Year 4

Curriculum Overview for Year 4

Please click the button below for a termly overview of the curriculum topics that will be covered in Year 4.

Curriculum Information for Parents

The table below provides a more detailed overview of the curriculum, the specific topics to be covered, as well as practical ideas to help support your child’s learning at home.

SPRING TERM
SUBJECT	OVERVIEW OF LEARNING	IDEAS FOR LEARNING AT HOME
MATHS	Fractions: Recognise and show, using diagrams, families of common equivalent fractions. Count up and down in hundredths; recognise that hundredths arise when dividing an object by one hundred and dividing tenths by ten. Solve problems involving increasingly harder fractions to calculate quantities, and fractions to divide quantities. Add and subtract fractions with the same denominator. Time: Convert between different units of measure, e.g. hour to minute. Read, write & convert time between analogue and digital 12 and 24 hour clocks. Solve problems involving converting from hours to minutes; minutes to seconds; years to months; weeks to days. Decimals: Recognise and write decimal equivalents of any number of tenths or hundredths, e.g. 2/10 = 0.2; 5/100 = 0.05. Recognise and write decimal equivalents to ¼ (0.25), ½ (0.5), ¾ (0.75). Find the effect of dividing a one or two digit number by 10 or 100. Round decimals with one decimal place to the nearest whole number. Compare numbers with the same number of decimal places up to two decimal places. Money: Solve simple measure and money problems involving fractions and decimals to two decimal places. Estimate, compare and calculate different measures, including money in pounds and pence.	It is important that your child knows all of the multiplication and division facts up to 12 x 12 by the end of the year. A secure knowledge of the times tables and related division facts will also help your child to work much more confidently with fractions. Please encourage your child to practise their times tables – Times Tables Rockstars is a fun way to do this. Please help your child to tell the time at home using both analogue and digital clocks. Can they tell you what time it is now, what time it will be in half an hour, how long until bed time, how many minutes left of the TV programme they are watching, or how many weeks/days until the next holiday? When you are out shopping, can your child use their mental maths and rounding skills to estimate how much your shopping bill will be?
ENGLISH	This term will start with a whole school writing project. This is a lovely opportunity for the children to work with others across the school. They will join together with other children from each year group to listen to and learn one of our classic nursery rhymes. Back in class, the children will share each other’s nursery rhymes and then each class will produce writing about the nursery rhymes based on different genres. In Year 4, the children will be recounting their nursery rhyme as a newspaper report. At the end of the project, the children will meet in their mixed groups to share their work. After this, the class will write their own version the ‘A River’ by Marc Martin with a particular focus on organisational devices, such as times of day, repeated words and phrases and the use of pronouns. Year 4 will also be using their knowledge of rivers to write their own informative explanation texts.	It is important for children to practise their writing skills whenever they get a chance, consolidating basic punctuation skills and using adventurous vocabulary. Can they write a short story suing their favourite book as inspiration? Or maybe write a diary entry about somewhere you have visited as a family?
SCIENCE	This term, the children will learn that all matter is either a solid, a liquid or a gas. They will find out how we define these different states of matter and be able to describe the differences in the way that solids, liquids gases behave. They will use this knowledge to help them to compare group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases. The children will also investigate and observe some materials change state when they are heated and they will learn about the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle which will link to their learning about rivers in geography.	Can your child group materials at home as solids, liquids or gases? Maybe you could ask them why there is condensation on your windows on a morning or why the washing is drying on the line?
GEOGRAPHY	The other subjects this term will be closely linked to our rivers topic in geography. The children will be exploring what rivers are, why a river doesn’t run out of water (linked to the water cycle) and how rivers are formed. This will include a trip to Teesmouth Field Centre where the children will have the exciting opportunity to build their own model of a river using natural resources found on the beach. The children will also be discussing flood risks with a visitor from the Environment Agency towards the end of the topic.	Perhaps as the weather warms up, you and your child could take a stroll down to a local river and see if they can tell you anything about how the river was formed.
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY	In DT this term, year 4 will be designing and making their own story books about the water cycle using sliders and levers. They will be exploring the design features of their products and linking this to the intended users. The children will also be explaining the purpose of their products and how particular parts of their products work.
ART	This term, year 4 will use rivers as their inspiration to create their own colourful collages. The children will be experimenting with how to create moods, feelings and movements and developing an awareness of contrasts in texture and colour. As well as creating river collages, the children will also get the opportunity to create collages using other stimuli, such as music, stories and poems.	Can your child create their own collage at home using inspiration from their local surroundings?
RE	In RE this term we will be learning more about how the Bible is a special book for Christians, what makes it special and what makes it different to other books. The children will learn that the Bible is divided into the old and new testaments and will pick out the different types of text, e.g. poem, psalm, proverb. They will learn about the Lord’s Prayer and the 10 Commandments, as well as reading stories about some of the miracles that Jesus performed.As Easter approaches, we will be asking the question, why is Lent such an important time for Christians? The children will learn about how is Lent a period of preparation for Christians; what happened when Jesus was tempted in the desert; and make links to how and why Christians keep Lent today. They will also reflect on ways in which people react and respond to temptations today.
PE	This term the children will be focussing on invasion skills (dribbling, passing and moving) in hockey and football. They will continue to work on core fitness through circuits and will also do tennis and dance. There will be an opportunity for children to take part in the Darlington schools tennis tournament.	Please ensure that your child remembers to bring their PE kit every Tuesday. We will be outside in all weathers (within reason) so warm tracksuit, waterproof, hat and gloves are also needed. We very much appreciate the support we get from parents with transporting children to and from sporting events – thank you!
PSHE	The focus for PSHE this term will be relationships and feelings. The children will be identifying and exploring different kinds of relationships that exist and why and how some relationships might end. There will be scenario-based activities around situations with feelings attached and how these scenarios may have impacted on different people. Year 4 will also be identifying their own and each others’ positive qualities, linking to the cycle of self-esteem.
MUSIC	This term the children will widen their repertoire to include more challenging songs. They will continue to follow a conductor, using dynamics in singing, including solos, small group parts and harmonies within songs. They will increase their awareness of different genres and learn how to describe them using musical vocabulary. They will continue to build their confidence when singing on the microphone and to listen sensitively to each other’s performances and offer helpful feedback. Before we break up for Easter, the children will give a performance for parents of what they have been learning this term.	Date and time of the performance can be found on the ‘Dates for your Diary’ on our website or you can contact eh school office for more details. Please come along if you can and support the children at their performance.
FRENCH	This term the children will continue to learn French numbers and be able to count up to 50 and use simple mathematic language (add, subtract, times, equals). They will learn vocabulary for children’s toys such as a bike, a football, a cuddly toy and a games console. They will also learn how to express an opinion about what they like and don’t like and how to ask the price of something they’d like to buy.	The BBC schools website has some great games, videos and audio clips for lots of the vocabulary and topics we will be covering www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primarylanguages/french
COMPUTING	In computing, the children will be developing their understanding of Scratch even further. They will have the opportunity to design and make their own computer-controlled toys. This will include understanding different forms of input and output and writing and debugging the controls for the toy. The children will then pitch their toy prototype to ‘The Dragon’ using PowerPoint. They must be clear about the intended audience and purpose of the toy and how much money they will need in order to sell the toy or ‘The Dragon’ may refuse to invest!	Encourage your child to be safe when online – can they tell you what the rules are? Use apps that support their learning. There are lots of amazing free apps and websites!

AUTUMN TERM
SUBJECT	OVERVIEW OF LEARNING	IDEAS FOR LEARNING AT HOME
MATHS	Place value: Ordering, comparing and rounding numbers up to 1000; counting in multiples of 6, 7, 9. 25 and 1000; counting backwards through zero to include negative numbers; recognising Roman numerals up to 100 Addition and Subtraction: Adding and subtracting numbers with up to 4 digits using the formal written methods of column addition and subtraction and using these to solve one and two step problems. Estimating and using inverse operations to check answers to a calculation. Measurement: Measure and calculate the perimeter of rectilinear shapes and convert between different units of measure [for example, kilometre to metre] Multiplication and Division: Recall and use multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 × 12; multiply and divide mentally (by 0 and 1 and multiplying together three numbers); solve problems involving multiplying and adding.	It is important that all of the children know all of the multiplication and division facts up to 12 x 12 by the end of the year; Times Tables Rockstars is a fun way to practise these. When you are out shopping, can your child use their mental maths and rounding skills to estimate how much your shopping bill will be?
ENGLISH	Our class text for this term will be ‘How To Train Your Dragon’ by Cressida Cowell. This is the first book in a fantastic series about Hiccup Horrendous Haddock the Third, a smallish Viking with a longish name. Hiccup’s father is chief of the Hairy Hooligan tribe and Hiccup must lead ten novices in their initiation into the tribe. They have to train their dragons or banished from the tribe for ever! As they read through the book together, the children will be writing in role as the main character; writing a newspaper report about events in the story; and finally writing their own version of the story. They will be focussing on using varied and rich vocabulary and a range of sentence structures, as well as developing their character descriptions to invoke different feelings in the reader, such as sympathy or dislike.	If your child enjoys ‘How To Train Your Dragon’, encourage them to follow further adventures of Hiccup and the Hairy Hooligans by reading the other books in this series. Perhaps they could design their own dragon at home or illustrate part of the story and bring it in to school to share with the class.
SCIENCE	Our first science topic this term will be ‘Living Things and their Habitats’. The children will learn that all living things can be grouped in a variety of ways based on their different characteristics. They will use and create their own branching keys, asking appropriate questions to classify different animals. They will explore our school grounds on a ‘bug hunt’ and use their keys to classify the specimens they find. Of course they will need to know how to do this carefully to keep themselves and the animals safe and will write instructions for how to do this. They will also be thinking about animals that are endangered and designing posters to encourage people to protect them. Our second topic will be ‘Teeth and Eating’. They will learn about the different types of teeth humans have and what we use them for, as well as the importance of looking after them!. Then they will delve further into the functions of the digestive system, writing about the journey a piece of food takes as it makes its way through the body. They will find out about some of the things that can wrong with the digestive system and the importance of a healthy diet. They will also study different food chains learning about the role of producers, predators and prey.
HISTORY	Firstly the children will learn about Britain’s settlement by Anglo-Saxons: who they were, when and from where they came, why they invaded Britain and where they settled. They will find out who King Alfred was and how law and order was kept in Anglo Saxon times. They will then build on their knowledge of the chronology of Britain to learn about the Viking invasions and the struggle for England. The children will look at contrasting views of how the Vikings should be remembered – were they really as vicious as some history books would have us believe?	Always a great favourite are the Horrible History programmes. Learn and sing together about the Smashing Saxons and the Vicious Vikings. Two great local museums to visit are Yorvik in York and Jarrow Hall Anglo Saxon farm and village.
GEOGRAPHY	Our learning in geography will be closely linked to our history topic. The children will be studying atlases, ordnance survey maps and computerised mapping to find out where early Viking and Anglo-Saxon settlers chose to settle, identifying what features would have made those areas attractive to settlers and how they used the land around them. They will also be thinking about modern day settlements, how they are different in rural and urban areas and the advantages and disadvantages of both.	Can your child name some of the physical and human features of the villlage/town that they live in? Perhaps you have OS maps at home that they could use to practise their knowledge of map symbols.
DESIGN & TECHNOLOGY	The focus of this term’s DT is food and the children will be linking their learning to the science and PSHE; understanding how this food is digested and the importance of a healthy diet. They will investigate healthy recipes, assessing them for taste, appeal and nutritional value and use this to design their own healthy diets.	Cooking is an essential life skill. Encourage your child to help with food preparation at home. As a family, you could try some fruit and vegetables that you’ve never tried before.
ART	This term the children will research the life and work of Wassily Kandinsky, finding out when & where he lived, what & where he studied and who influenced his work. They will explore some of Kandinsky’s works of art and the techniques he used. The children will develop their own painting skills (including mixing colours and using different brushes and techniques) to create their own version of Kandinsky’s work.
RE	The children will be thinking about how and why Christians follow Jesus. They will build on their previous learning to understand why Christians believe that Jesus is significant and special and how the teachings of Jesus affect the way Christians live? They will think about how a person may be inspired to do something good by somebody else’s word or example and identify who they think of as a good role model. They will learn more about who Jesus was and about his life and teachings and they will think about how being a Christian affects how people live their lives. As we approach Christmas we will be asking why Christians call Jesus ‘light of the world’. The children will learn about the symbols of light found in the Christmas story and about the meaning of the Advent ring.	If you can, please come along to our Christmas carol service at All Saint’s Church. Date and time is on the ‘Dates for your Diary’ or can be obtained from the school office.
PE	Over the course of this term the children will be practising invasion skills in rugby with coaches from Mowden Rugby club. They will also do fitness training, gymnastics and orienteering. After half term, the children will have swimming lessons at the Dolphin Centre every Wednesday until Christmas.	Please ensure that your child remembers to bring their PE kit every Tuesday. We will be outside in all weathers (within reason) so warm tracksuit, waterproof, hat and gloves are also needed as we head into winter. Also swimming kit will be needed on Wednesdays after half term.
PSHE	The children will start the year by thinking about rules and responsibilities, what they are and why we have them. They will learn more about healthy eating and create a healthy eating plan. They will also be thinking about the environment, discussing and debating local, national and international issues and learning about what it means to ‘go green’. As always we will be celebrating anti-bullying week in November which this year has the theme ‘Choose Respect’ and a special ‘Stop, Speak, Support’ theme focussing on cyberbullying.	There are often articles in the news or on Newsround about environmental issues which are good to watch and discuss together at home. Find out more about anti-bullying week at: www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/anti-bullying-week
MUSIC	The children will be learning a range of songs from different genres, from traditional to pop. They will be working on singing confidently and understanding how to approach and perform them differently according to the genre. They will also be learning how to follow a conductor; how to introduce dynamics into their performances; to listen with attention to detail and recall sounds with increasing aural memory. They will be listening carefully to each other’s performances and offering helpful feedback. In Autumn 2 the children will be working towards the whole school Christmas carol service.
FRENCH	After revising the vocabulary learnt in Year 3, the children will begin to learn the correct pronunciation of letters in the French alphabet, recognising some similarities and differences between French and English. They will learn and join in with familiar phrases of a story ‘Les Quatre Amis’ (The Four Friends) which will teach them the names of some animals. They will also learn some vocabulary related to sports and healthy eating and will finish the term learning key words and phrases from the Christmas nativity story.
COMPUTING	The children will be developing their own educational computer games using Scratch. They will learn how to use variables, selection and repetition and understand the importance of the user interface and what information will be input and output. After designing and making these educational games, the children will have the opportunity to play each others’ games and evaluate their effectiveness.	Encourage your child to be safe when online – can they tell you what the rules are? Use apps that support their learning. There are lots of amazing free apps and websites!