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Year 4

Welcome to Davies Class

Mr P Harrison
Class 4 Teacher

In Year 4, the children are bridging that gap between lower and upper Key Stage Two. Therefore, we focus heavily on developing more independence and a resilience to try to solve problems themesleves or have strategies othet tahn immediately seeking an adult’s support. We wish our learners to be confident enough to ‘have a go’ and use the resources around them to support their own learning. Topics and learning journeys have been designed to capture children’s interests while exposing them to the wonders of the world beyond their own experience. Topics across the curriculum are comprised of a range of learning experiences that challenge learners’ thinking and encourages them to further question, investigate and analyse concepts. In addition to this, teaching and learning is rigorous, nowhere more so than in the basics with a real focus on timestables, reading fluency, handwriting and spellings. Learning is linked wherever possible e.g. our reading lesson may be linked to our current Science learning.

Our class country is Italy. We study this more fully in the Spring term where we learn about its landscape and physical features and compare this to our own locality. We also study the rich history of Ancient Rome.

C.S. Lewis is our class author. In the Spring term we study his book ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and use the ideas and descriptive language from this book to create our own ‘portal’ stories. We also look at clips from the film for inspiration.

Mathematics

In Year 4 we have our own school long term plan but we follow the White Rose scheme for most of our maths lessons and the learning objectives. On Mondays we have ‘Mindbend Mondays’ where the children have a go at problem solving, puzzles and investigations. Here they practise applying their knowledge and learn how to use strategies to unpick problems. 

Every maths lesson starts with the ‘Daily Ten’ whereby the children do 10 questions within a set timeframe. At the moment we are working on multiplication tables. Your child can access this at home via the internet- just search up The Daily Ten and they can select year groups and areas to focus on. It is random and so every time will be different. 

The children are continuing to work on their times tables with weekly challenges to test their knowledge and speed recall. They can practise their tables at home using Times Table Rockstars, timestables.co.uk and writing them out of order at home.

Please find activities and information by following the Third Space Learning link. This is a website with step by step videos and worksheets (which you can print or just have a go at on paper whilst looking at them on the screen). Basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using standard methods would be good to practice.

In Year 4 the children are expected to take the government prescribed MTC (Multiplication Tables check). This is merely a checking tool for the school whereby it can allow us to see where the gaps are and put further intervention in place to support the children who need it. Please access this link for further information: https://www.gov.uk/government/collections/multiplication-tables-check. In Year 4 therefore, we have a real focus on this area with daily practise and the teaching of strategies to recall and find the answers. We ask that parents/carers support at home with daily practise too

English

For writing we use the ‘Talk for Writing’ approach with most of our main writing units. This involves children learning short texts then mapping them out with pictures, symbols and key words. They then ‘innovate’ this model text to write their own version, using it as a ‘scaffold’ for their own writing. As we move further into Year 4, we move to a less scaffolded approach. Children get to write a range of genres and for different purposes and audiences.

Year 4 spellings are set fortnightly and all groups focus on the same sound or group of words. They are sent home every Monday on a ‘Look, Say, Cover, Write, Check’ sheet which they should do every day. They will also practise them in class and be tested weekly. 

Reading is the MOST important thing you can do with your child. We read every day in class- during Whole Class Reading lessons, quiet reading sessions and listening to a book read aloud by the teacher every day. Children will be exposed to a wide range of texts, both fiction and non-fiction. Children should have 2 books- one that is their level- sometimes a colour banded book and another book of their choice. However, reading is to be celebrated, whatever a child reads, be it a comic, a web-site, a graphic novel, a magazine or recipes etc. It is ALL reading!

Handwriting

Please encourage your child to practice their handwriting skills whenever they are writing – the Letter Join website is available to support handwriting practice. The username is ak3814 and the password is home.

Home Learning

Mathematics

Please find activities and information by following the Third Space Learning link. This is a website with step by step videos and worksheets (which you can print or just have a go at on paper whilst looking at them on the screen) You may want to look at other areas of the website too with your child. Basic addition, subtraction, multiplication and division using standard methods would be good to practice.

White Rose Maths have published some fantastic free online Maths resources – remember that it is good to find it challenging as this means that you are learning! Write down your answers, draw diagrams and show your workings!

timestables.co.uk will help them practise their Times Tables and TTRockstars which we use daily in class for most of the year. Your child will have a log in so they can see their own progress and compete against themselves and others.

English

The children love Free Writing and Pobble 365 has a new writing stimulus every day! There are sentence starters and prompts with each sentence.  Please encourage them to practice their handwriting skills whenever they are writing – the Letter Join website is available to support handwriting practice.

Choose a video clip from the Literacy Shed to get your creative juices flowing! Please email any poems, stories, letters, songs or anything that you write to the school office.

Please encourage your child to practice their handwriting skills whenever they are writing – the Letter-join website is available to support handwriting practice.

You can also access all the other website links within the ‘Supporting Learning‘ area of this website under ‘Useful links’. Let your child find out about and learn within an area they are interested in/a subject they enjoy or have a talent for e.g. Geography and mapwork/digital maps or History and a particular period of time that your child is interested in.

Your child can spend time learning all Year 3 and 4 spellings and checking that they know them.

The most valuable thing your child can do is read! Read whatever they are interested in and talk about what they read. Read together and with siblings or to younger siblings.

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