Updated: 2/1/23

Welcome to Year 4!

General Information

Welcome to the Year 4 page. You will find all of the things you should need to know for the year.

In Year 4, the teachers are Mr Easterbrook and Mrs Coulton. We are supported by Miss Friend, Mrs Harris, and Miss Gee, who are our teaching assistants.

Year 4 is a key year and involves the children taking greater responsibility for their own learning. Despite this we are very keen to work together as a partnership, with the children, parents, teachers and school all working together to help us 'to be the best that we can be'.

Please feel free to contact the Year 4 team if you have something you wish to ask or would like to discuss. We have an open door policy and will see you as soon as possible. Please ask at the office if you would like to see us in person or would like to pass on a message, or catch us in the playground at the start or end of the day.

Thank you,

The Year 4 Team

Home learning

• Each Friday, children will be given spellings based around the expectations of their year group. The test will be on the following Friday. Some children will have different spellings and may have a different number of words to learn each week.
• The children are expected to read regularly throughout the week. We ask for parental involvement on the completion of the reading record on three occasions. This should indicate what, when and how much the children have read. It would also be helpful to include a very brief comment on any problems or successes from the activity. This is to be handed in EVERY Friday and counts towards our class rewards.
• We have changed the homework expectations for Maths and English this year. We will not have a weekly piece of maths and English, but we do ask that all children play on TTRockstars and SpellingShed as much as they possibly can. If they do not have access to a device, they should still be learning their spellings and times tables for the week.

PE Kit and days

The school PE kit is as follows:

A plain white or blue t-shirt, black shorts, and trainers. For colder months, and outdoor games especially, children may wear a plain, dark tracksuit, but without logos or patterns please.

• TUESDAY OUTDOOR PE - This will be on the playground during the winter and on the field during the summer.
• THURSDAY INDOOR PE - Children may also want to wear tracksuits to be able to wear outdoors at breaktime and lunchtime.

Planning Days

• Mrs Cowin and Mrs Mitchell cover Year 4 every other FRIDAY.

Self-isolation / instant lockdown activities

Should anyone have to enter a period of isolation, we have added more activities to our learning links for Key Skills. You will find areas for English and Maths. At the bottom of the page there are more activities linked to the topics too.

If you have any questions, please contact us and we will try to help out the best that we can.

English

Current learning

This term we will be using the fabulously inspirational book series, Fantastically Great Women who Changed the World, by Kate Pankhurst. Through this book series, we will be learning about several inspirations ladies who have changed the world to the one we live in today. We will research our own fantastically great woman and create our own tribute poster with information about their lives and how they impacted our lives today. 

In guided reading, we will be using a range of texts to look at the skills of finding and retrieving information, a skill which is essential for the assessment of reading. We will also be using some short texts to start to develop the skills of inference and deduction, much more challenging skills that are expected to develop as the children become more confident and fluent readers.

Reading

In school, almost all children in KS2 will use the Accelerated Reader scheme. This targets children, specifically guiding them towards books that are suitable for their reading level, while challenging them to make progress. They will be responsible for chosing their own books, reading them carefully, before completing an online quiz on the book. This will check for their understanding and retention of what they have read. It will also help to refine the areas we need to develop for them.

Regular reading at home is essential. The children should be heard reading aloud at least 3 times per week. Discussions between the child and the adult are key to helping to improve and develop their understanding but also allows the children to work on their expression when reading aloud.

Children should regularly read their Accelerated Reader books, but can also read any additional text you have (non-fiction, magazines, other books etc).

Each child has their own reading record and these need to be completed with three adult signed entries per week, indicating when the child read, what they read and anything that arose from the discussion. If the record has been misplaced or left at school, the entries should be completed on a piece of paper, which can be stuck into the book.

Spellings

Spellings will be set through Spelling Shed on a Friday and tested on the following Friday. These will consist of some new spellings, some repeated from the previous week, and some that they may have had at some point earlier in the term. This repetition is key to start developing 'sticky knowledge' of the spelling patterns and spellings we use in school. Previously, we would be teaching and testing some unusual words that would be used as they used a particular spelling pattern or theme. Our new system should be more relevant and useful.

Handwriting

Throughout the week we will ask the children to practise their spellings through handwriting. Part of the curriculum expects all children to be joining their handwriting.

Maths

Current Learning

This term sees a much greater focus on multiplication and more complex maths skills. We will be stepping up the speed expectations for the times tables and also asking the children to know more of the times tables facts by heart. 

Times tables facts

The national expectation for Year 4 is that ALL children will know every times table fact from 1x1 to 12x12 by heart and with instant recall. The Government introduced a national assesement of this skill last year and it was last year's Year 4s who were the first year group to be assessed on their times table fact knowledge.

As a school, we piloted the process in previous years and our pupils performed incredibly well and this was in main due to regular learning at home of the tables, either through playing the TTRockstars app or by repeated questioning by others. Both can be a fun way to learn and enhance the knowledge of the tables, making all of their maths skills much quicker and accurate. The only way to embed this essential skill is to repeatedly practise them. Just a few minutes learning them each day will have a massive impact. Our best mathematicians know all of their tables by heart and it will be invaluable for moving into Year 5 and beyond.

All children have been provided with their own TTRockstars username and password. It would be helpful if they could learn these so that they can use them at home, but also in school, where we will be using the app to keep our skills topped up.

There will also be regular competitions held between the classes and certain groups of children. We hope that you encourage the children to take part.

In Year 4, the expectations in maths have changed significantly. The new curriculum focuses heavily on calculation strategies, particularly for addition, subtraction and multiplication. We also start to develop our division skills, so it is essential that the children work at learning these at home. They are a key life skill which will be essential throughout adulthood.

We are having a huge push on our times tables at the moment as it forms a key part of what we must know to move forwards in our learning. We would really appreciate any help with the learning of this key skill please. If you need some help with suggestions, please see the resources below or come and ask one of the team for some support.

RE

At Manadon Vale, RE is taught to give every child the opportunity to explore the big questions about life, to find out what people believe and what difference this makes to their lives. Pupils gain the knowledge, understanding and skills needed to handle questions raised by religion and belief and to reflect on their own ideas and ways of living.

In Key Stage 1 and 2, we follow the Plymouth Agreed Syllabus for RE. The principal religions and non-religious worldviews represented in the UK are covered taught through 'Key Questions'. These key questions are explored through the study of sacred texts, through creative arts, with visiting speakers and visits to places of worship and with lively discussion and debate.

In Year 4 the key questions are:

What is the ‘Trinity’ and why is it important for Christians? 

What kind of world did Jesus want?

Why do Christians call the day Jesus died ‘Good Friday’? (Salvation) 

What do Hindus believe God is like?

What does it mean to be a Hindu in Britain today?

How do festivals and worship show what matters to a Muslim?