Dear Parents/Carers

Welcome to Year 4! We hope you all had a lovely summer break. We are really looking forward to working with you and your children this year.

English

As the children grow in independence and maturity in their reading and writing, we will be supporting them to develop their own voices, discussing and highlighting the options available to them, both stylistically and in their choices of vocabulary. We will be encouraging self-assessment to develop the children’s awareness of detail, particularly in spelling and punctuation and we will be discussing the texts we read in class, expressing our own ideas and justifying these with evidence found within the texts.

We will begin this half-term by exploring two exciting texts. The Baker by the Sea by Paula White where children will be able to immerse themselves in the life of a seaside community. They will use inspiration to create a range of writing, including tourist brochures, job applications, advertisements and setting descriptions. Later in the term we will move on to Shakleton’s Journey by William Grill, following the incredible Antarctic expedition. From this, the children will take on different roles to produce newspaper reports, letters, interviews and diary entries, to enable their development in their ability to write for a variety of purposes and audiences.

Grammar includes punctuating speech, conjunctions for time and cause, fronted adverbials, conjunctions, adverbs to express time and cause, prepositions to express time, place and cause, expanded noun phrases and the present form of verbs in contrast to the past tense.

Spellings will now be taught using a “word study” approach—teaching spelling patterns, phonics, and word meanings (morphology), rather than asking children to memorise unrelated lists. This helps children apply their spelling knowledge to many more words, not just the ones they have been tested on. Spellings will continue to be shared, and we will do weekly informal check-ins with the children to ensure their understanding however there is no expectation to carry out home practise or testing.

Maths

This term we will be building on knowledge of place value of 3-and 4-digit numbers including partitioning, rounding, ordering and comparing. We will then be moving on to addition and subtraction, including written method with exchanges. We will begin using strategies to check our answers. We will learn about area, perimeter and units of measure for length, before moving onto multiplication and division by 10 and 100. In the weeks leading up to Christmas, we will then be focusing on the 6,7 and 9 times tables. It would therefore be very beneficial to learn and consolidate the 2,5,10,3,4 and 8 times tables in the first half of this term and the weeks leading up to this.

At home, it would be helpful if you practiced telling the time on both analogue and digital clocks with continued practice of the times tables and related division facts. This will also help to prepare children for the times table test later in the year.

Science

For the first half term, we are studying electricity, including learning about conductors and insulators, creating circuits and electrical safety. We will then learn about sound.

Topic: Victorians (History/Geography)

We will explore the life of Queen Victoria as well as which famous inventions originated in the Victorian era and how they changed people’s lives at the time. We will find out what the Industrial Revolution was and how Victorian Britain was changed by it and how the introduction of the railways changed travel and trade. We will explore what life was like for Victorian working children and why Lord Shaftesbury was an important figure, including how rules about who could go to school changed. We will use historical sources to make observations about Victorian clothing and toys, comparing these to today. We will also be learning about what life was like for families in the workhouses.

French

We will begin learning about food in a topic entitled “Le Café”, where we will learn to order food in a café. We will also begin to learn vocabulary for animals and talk about the pets we own, as well as basic vocabulary, phrases and numbers.

Computing

In computing we will begin the year by thinking about online safety.  We will then be looking at and creating our own blogs!

Art and DT

In art the children will be focusing on William Morris, where we will be printing patterns and Marriane North, where we will be looking at flowers in observational detail.

RE

This year we will be continuing to follow our RE scheme of learning, which centres around three areas: Theology, Philosophy and Human and Social Sciences, with each lesson starting with an enquiry question. We will be learning about a range of religions including Christianity, Sikhism and Hinduism.

PSHE

We will be focusing on wellbeing and mindfulness, while also learning about safe relationships, personal boundaries, safely responding to others and the impact of hurtful behaviour.

Respecting Ourselves and Others, by recognising respectful behaviour, the importance of self-respect and courtesy & being polite.

Music

This term we are fortunate enough to have music lessons through the ‘Charanga’ scheme provided by Essex music services. We will be listening to and appraising songs of different genres, as well as composing our own music in the same style.

PE

This term’s allocated PE slots are Tuesday and Thursday. However, children will need to have their kits in school at all times as these may change unexpectedly, and we may be fortunate enough to have additional PE time. We will begin the term with Gymnastics and Dance followed by Basketball and Tag Rugby after half term.

Homework and how you can support your child’s learning

It is greatly beneficial to your child’s learning for you to hear them read whenever possible. Please encourage your child to sample a wide range of text types and support their interest in reading by discussing what they have read and by continuing to share texts together when possible. Reading aloud has been shown to be hugely beneficial, even as the children’s independent reading ability grows, so please maintain this where possible. Your child has been given a Reading Record book where they can record their reading progress daily. Please do not hesitate to contact us (via the office) if you have any concerns you would like to discuss.

Maths, English, Science or topic homework will be put on Teams and set on Fridays for return the following Thursday. Tasks are set in order to support and consolidate the learning taking place in class. Please support your child to ensure they fully understand what has been asked of them. If there is any confusion, or your child is having trouble with the homework, please let us know (preferably before Thursday) so we can help them.

Times Tables- It is SO important all children are practising their times tables. This should be done a minimum of five times a week. They should be valued in the same way as all homework activities. If Times Tables Rock Stars does not suit your learning style, please learn them in an alternative way.  Do ask if you need help with this.

Water/Snacks

Children must bring in a bottle of water, and a snack for break time each day. It is often a long time between breakfast and lunch, and a snack is important to keep us all going. We ask that these are healthy, in line with our Healthy Schools ethos (fruit or vegetables only).

Other

Please ensure all items of clothes are labelled. It is so much easier to ensure children take home the correct uniform when it is named.

If you have any questions or concerns at any time, please email us via the office and we will get back to you as soon as possible.

Finally, Mrs Tokeley, Mrs Rudkin, Ms Nash and Mrs Martin wanted us to pass on their thanks for all the kind messages, cards and gifts they received at the end of last term They wish all the children best wishes for their next chapter in Year 4!

Kind regards

Mrs Clutterbuck and Mrs Rudkin