Year 4

Welcome to Year 4 at The Discovery School!

Year 4 is made up of 3 classes and we are located in the Cathedral End of the school. 

Thunberg

Mr Wood (Year 4 Lead)

Miss Skinner

Miss Lee

Jemison

Miss Stock

Mrs Stiff

Berners-Lee

Mrs Ingles 

Ms Ward-Lewis

Miss Micoud

Should the need arise, feel free to contact us using the following options:

• Telephone 01732 847 000 – ask the office for a call back and the class teacher will call back at a convenient time.
• Email the office if there is a change with pick up arrangements, appointments, absences etc - office@discovery.kent.sch.uk
• Or contact the teachers directly via email.

Mr Wood, Thunberg - fwood@discovery.kent.sch.uk

Mrs Ingles, Berners-Lee - ringles@discovery.kent.sch.uk

Miss Stock, Jemison - lstock@discovery.kent.sch.uk

The year group lead for Year 4 is Mr Wood who also teaches Thunberg class. Please contact him, via his email address, for any concerns that have not been resolved after a conversation with the class teacher.

Year 4 Meet The Teacher

If you have any questions regarding the information included, please contact your class teacher.

Curriculum 

The curriculum at The Discovery School is an enquiry based one in which the children are encouraged to ask and answer questions about a topic.  

Through this enquiry based learning, the children will get the opportunities to experience a range of activities which will help to develop further their knowledge and skills of the wider world. 

Year 4 Learning Guarantees 2024 - 2025

Throughout the year the children in Year 4 will be trying to discover the answers to these 'Questions for Discovery':

Terms 1 & 2: 'What Did The Romans Bring To Britain?'

What Did The Romans Bring To Britain? - Terms 1 and 2

Science: What is sound? Here the children will explore what sound is, how we hear, how sound is formed and how it travels. We are excited about all the practical investigations included in our exploring of this big question!

We will also be studying the digestive system in detail, labelling teeth in humans and animals and describing their different functions. Investigating and exploring food chains will also form part of our work in this unit.  

French: The children in Year 4 will be listening, responding, speaking and beginning to write a range of words and phrases building on their knowledge from Year 3. In addition, we will look at ways to describe people, nationalities, leisure activities, telling the time, activities, festivals and key dates.

Computing: Exploring algorithms and coding will form the focus of our Computing lessons over these two terms. Using Lego Wedo to understand all about coding is something Year 4 cannot wait to get started on.

P.E: Our outdoor lessons will use multi skills and netball as vehicles to drive our learning of working in teams to solve problems and challenges and develop our active skills. Our indoor lessons will use hockey and gymnastics as vehicles to help the children learn all about the rules of hockey, develop their passing, dribbling and attacking skills, which they will then use in a range of game situations and also practise and refine skills to use in a gymnastic performance. 

History: The Roman invasion of Britain and how their lifestyle developed, alongside Roman Gods and their inventions will be studied by the children. 

Art: What is a portrait? Using the artist Amedeo Modigliani, Year 4 pupils will develop their artistic skills using watercolours and acrylics. 

D.T: Whilst exploring some of the basic foods and recipes the Romans used, the children will develop and refine their cutting, peeling and chopping skills, combined with using a heat source, to allow us to plan and create a delicious pizza!

Music: In Terms 1 and 2 we will begin our journey learning all about the ukulele, recognising chords and begin repeating some of these with support.  

PSHE: Over the first two terms we will focus on helping the children understand how we can look after our wellbeing. 

RE: We will be using Christianity and Hinduism to explore why some people pray and believe in God, and how this affects how they live their lives. 

Terms 3 and 4: 'What Makes Our World Wonderful?'

What makes our world wonderful curriculum map 2022 - 2023

French: Listen and respond, speak, read and write using inter-cultural skills. Look specifically at: ways to describe people, nationalities, leisure activities, telling the time, activities, festivals and key dates.

Computing: We will learn all about manipulating sounds and images using iMovie for this unit, followed by exploring Scratch using an increasing number of variables. We will also be designing, writing and debugging algorithms, using an increasing number of variables and sequence these to enable effective program functions. 

P.E: The children will develop their skills and knowledge of invasion games, tag-rugby, football and gymnastics in our P.E units this term.

Music: How does music connect us with the past? How does music make the world a better place?

Geography: Studying counties in England and places in Europe, locating the northern and southern hemisphere, including studying human and physical features will form much of our work in this unit. We will aim to answer the question: What are key aspects of human and physical features in the world?

Music (ukulele): Singing, listening and performing will form the key elements of our music lessons across these terms. 

DT: The children will research, plan, create and test their own solutions to 3 engineering problems at different Kent attractions. 

Art: The children will be designing, printing and using clay whilst studying the artistic works of Hokusai to create their own prints and also clay animals.

Science: Learning all about the different states of matter, evaporation and condensation will form the basis of our investigations in these lessons. We will also be investigating electricity during Term 4.

PSHE: Exploring how we can all be part of a community and the elements that make positive communities will be explored and discussed in our PSHE lessons.

RE: We will continue to explore Christianity and Hinduism and looking at the significance and impact these have had on worldviews. 

Terms 5 and 6: 'What makes the Anglo-Saxons so special?'

What makes the Anglo Saxons so special curriculum map 2022 - 2023

History: The children will have great opportunities to look at the history behind houses, food & farming, clothing, the discovering of Sutton Hoo and the Battle of Hastings.

Music: (ukulele): Singing, listening and performing will form the key elements of our music lessons in our final term. Children will perform several short pieces in front of a small audience. 

Art: Drawing and painting skills will be revised and improved on with opportunities for the children to master during this final term.

Science - Living things and their habitats including the classification of flowers, vertebrates and invertebrates will be explored.

Computing - Using Google Docs to aid some of our publishing work on the Anglo Saxons will be part of our Computing work this term. 

PSHE:  Mental health, families and love, different viewpoints, respect of others, making choices about the environment, diversity, stereotypes, money and jobs will all be discussed and worked on. We will also spend time discussing and exploring 'Changes' in preparation for our transition period into new classes.

RE: We will finish exploring Hinduism and looking at the significance and impact this religion has had on worldviews. 

PE: Now the sun is shining, cricket, rounders and athletics will be our sporting vehicles for us to develop our skills, knowledge and tactics in. 

French: Food, French-speaking countries, clothes and colours will be our finals units for the year.

Homework

Year 4 homework will be set weekly.  It will involve pupils logging on to Purple Mash and completing tasks set regarding the learning taken place in classrooms that week, as well as practising our weekly spelling sounds (these can be found in the spelling section).  Homework will take the following form:

• Reading every night for 10 minutes – to be recorded in the reading record. Children are expected to read every night and bring their reading record into school on a Tuesday and Friday. If your child has finished their book and discussed it, please return it to school with their reading record on the following day and it will be changed.  We encourage the children to be independent and remember to put their book in the reading basket / box for checking. If your child does forget to take home their reading book, there are plenty of books and reading activities to complete online using Purple Mash and Reading Plus.

• Times table practice – Children are strongly encouraged to practise times tables at home each week. This could be done by chanting them as they get ready for school, whilst driving in the car, using flashcards or perhaps on interactive apps. After the children complete their weekly multiplication quiz on the iPad, they will find out instantly if they have scored full marks on that quiz or if they need to carry on practising their current times table/s ready for the following week's quiz. We will be setting some times table practice on Purple Mash alongside homework for additional practice. This will be set weekly and should only take 5 minutes to complete. We encourage all children to practice their times tables everyday as this will help and support their regular mathematics classwork and also prepare them for the Multiplication Check in June.

• Weekly spellings to learn - The children will have a spelling sound / phoneme to learn each week and will be tested on these towards the end of each unit. These units are not necessarily completed at the same time each week, but the children in each class will be told when their spelling sound quiz will take place. Looking for and talking about words that fit the spelling rule the children are working on is a fantastic way to support and help embed rules and words. Occasionally, teachers will set a spelling challenge on Purple Mash or Class Dojo (https://www.purplemash.com/login/) for the children to explore linked to the sound / phoneme they are exploring. We encourage children to practise their spelling sound throughout the week and be looking for different words that contain the specific sound / phoneme for that week.

Spelling

Helping the children to improve their understanding of spelling patterns and rules and broaden their knowledge and use of high-quality vocabulary is very important. In Year 4, children will study a specific sound / phoneme each week e.g. 'er' spelt: ur / ir / er / ear or or, and then complete a series of activities linked to that sound. Some of these involve looking at families of words with the sound in, being spelling spotters from the Year 3/4 spelling list and also practising dictations using words we have discovered with our spelling focus sound. 

Here is a link to a Sway that will explain spelling in more detail, how it will be taught in school and also how this approach can be supported and practised at home: https://sway.office.com/Z4G68i3SiDBoMOEV?ref=Link&loc=play

The spelling section can be found at the bottom of the Sway.

Below is a pdf that will include all the spellings sounds and common exception words that we will be focusing on each week in class. Between 8-10 spellings will be chosen from the list at at the end of each teaching sequence (usually each week, although not always as some units are longer than others) that the children will be tested on. For example, after studying the first sound this term ('er'), around 2 words from each spelling column for that sound will be chosen and tested e.g. turn, furniture, early, earth, fire, spire...

Year 4 Spelling - Sequence 1 and 2

Year 4 Spelling - Sequence 3

Year 4 are currently working on Sequence 3.

 Here is a list of the Year 3/4 spellings that children are expected to know and be able to spell confidently and independently by the end of Year 4: Spelling-Word-List-3-and-4.pdf 

Times Tables

Primary-school children in Year 4 are expected to know all their times tables up to 12 x 12 under the current National Curriculum. To prepare them for this we will be providing pupils with the opportunity to practise their times tables knowledge using the following FREE link:

https://www.timestables.co.uk/speed-test/ 

As explained, during our meet the teacher morning, each week your child should be practising their times tables. They will be completing a times table quiz in school each week on the iPad, where they will be presented with a number of questions linked to a specific multiplication table e.g. 6x, 3x or 8x. Year 4 will spend time initially recapping the 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 8 times tables before looking at the 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12 times tables, which will build on their knowledge from Year 3. Please find your child's score in their reading record to see if they have passed or need to continue practising the current times table. Children will progress to the next times table level once they have scored full marks on their quiz twice. 

Children will progress to Level 1, 2 and 3 which will include the following tables being tested:

Level 1 - 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 and 8

Level 2 - 6, 7, 9, 11 and 12

Level 3 - All multiplication facts up to 12 x 12

Activities to help you and your child:

• Times tables games online - Mathsframe (https://mathsframe.co.uk), Daily 10 (https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/daily10) and Hit the button (https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button)

• Flashcards, concrete and pictorial representations

• Times table songs - Numberock (https://numberock.com/lessons/multiples-of-5-dance/) or BBC Supermovers (https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/supermovers/times-table-collection/z4vv6v4)

In addition, we do have some paper-based sheets to support children practise their times tables, which can obtained from class teachers. See the examples below.

Useful Links

Below are a few links that could be useful to support your child:

Suggested Reading List

Books for Topics Support