuck in your childs reading record each week.

When it is needed I will be sending home other bits of homework but this will not be every week.

PE

PE is on a Wednesday, as it was last year and again please can your child come in their PE kit with a school jumper or cardigan on. Swimming is on a Friday afernoon. Always make sure your child has a coat in school on swimming days.

History / Geography

History and Geography are great subjects as we teach some really interesting topics. Over the year in History the children will learn about The Romans, The Anglo-Saxons and The Vikings. In Geography we look at our own local environment and changes thorugh time, sustainability and The Rainforest. 

Science

As if all of that isn't exciting enough we spend time in science learning about electrictiy, grouping living things, dangers to living things, humna nutrtion, sound and changes of state. We use resources like explorify - which is free to sign up to online ! We do plenty of observing and some great experiments too. Children predict what they think will happen and then test to see if they were right.

Music

We use a scheme called Charanga to learn music and enjoy developing our knowledge and skills of pitch, pulse, rhytm, melody, dynamics and notation. We particulaly enjoy the singing and playing instruments. Any budding singers in Year 4 are able to join the choir too so hopefully I'll see some of the children there!

We also teach Design and Technology,computing French, Art, Philosophy for children , PSHE and Religious Education. We follow the National curriculum for all of these areas and enjoy learning new knowledge and skills as well as finding out about the 'best of the best' from each of the areas of the curriculum - the best composers, the best artists and we develop our skills to become the best that we can be across all areas of the curriculum.

I know that here in Year 4 your child will have great fun, if there are any problems then please do come in and speak to one of us. 

HELPING YOUR CHILD

Here are some useful websites that will give you more information about what your child will be learning in Year 4, as well as ideas and help to support them in their learning.

Click this link to open a useful page full of advice and support

Click here for lots of information about what your child learns in Year 4