Year 4

Welcome to Year 4

Autumn 2 2023

Dear Parents,

I am wishing you all a warm welcome back after the summer holidays, I hope you have had a restful break and are eager to start the new academic year.  In Year 4, we will revise our school values of Respect, Good Manners, Patience, Perseverance and Honesty.  We will continue with our 'Brookhouse Monsters University' rewards scheme to acknowledge positive attitudes and behaviours that are consistent with our values.  If your child is in the winning team, they will celebrate with a party at the end of term.  Homework will be collected in on a Wednesday to be marked and returned by Friday.  There will also be online tasks to complete on PurpleMash, SPAG.com, Reading Plus and Times Tables Rockstars.

Our topic for this half term is 'The Great Plague'.

English

The first unit for this half term will be Fairy Tales, children will read and discuss a range of tales from this genre focusing on language, themes and features.  Our class novels will be 'The Pied Piper of Hamelin' by Robert Browning and 'Puss in Boots' by Phillip Pullman.  By the end of the unit, pupils will innovate a fairy tale with appropriate features.  The following unit of work is Classic Narrative Poetry, where pupils will listen to, read and discuss a classic narrative poem.  At the end of the unit, pupils will learn a poem by heart for performance.  All units will utilise the 'Talk for Writing' strategy of Imitate, Innovate and Invent.  

Reading is a priority of ours at Brookhouse therefore Whole Class Reading sessions take place everyday, where children are expected to read a range of texts and answer questions by summarising, retrieving, making inference and explaining.  We also have a specific focus on vocabulary, which will be sent home to learn before the lesson.  In school, we will continue to use the online reading resource called 'Reading Plus' and encourage children to complete lessons at home.  It is imperative for you to support your child with reading, please use the question stems to ask your children questions to check for understanding.  Also, ensure your child is learning their spellings for ten minutes daily. 

Mathematics

In Maths, our aim is to improve Maths Fluency, Reasoning and Problem Solving.  We do this through concrete, pictorial and abstract models.  In Autumn 2 pupils will continue with calculation.  They will learn how to multiply and divide by 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 and understand the law of commutativity.  They will also learn how to multiply three numbers together using prior knowledge of multiplication tables.  Pupils will use their times tables and knowledge of place value to multiply multiples of 10, leading to the multiplication of 2-digit numbers using short multiplication.  They will use their knowledge of multiplying multiples of 10 when multiplying multiples of 100, leading to multiplying 3-digit numbers using short multiplication.  Pupils will learn more about division and will divide 2-digit numbers using two methods, including numbers with remainders.  They will then apply this knowledge to Reasoning and Problem Solving by utilising the QUACK method.

Please encourage your child to practice their timetables up to 12x tables as they are required to complete the official Multiplication Tables Check in June, to see if their knowledge is at expected level.  During the Multiplication check, children will have 25 questions to answer with only 6 seconds per question.  In order to aid them with this, your child can use Times Tables Rockstars, UR Brainy MTC and the maths area on Purple Mash, all website links can be located on the Website Star above.

Science

In Science we will learn about 'Sound' (Physics).  By the end of the unit, children will be able to name sound sources and understand sounds are produced by vibrations, know sounds travel in waves through mediums, differentiate between pitch and volume and demonstrate that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.  Pupils will be expected to work scientifically by asking relevant questions and using scientific enquiries to answer them, setting up simple practical enquiries, comparative and fair tests, making systematic and careful observations, recording findings using scientific language, drawing and labelled diagrams, identifying similarities and differences and using scientific evidence to answer questions or support their findings and reporting on findings.  Please encourage your child to learn their knowledge organiser which will assist them with their weekly quizzes.

History

In History, we will explore 'The Great Plague 1664-1666' which was a devastating period of British history.  Pupils will learn key dates, symptoms of the bubonic plague, remedies that people thought would cure the plague, the help available from plague doctors and the overall impact of the plague on death toll and trade. 

Geography

Pupils will investigate what's on their doorstep, paying particular attention to surrounding cities and counties. The counties of Cumbria and Yorkshire will be explored further with a main focus on physical and human features. Then, we will make cross curricular links with history and understand why 'The Great Plague' took hold of London.

Physical Education

P.E sessions will take place on a Thursday morning, we will receive cricket sessions delivered by Chance to Shine.  Pupils will develop the fundamental movement skills of running, throwing (underarm and overarm) and catching whilst learning how to bat and ball in cricket.  For the final two weeks of this half term, pupils will learn the invasion game of basketball with a main focus on dribbling, attacking and defending.  Please ensure your child comes into school wearing their full P.E kit.  The kit should include a yellow P.E top with the school's logo matched with black shorts, joggers or leggings and black pumps or trainers.  Over the top, children will wear their school jumper or cardigan.  All jewellery must be removed, ensure earrings are taken out before the session or covered with plasters.

PSHE

Our unit is Healthy Lifestyles, pupils will understand the importance of leading a balanced lifestyle including a balanced diet and physical activity.  Furthermore, well-being will be a main focus throughout the year, children will have the opportunity to share and discuss any concerns or worries openly.  

Music

For the glockenspiel unit, pupils will explore basic instrumental skills by playing tunes in varying style.  By the end of the unit, they will be able to compose and perform a piece of music on the glockenspiel using notes C, D, E, F and G. 

Computing

Children will start their Computer Science unit of Coding where they will design, write and debug programs.  The aim of the unit is for pupils to create a game which their peers can play.  In order to create a game, they need to use co-ordinates, 'repeat until' command, IF/ELSE statement and number variable. 

Oracy - Voice 21

As a school we are developing our Oracy, learning through talk and learning to talk.  In class, we have created discussion guidelines to aid meaningful discussions.  We encourage children to fully participate by taking on a range of roles and utilising sentence stems to articulate their ideas.  We will provide opportunities for discussion in all areas of the curriculum.

If you have any queries, do not hesitate to discuss these with us at the end of the school day or arrange an appointment through the school office.

Thank you for your support.

Yours Sincerely,

Miss Martin (Class Teacher), Miss Matadar (Special Support Assistant), Mrs Khonat and Mrs Patel (Higher Level Teaching Assistant).