Welcome to Year 4 everyone - we hope you had a wonderful Summer! Year 4 will be taught by Miss Sharpe, Miss Miller (Wednesday afternoons) and Mrs Shaw (Thursday mornings). We are supported in class by Mrs Brown and Mr Mitchinson.

Please find some information regarding the Autumn term below.

In English this half term, we will be reading ‘The Whale’ by Ethan and Vita Murrow. Year 4 will use this text to work towards writing a setting narrative and a newspaper report. The children will mainly be focusing on developing language and using expanded noun phrases, as well as using inverted commas to show direct speech and fronted adverbials to show time, place and manner. As a class story, we will be reading Billionaire Boy by David Walliams and The Railway Children by Edith Nesbit as our class book.

During Maths lessons in the Autumn Term, we will be focusing on place value, addition and subtraction, measurement, and multiplication and division. 

The children will be taking the Multiplication Tables Check within the first two weeks of June. This determines whether the children can recall their times tables fluently. Knowing their tables is an incredibly important skill that will assist the children in many areas of Maths and will be an incredibly beneficial skill to take with them into upper KS2. Therefore, the children will be completing times tables activities most days as well as completing a Mastering Number session. This focusses on times table patterns and two particular times tables each week.  

In History, we will be learning about the Ancient Egyptians. We will study the civilisations within Ancient Egypt including who they were, the Old Kingdom, the Middle Kingdom, hieroglyphics, the Gods, and finally, Tutankhamun. 

In Science, we are learning about living things and their habitats. We will be studying animals, discussing which are vertebrates and invertebrates, classification, plants, and the effect of environmental changes on habitats. 

PE

Year 4 PE days are Wednesday and Thursday this term. The children will have Balla from Feet 4 Football every Wednesday. On Thursdays, Carlisle United Sports Trust will be working with Year 4 for PE and delivering a Sustainability topic.  PE kits can be left in school during the half-term to ensure the children have their kits on these days.  As a reminder, our school P.E. kit includes a coloured T-shirt which represents the house your child belongs to, black or navy shorts (or tracksuit / jogging bottoms in colder weather) and trainers. No jewellery should be worn for safety reasons.

Homework

Homework will be set in the form of spellings, times tables and short Maths and English tasks. Homework will be set on Mondays to be returned on Fridays. We will have a times table test on Fridays and a spelling test on Mondays. There will be a different times table focus for each week which we really encourage the children to work on. These can be practised using TT Rock Stars and spellings can be accessed on Spelling Shed. Links to both of these can be found at the bottom of the page and the children’s logins can be found in their reading diaries.

The school also strongly encourages children to read with an adult nightly as part of their homework, as well as discuss their books to develop comprehension skills. A record of this should be kept in their reading diaries. Developing confidence in reading will truly benefit the children in all areas of school life.

Please help your child plan when they will complete their homework, so they have time to ask any questions they may have in school before it’s due.

Reminders

• Children should arrive at 08:45am with the doors closing at 8.50.
• All children should bring their water bottle and reading book into school every day.
• Having a coat in school each day is useful for our very changeable and unpredictable weather!
• Have PE kits in school ready for PE on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Please look out for updates on Class Dojo. Feel free to contact us on there with any questions you might have. I look forward to all the exciting things we will get up to this term in Year 4!

Best Wishes,

Miss Sharpe

Useful Links for Learning 

• Times Tables Rockstars Times tables practice

• Spelling Shed Spelling practice

• Hit The Button! Quick fire maths practise

• Dance Mat Typing Learn to type the fun way!

• Newsround Keep up to date with the latest news.