4FO

The end of the year is packed full of trips and activities including: a River Irwell fieldwork project, The Imperial War Museum, International Day, sports day and much more!

Our History topic is all about Manchester after 1900, which will include the industrial revolution and how that changed Manchester. We will be comparing new inventions from the Victorian times to the Stone Age and now. We will learn and understand the Great War (World War 1), the women’s rights movement (Suffragettes) and people moving to Manchester (migration). In Geography we will be learning about the Tropics. This will ensure the children know about tropical countries, the southern and northern hemisphere, looking at the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn compared to the UK.

In English we will be reading Arthur and The Golden Rope and using this as inspiration for writing our own quest stories, plus a letter to one of the characters. We will also be reading Harry Potter and The Philosopher’s Stone as a basis for developing our suspense writing skills and an instructional text about how to be a wizard.

This term in Maths, we will be starting with decimals, this follows on nicely from all of our fraction’s work. Then, we will move onto money, time, shape, statistics, this looks at different charts and how we can plot and interpret data before finally covering position and direction.  Keep practising times tables with your children. The Multiplication Test Check will commence on the beginning ofJune! We will be doing regular revision and practice tests in school, but children also need to be learning at home regularly to give them the best opportunity to be successful in the Multiplication Test Check and in Year 5. Children should know all their times tables up to 12 fluently by the time they do their tables check. There is a useful website that can be accessed at home called ttrockstars.com.  Your children should know their password.

In our Guided Reading lessons, we will be reading a variety of text types and books by a variety of authors. Fluency and comprehension is very important. To help children with their vocabulary we will introduce two new words each week, related to our reading text. This is to improve their understanding and encourage them to use these words in their writing. Children will then practise their comprehension skills by answering a range of questions that focuses on different skills: retrieval, meaning of words, summarising, inference and prediction. To support your child’s reading at home, they should be reading for at least 10 minutes every day. Please ask your child some questions to improve their understanding of the book. Your child will have their banded/level reading book and are encouraged to take an additional book home to read for pleasure. Please sign their reading records to acknowledge they have read at home.

In PSHE, this half term will cover our RSE (Relationships and sex education). This is a compulsory part of the curriculum from the government. In year 4, children learn about the beginning of puberty and how the body changes, including personal hygiene. We also talk about diversity, the differences that make us all unique and how we may face discrimination because of this. In relation to this, we cover gender roles and the stereotypes of women and men only doing certain jobs or having specific hobbies and the discrimination faced by women. We encourage all children to take part in this discussion.

In Science,we will be learning about states of matter. Children will learn about the differences between solids, liquids and gases. We will be taking part in exciting science experiments to investigate how water will change from a solid to a liquid, liquid to gas or liquid to gas. We will then cover the water cycle, which looks at evaporation and condensation.

We will continue with our weekly PE sessions, this will be on a Monday for 4JW and Thursday for 4FO. Additionally, it is a compulsory part of the curriculum for year 4 to have swimming lessons; ours takes place at Broughton Swimming Baths. Swimming will take place on a Wednesday afternoon for both classes, please ensure they have the correct kit on the specific days.

Our school PE kit is: A plain white t-shirt, black shorts or tracksuit bottoms and black trainers or pumps. Black trainers can be worn as part of your child’s school uniform. No jewellery should be worn on either of these days, girls should only wear stud earrings that they can take out themselves.

Swimming kit:

Girls: a swimming costume, a swimming cap and a towel.

Boys: tight-fitting swim trunks (not shorts), a swimming cap and a towel.

No earrings, please!

Homework: In Year 4, we will send your child a piece of Maths homework and spellings. Please use TTrockstars to practise times tables whenever regularly. There are prizes for the highest scores and whoever has made great progress!

We’re looking forward to a fantastic year with your children.

Thank you all for your support.