• Spellings

Our teacher in Year 4 is Miss Townsend and she is helped by Mrs Targett and Miss Donnelly.

Welcome Back, Year 4! 🌼🌟

I hope you all had a fantastic spring break and are feeling refreshed and ready to jump into our final term of the year! We've got an exciting few weeks ahead packed with fun, creativity, and plenty of new things to discover.

This term, we’ll be exploring powerful poetry, diving into some hot debates (get ready to share your brilliant opinions!), and becoming maths whizzes as we master money, decimals, and time. We’ll even bring our stories to life through drama and create amazing pieces of writing inspired by dancing bears and daring adventures!

There’s so much to look forward to, and I can’t wait to see all the amazing things you’ll achieve. Let’s make this term our best one yet!

Let the fun begin!

Summer term 1

What will we be learning in the Summer term? 

English

In our English lessons this term, we will be focusing on folk tales, debates and poems on a theme. 

Folk tales 

Whilst exploring classic folk tales we will listen to, read and discuss a range of fiction in different forms. In addition to this, we will analyse and evaluate texts looking at the language, structure and presentation used. Primarily, we will be focusing on the classic folk tale of Brer Rabit. From this, we will enhance our writing skills to be able to plan and write our own folk tale which includes a new setting and character(s). 

Debate 

In Year 4, we will explore a range of popular debates, such as whether zoos are ethical and if museums should be free to the public. Children will examine arguments for and against each topic and learn to express and justify their own opinions with confidence. Furthermore, we will engage with a variety of  non-fiction texts, including discussion texts.  We will analyse and evaluate language, structure, and presentation, explain vocabulary in context, and summarise key ideas from multiple paragraphs. We will also examine how information is organised in discussion texts, understanding the paragraph structure and linking, and develop skills to locate and retrieve information from the sources. Following this, we will be applying this to our own writing, creating our own discussion texts. 

Poems on a theme  

This term, our class will enjoy exploring poetry through shared reading, focusing on poems linked to our theme. We'll discuss our favourites and explain why we like them. The poem that we will be focusing on is 'My Mother saw a dancing bear'. In our lessons, we will deepen our understanding through drama and performance and explore a range of different poems to enhance our poetry skills.

Inspired by what we read, we'll choose from a range of exciting writing activities, such as writing a letter from the bear’s perspective, creating a diary entry as an eyewitness to the bear dancing and designing a cartoon strip.

 Reading 

Please make sure that you are reading at home! This can be your favourite novel or instructions on how to bake a cake! As long as you are reading, you are learning. Reading everyday can help to build a diverse vocabulary, help you learn and improve your spellings. The list of advantages goes on... 

Maths

Decimals 

This term in maths, we will be developing our understanding of decimals. We'll start by learning how to make a whole using tenths and hundredths, then move on to partitioning and flexibly partitioning decimals in different ways. We'll also compare and order decimals, and learn how to round them to the nearest whole number. Finally, we’ll explore how halves and quarters can be represented as decimals, helping to build a strong foundation for future learning. 

Money 

Furthermore, we will be focusing on money. We'll learn how to write amounts using decimals and convert between pounds and pence. We'll also compare different amounts of money, make sensible estimates, and carry out calculations involving money. Throughout the term, we’ll use these skills to solve a variety of real-life money problems, helping us understand how to use money confidently and accurately. 

Time

At the end of the term, we will be learning all about time. We’ll explore how to measure and understand time in years, months, weeks, and days, as well as hours, minutes, and seconds. We’ll practise converting between analogue and digital clocks, and learn how to read and write times using the 24-hour clock. By the end of the term, we’ll be able to confidently convert between different formats and apply our knowledge to everyday situations.

Please make sure to keep practicing your Times Tables: https://ttrockstars.com/

Multiplication Check

The Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) is a key stage 2 assessment to be taken by pupils at the end of year 4 (in June). The MTC’s purpose is to ensure the times tables knowledge is at the expected level. In the 2024/2025 academic year, the multiplication tables check (MTC) is statutory for primary schools.

The Multiplication Times Tables Check is an online test where the pupils are asked 25 questions on times tables 2 to 12. For every question, you have 6 seconds to answer, and in between the questions, there is a 3-second rest. Questions about the 6, 7, 8, 9, and 12 times table come up more often. The questions are generated randomly based on the rules of the MTC. 

For more information, please visit:https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/multiplication-tables-check

Science 

This term in science, we will be exploring the fascinating world of sound. We’ll start by identifying how sounds are made and understanding that vibrations play a key role in their creation. We’ll learn how these vibrations travel through different mediums to reach our ears. Through experiments, we will find patterns between the pitch of a sound and the features of the object that produces it, as well as between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations. We’ll also discover how sound gets quieter the further we are from the source. It's going to be an exciting journey into the science of sound!

Wider Curriculum 

This term, we will be learning about the Great Plague of London in 1665, one of the most significant events in British history. We’ll explore what the plague was, how it spread so rapidly across the city, and the impact it had on people's lives. We will also investigate the different ways it was transmitted, including through fleas on rats, and how medical knowledge at the time was limited. Finally, we’ll discuss how the plague eventually came to an end, including the role of quarantine and the changes that followed. It’s a fascinating topic that will help us understand the challenges of life in the past and how people overcame such a devastating event.

PE- Our PE days are on a Thursday and Friday. Please make sure that you are coming to school in your PE kits on these days. Our PE lessons can often be outdoors, so please make sure that your kit is suitable for all weathers.