Year 4

Welcome back. I hope you all had a wonderful Easter. We’ve had a super start to the summer term

We continue to ‘Stand Firm in our Faith’ as we now discover and investigate all about Roman Britain: How the Romans invaded Britain, failed at first but persevered and succeeded, how they settled here and what legacy they left us.

Our cross-curricular topic will enable us to incorporate many themes into this imagination–grabbing topic!

COME AND SEE TOPICS

At the heart of our journey in faith this term will be New Life, building bridges and God’s people. In this theme the children learn about our responsibilities as Christians and how we can apply these in our daily lives. We will also be looking at Hinduism as our other religion.

We will be examining and analysing many different types of texts in English, and using good models of writing as well as video and poetry to inspire us to create our own. We are going to be reading some exciting stories this term! Our Whole Class Reads are The Firework Maker’s Daughter by Philip Pullman and Cloud Busting by Malory Blackman and we shall also be reading books linked to our science topic including the magical book ‘By Ash, Oak and Thorne’.

We will reinforce and extend our Maths work through reasoning and problem-solving. Our first topic is

Year 4 children need to be confident at their times tables facts for the 2-12 times tables. This will be practised every day this term as towards the end of the term we have a national assessment. The children are doing brilliantly at this at the moment, so please keep them up to date on their practise on TTRS!

In Maths this half term, we will be continuing with decimals and also concentrating on time, shape, money and position and direction. In addition to this, we will continue to practise our multiplication, division, addition and subtraction skills as these are central to our maths throughout school!

In Science, we will study ‘Plants’ and investigate how they can grow healthily. Later, we will learn more about ‘Magnets and Forces.

In Computing we will be focusing on Website Design using Sway, followed by Computational Thinking.

In P.E. the children will be practising our cricket skills and then later in the term going onto athletics in time for sports day!

We will continue our French lessons with Madam Balestra, specifically knowing fruits in French and knowing the story of the Hungry Giant  as well as improving in our fluency.

In our Art sessions, children will have the opportunity to explore sculpture – evaluation and creation of their own –  and also explore the work of the artist Nick Mackman.

In Geography we will deepen our understanding of the European Country, Italy through enquiry based lessons. Our History sessions will continue to place world events on timelines and learn about the Romans Invasion of Britain.

The children will have the opportunity to appreciate music from different time periods including ‘Night on a Bare Mountain’ by Mussorgsky , ‘I Got You’ by James Brown and ‘Jin-Go-L-Ba’ by Babtunde Olatunji.

How You Can Help

Reading, spellings and maths homework will be set every week. There could also be follow-up research in other areas if appropriate.

Please check your child has the homework sheet on a Thursday. If the homework is  lost, there are always extra sheets in the door holder until the following week.  Encourage your child to read regularly and explain what they understand from the text,  especially unfamiliar words.

Please make sure your child has their P.E. kit (black shorts, white tee-shirt and trainers or plimsolls) in school on Mondays. PE kit should stay in school all week. Only to go home to be washed at the weekend.