English / Reading

During the year, we will be reading a variety of books in the class including:

-Charlotte’s Web
-The Demon headmaster
-The Witches
-Kensuke’s kingdom
-Tilly and the time machine
-The lion, the witch and the wardrobe

During guided reading lessons, we will be covering a variety of genres, including fiction and non-fiction. Over the year, we will be developing the key skills including vocabulary, inference, prediction, explain, retrieve and summary. It is important that your child is reading daily at home and that parents are asking questions about what your child has read. They will have access to accelerated reader where they can take quizzes based on books they have read to further enhance their understanding.

In English, the key skills the children will be learning this year are to use fronted adverbials followed by a comma, a range of punctuation including commas, inverted commas and apostrophes and a range of adverbs and expanded noun phrases to extend their sentences. We will be doing this through a range of genres of writing.

Maths

In Maths, we will be following a mastery approach. At the start of lessons, the children will complete recall questions to assess their prior knowledge of key concepts. Daily lessons follow a mastery approach.

Place value and the four operations

They will start by securing their knowledge in place value. They should be able to read, write and represent numbers up to 10,000. They will work on finding 1,10,100 and 1,000 more or less than numbers up to 10,000 and be able to round numbers to the nearest 10,100 and 1,000.

They will then move on to addition and subtraction of numbers within 10,000 where they will be exchanging between place value columns. Next, we will move on to multiplication. Children should be able to recall multiplication facts up to 12 x 12. We will work on multiplying 2 and 3 digit numbers by a 1 digit number.

Area, length and perimeter

Children will be able to find the area of shapes by counting squares. They will calculate the perimeter of rectangles, rectilinear and polygons. We will work on converting between kilometres and metres and centimetres.

Fractions and decimals

We will start with revising over making the whole and then we will look at mixed numbers and converting them to improper fractions. We will then move onto adding and subtracting fractions, including subtraction from whole amounts. After this, we will focus on tenths and hundredths as decimals. Children should be able to divide by 10 and 100.

In addition to the above, we will cover the topics of money, time, shape, statistics and position and direction.

Foundation

History/Geography

Autumn 1 – Romans

This unit looks at the Romans and their achievements from 43 CE to 410 CE. They will explore what life was like in early Rome, who was in charge and held the power across the Empire and how the emperors trained up their powerful armies. This moves onto the Roman invasion of Britain; a comparison between the existing Celtic villages and the new Roman settlements, alongside finding out how the Romans protected their new lands and an introduction to significant historical figures of the time such as Boudicca. The unit finishes with a study of the final years of the Roman Empire and the events led to its downfall.

Autumn 2 – Europe

In this unit, children will identify and locate countries in Europe using an atlas. They will understand the four geographical divisions in Europe and how they compare to each other. They will be able to identify physical and human features of Europe and locate the main seas and oceans surrounding the continent.

Spring 1 – Ancient Egypt

In this unit, children learn about how early civilisation started within Egypt. They shall discover how the upper and lower kingdoms joined together to create the Ancient Egypt of the Old Kingdom. The children will compare the Egyptian time period to Neolithic in Britain, to find out what was happening at the same time and how these two civilisations compared. The children will then discover all about the Egyptian gods, what Ancient Egyptians believed about the afterlife, how the pyramids were built and who the greatest pharaoh was in all of Egypt’s history.

Spring 2- Longitude and latitude

During this half term, the children will be learning about what lines of latitude and longitude are and how they help us to determine what the location is like. They will be able to locate exact locations around the world and explore what time zones are and how they affect us. Finally, they will be able to explain how night and day occurs.

Summer 1- Ancient Greeks

This unit looks at the Ancient Greeks and their achievements from around 3000 BCE to the reign of Alexander the Great around 330 BCE. The first lessons focus on the Minoans and how they began to trade in early Greece. The children will also think about how we know about the early Greeks, by looking at excavation evidence and what this tells them. Then we will focus on life in Athens and Sparta, the Persian invasion and the impact this had on life in the city-states. The final few lessons look at the leadership of Ancient Greece under the rule of King Philip II and then Alexander the Great.

Summer 2- 4 and 6 figure grid reference

During the final term, the children will have the use of maps, atlases and globes to know and explain more about location and a place. They will be able to use 4 and 6 figure grid references with precision and accuracy, collecting and using information to know more and explain what a location or place is like.

Science

At tame Valley academy we ensure children have access to a range of knowledge and skills. We will ensure lessons are engaging and practical to enhance their understanding of key concepts.

Autumn 1 – Animals Including Humans

Children in year 4 at Tame Valley will be learning about biology. We will be looking at Animals including humans. Children will explore, learn, investigate and understand the importance of nutrition. We will also learn about skeletons, why we have them and the importance of them. Finally, we will learn about where are our muscles and what they do.

Autumn 2 – States of matter

This half term is based on chemistry. In this unit of work, children will learn what a ‘state’ is and what ‘matter is. They will be able to explain how particles are arranged in a solid, liquid and a gas and the features of them. We will be conducting various experiments to determine how materials change through melting, evaporating and condensing.

Spring 1- Teeth, digestion and food chains

In this biology unit on animals, including humans, children will be able to identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions. They will also be able to describe the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans. They will explore how the digestive system works and the process. Finally, they will be able to construct and interpret a variety of food chains, identifying producers, predators and prey.

Spring 2- Electricity

During this half term, year 4 will explore what appliances use electricity and what sort of power makes them work. They will be able to identify what the everyday appliances are that run on electricity and whether they operate via battery or mains. They will learn about the components in a simple circuit and be able to test what happens when a circuit is closed or open through construction of a circuit. They will then experiment the effects of changing circuit components and batteries.

Summer 1- Sound

In this unit, children will be able to identify how sounds are made, associating some of them with something vibrating, They will learn how vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear. Children will find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it, find patterns between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it and recognise that sounds get fainter as the distance from the sound source increases.

Summer 2- revisit and consolidation

Art/DT

Autumn 1-Mosaics

In this Art unit, the children will learn about mosaics and where they came from. They will learn about the work of the artist, Elaine Goodwin and where she takes her inspiration from. They will move on to planning a mosaic, using collage to create it and finally creating a tile mosaic.

Autumn 2-Biscuits

During this DT unit, the children will be following a recipe to create a biscuit. Before they do this, they will evaluate a range of biscuits on the market and decide on a target audience. They will then create a prototype and be able to evaluate their final product.

Spring 1- Drawing, sketching and painting

This half term, children will be exploring Egyptian art. They will create their own modern-day version of papyrus paper. They will be making zines – creating contemporary response (zine) to share learning about the Ancient Egyptians and their art.

Spring 2-Structures and mechanisms

In this DT unit, children will explore Roman architecture. They will explore nets and design a Roman pavilion. Children will then make a Roman structure using nets of shapes, evaluating their design. Finally, they will learn about the structural engineer, Roma Agrawal.

Summer 1-Printing

This half term, the children will use tie dye technique to create coloured designs on fabric They will select materials for use as weft and warp and comment on the effects achieved. In addition to this, they will learn and apply weaving techniques. They will learn about the Kente cloth from Africa and create their own block printing based on this. In the last couple of lessons, pupils will create repeated geometric patterns using printing techniques.

Summer 2-Textiles

This final term, pupils will learn about weaving and textiles. They will develop their sewing skills by practicing a range of stitches. They will learn how about the technique of applique and then how to embellish their final piece.