Welcome to Year Four
Class 4 is an exciting, fun and hard-working class. This is a great class to be in because we never give up and are always brave, tackling new challenges. We work with Mrs Thompson, Mrs Nattrass, Mrs McPherson and Mrs Ford. Together, they help make our learning exciting, ensuring that we get lots of opportunities to take our learning outside of the classroom.
When people visit our class, they notice how we all work to keep our classroom happy and friendly together. We improve our understanding and skills by working together as a team. We carry out ‘perfect partner’ work, helping each other to become the best version of ourselves. Working with a talk partner is an excellent way to explain our ideas to others; ask questions and clarify our learning. We value mistakes as they help us learn and unpick problems. We value resilience and fairness.
Class Timetable & Curriculum Information
Class Timetable: Year 4 Timetable 23-24
Curriculum Yearly Overview: LTP-overview-2023-24
English:
During Autumn term, our English lessons will based around ‘The Promise’ by Nicola Davies before moving onto focusing on Floella Benjamin’s autobiography during Black History Month. We will find out about her life through the incredible autobiography ‘Coming to England’ and will learn about the many challenges she faced when she arrived in Britain. We will also be writing our very own autobiographies!
Throughout our units of work, we will explore several mediums of writing and focus on using relevant SPaG skills such as similes, expanded noun phrases and fronted adverbials. In the run up to Christmas we will read the exciting ‘Christmasurus’ by Tom Fletcher to ignite the holiday magic. We will write character descriptions and create a persuasive travel brochure to encourage people to visit the North Pole Ranch we design.
To help support your child with their writing please encourage them to practice their spellings on at least 3 separate occasions throughout the week. Weekly spellings can be found on your child’s homework and common exception words can be found at the front of your child’s reading record for further support.
Developing our love of reading:
Class 4 develops its love of reading through a range of high-quality books. We look at classic books, contemporary fiction and non-fiction and even high quality no-text books.
Check out some of the texts that we use to promote engagement
and excitement with reading:
Reading books can be changed on any day of the week as we place an emphasis on the children letting us know when they have finished their current school reading book. Please remember to write in your child’s book when they have finished so we know when to change their book. Additionally, if children have a book of interest they are reading at home, we absolutely encourage them to use this as their reading book to help foster a love for reading.The aim is for all children to read at least three times a week with an adult, and to record this in their respective reading record. Children who bring their reading record into school on a Friday and have read at least 3 times a week will get the chance of winning a small prize.
Maths:
In our school, we follow the White Rose Maths scheme of work with a focus on deepening our knowledge and understanding through the completion of daily reasoning and problem-solving activities. In Autumn Term we will be focusing on solidifying our Place Value knowledge before moving onto multiplication and division and being able to use our times table knowledge to solve associated division calculations.
We love science lessons and getting to learn and experiment by taking parts in a variety of fun scientific enquires.
In year 4, we concentrate our learning on the following science topics:
- Sound
- States of Matter
- Electricity
- Animals including humans
- Living things and their habitats
We value the importance of physical education to maintain a healthy lifestyle, therefore we have 2 weekly PE lessons in year 4. This half term we will have PE on a Tuesday and Wednesday.
On a Tuesday the whole class will have a weekly swimming lesson and on a Wednesday children have a session with our sports coach Mr Graeham. We also aim to participate in clubs, competitions and sports festivals throughout the year.
Please bring PE kits in on Monday and leave them in for the week so that children are prepared for any eventuality.
History:
This year we look in depth into the Romans. In Autumn term we consider what life was like before the Romans invaded by studying the Iron Age and the Celts. In Spring Term we will focus on the Roman invasion of Britain and consider why they wanted to invade our country. Finally in Summer Term we will consider what lasting legacies the Romans left behind and how the impacted the North East. As part of our History topic we will also visit Segedunum to explore the ancient ruins and take part in a Roman Soldier workshop.
Geography:
Our focus this year is on Europe. We will consider how to locate European countries on world maps and consider how the European Union and Brexit impacted life in Britain. In Spring we will particularly focus on Italy and learn about Italian culture and landmarks and take an in depth look into volcanoes and how they are formed. Linked to our history topic on the Romans we research the eruption of Pompeii and how it has helped to teach us about the Ancient Roman times.
French:
We are very lucky this year to have our weekly French lessons taught language specialists at Lingotots! We will learn to hold conversations in French, and develop new vocabulary based on classroom instructions, modes of transport and foods. The sessions are lots of fun and are filled with games and activities!
Music:
In the second half of year 4, our class learn to play clarinets and can also choose to learn how to play violin too.
Further information about taking up musical tuition can be found at https://www.durhammusic.org.uk/sign-up
Communication:
We share learning and resources through Classdojo. Parents and children are able to post messages, photos and videos and parents can see work and send me messages too. This is a really strong way of keeping our learning up to date and staying connected with our class. If you have any difficulties accessing Classdojo, please contact the school office for further support.
Homework
Homework tasks are communicated through the Classdojo app to families. To keep consistency and to help children develop their basic skills each piece of homework will contain a reading comprehension, weekly spellings and times table practice.
Altogether we believe teamwork makes the dream work.
