Mr Cockson, Mrs Mounsey (4PC) and Mrs Carruthers (4LC) welcome you to Year 4.
We are also lucky to have  Mr Ali, Mrs Iqbal and Mrs Evans working alongside the children on a regular basis.
 

This year, Year Four will continue to have swimming lessons on a Thursday afternoon. They have P.E on a Monday afternoon.  Please make sure that children bring in the correct kit on these days.

Homework is set on a weekly basis.  At the start of the year, it will be an English or Mathematics activity, spellings and times tables to learn and daily reading with an adult or older relative to share a book and talk about it. It will be given out and marked every Thursday. Later in the year, we will start termly homework where the children will have a wide variety of homework linking into their subject topics.

Please remember your reading book and water bottle every day. We also have clubs on Mondays, so you may need your kit then!

Have you seen the Kids' Zone? Play games, and visit some cool websites. You can vote for your favourites!

Poetry by Memory

Year 4 have once again got stuck into poetry, which has linked in with the new IPC topic, 'Land, Sea and Sky'. We have looked at different strategies for how to remember poetry, and also how to be confident in reading poetry to their classmates. The children have shown fantastic improvement in their performance, and have looked to add lines to poems they have examined. They have also all contributed towards learning a class poem called 'Animal Alliteration Poem'.!The children have improved their understanding of some grammar, including pronouns, determiners, prepositions and fronted adverbials.

Curriculum Topic - Land, Sea and Sky

This topic has seen the children enjoy some interesting Science and Geography lessons. We have looked at many interesting areas such as biomes, food chains and the water cycle. Here is some of our work so far.

Understanding electricity and using it safely

Year 4 have enjoyed some very practical lessons using electricity! They have learnt about completing and drawing circuits (including switches, buzzers and motors), materials that are good conductors and insulators, and how to keep safe around electricity.

English

Our first topic in English this year helped to celebrate marking 100 years since the birth of Roald Dahl, one of the world's best storytellers. To get the children back into the swing of writing we have looked at a variety of genres including desriptive stories, instructions and diaries. This has been aided by one of the Roald Dahl favourites, BFG. To finish off this celebration, the children have entered the 'Once upon a Dream' competition, where the children have written a poem about a dream (see below).

English

After studying Roald Dahl, we studied fables. We enjoyed reading a variety of fables and doing activities to help us make our sentences exciting using adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions. The class practiced using different styles of writing including writing letters, and we will be creating our own fables at the end of the topic. There has also been a strong focus on grammar, spelling and handwriting.

Diaries

Looking closely at diary entries linked in well with our Case study of the Victorians. With the help of their experiences from the trip to George Street Chapel, the children put themselves in the shoes of Victorian children who worked hard and lived in poor conditions in workhouses. The children created well-structured diaries, writing in 1^st person and using time conjunctions and extended sentences. The children also wrote accurately about Victorian times.

Biographies

Biographies, similarly to our Diaries topic, took a lot of inspiration from our Victorians case study. The children researched some famous people from the Victorian era, including Queen Victoria and Florence Nightingale. The children learnt how to write accurately in chronological order and including detailed factual information such as names, places, dates and events. They improved grammar skills by using time connectives and emotive vocabulary.

Nonsense Poetry

The classes enjoy poetry a great deal, and with nonsense poetry the children enjoyed some humorous poems which they performed to the class. The children looked closely at Limericks by Edward Lear, a famous Victorian poet. They also used the Jabberwocky by Lewis Carroll as inspiration to write their own nonsense poem, that included some of their own nonsense words. We also improved grammar skills by using adverbs and fronted adverbials.

Poetry that Creates Images

We looked at some fun poetry that looked to paint pictures within the reader’s minds. The children were fantastic in reciting poems out loud to their classmates, memorising poems and using expression and actions to improve their performances. The children created some funny and detailed poems about animals that included lots of exciting vocabulary, as well as rhyme.

Explanation texts

We have been blending our English with our I.P.C topic ‘How Humans Work’, by writing an explanation text all about teeth and ‘’How Sharks Eat’. = The children will be looking to improve writing skills by using conjunctions, suitable paragraphs and also using diagrams or illustrations to partner their writing.

Stories with a historical setting

In January, we linked our English work closely to our IPC subject, ‘Temples, Tombs and Treasures’. We read our Year 4 story, ‘The Time Travelling Cat and the Egyptian Goddess’. We have looked very closely at the book and discussed the features, as well as discussing what happened in the book. We have improved our inference skills, being able to read short passages and show a high level of understanding as to what has happened. This has helped to improve our quality of writing fiction.

Fairytales

Year 4 have been improving their own narratives through fairytales, and we have again worked closely linked to or 'Temples, Tombs and Treasures' IPC topic. We began by reading and discussing 'The Egyptian Cinderella', looking closely at fairytales' use of speech. We took the opportunity to include some drama which the children took part in confidently. As a result, the children have recreated fairytales (Little Red Riding Hood, Rapunzel and Sleeping Beauty) with an Egyptian twist. They learnt to plan and edit their work effectively, have looked to use speech accurately, as well as using embedded clauses and fronted adverbials.

Poetry by Memory

Year 4 have once again got stuck into poetry, which has linked in with the new IPC topic, 'Land, Sea and Sky'. We have looked at different strategies for how to remember poetry, and also how to be confident in reading poetry to their classmates. The children have shown fantastic improvement in their performance, and have looked to add lines to poems they have examined. They have also all contributed towards learning a class poem called 'Animal Alliteration Poem'.!The children have improved their understanding of some grammar, including pronouns, determiners, prepositions and fronted adverbials.

We started the Autumn term with the main topic;

Living Together

We learnt about the history and geography of our local community, investigating local art work and creating our own sculpture. We also discussed the rules and considerations needed to live in a community.  Our English was linked to our topic whenever possible.  

We  are continuing to visit  different paces of worship and talk to people in our community with different jobs and roles. If you think you could help us with this topic, please do not hesitate to contact Mr Cockson.

We enjoyed making sure that lessons had a focus on awe and wonder, thinking for ourselves, outside learning, creativity and the use of I.C.T to enhance learning throughout the curriculum and seeing links between subjects.

Persuasive writing

We looked at the arguments whether or not we should have zoos/Sea Life Centres. We have researched and debated our points, debated our arguments and worked on the structure and techniques of our written work. We have had a strong focus on speaking and listening in this unit of work and we have enjoyed working in groups and with partners.

Maths

In Maths, we began the Autumn term learning about place value. We have learnt how to read and write 4 and 5 digit numbers (in numbers and words). We have also been comparing, ordering and partitioning numbers, whilst incorporating real life practice into our place value work (Dates, measurement and weight etc.). We are trying to 'master' these areas and are applying our knowledge in lots of different ways!

Rounding

We have been working on rounding. It is difficult to understand rounding when you don’t have strong number sense. However, our work on place value has really helped us. Instead of using tricks and short cuts we are trying really hard to gain a deep understanding. This is proving to be more powerful, because the children are beginning to understand the concept. We started by counting in tens. Not just 10, 20, 30, 40, 50 60, but also 110, 120, 130, 140, 150 and in reverse. We counted by hundreds in the same way. In order to make it more fun we passed a rugby ball, which is also helping our tag rugby skills, We then talked about what nearest ten and hundred mean. Then we made number lines to help explore the concept

Measurement

The children have been converting imperial measurements e.g. kilometre to metre; gram to kilogram; hour to minute. We have also improved our estimating skills when measuring eachother's heights and objects around us.

New Topic - Temples, tombs and treasures!

Year 4 began their new curriculum topic with a visit to the Manchester Musuem. They had a chance to explore their thousands of Egyptian artefacts and took part in activities examining tombs, jewellery and other interesting artefacts from the Ancient Egyptian era. The children thoroughly enjoyed the trip and as a result, have dived into the topic in the classroom. Here is some of our work so far:

Temples, tombs and treasures- Ancient Egypt

The first IPC topic in 2016 was ‘Temples, Tombs and Treasures’. This has taken the children’s historical knowledge as far back as 3000BC and they have enjoyed discovering about Egyptian tombs and mummies. We have researched lots of interesting areas from Ancient Egypt such as hieroglyphics, Egyptian Gods and Goddesses, Pharaohs and Pyramids, as well as the importance of the River Nile.

Art Week

Year 4 have had some fantastic opportunities working with Mrs Mather for art week, completing a variety of activities that have not only helped improve their artistic skills, but also skills in other subjects too.

First, the children learnt about 3D shapes, particularly pyramids (in line with our Egyptian topic). They build a pyramid using a net and researched a modern artistic use of the shape, the Louvre pyramid. Secondly, the children created an Egyptian landscape  where they learnt how to use a protractor, accurately measure, and create a wash using paints. They also showed they could create different shades of colour. Here is an example of some of their work.

How Humans Work

We started our 'How Humans Work' I.P.C topic with a Knowledge Harvest.

So what is a Knowledge Harvest?
A Knowledge Harvest is the opportunity to show what you know. It provides the children with a fantastic opportunity to record everything they know that may be linked to either the new IPC unit or sometimes in relation to specific aspects of that unit. The knowledge harvest empowers learners to realise that they already know many things and provides a base which can be used throughout the unit to make connections. Knowledge harvests can take many forms, but are most often seen as mind maps - diagrams that contain words and pictures demonstrating how things are linked.

Did you know?
The International Primary Curriculum is a curriculum that is being used in over 1000 schools in 65 countries around the world. It was launched in 2000 having taken three years to create by a group of leading experts in children's learning from around the world.

In November, Year Four attended Lancashire Cricket Club at Old Trafford for a ‘Education Without Boundaries’ day. This was a fun, interactive and inspirational educational experience at a world class facility. Children joined Lanky’s Literacy Club for the day. This gave children the chance to practice their fundamental skills in a fun way as well as play cricket in the Indoor Cricket Centre.  Children were engaged in word games in which they used Ipads and interactive games to develop their literacy skills. The day also linked in well with our I.P.C topic ‘How The Body Works’, because children played cricket in World Class facilities.

Chef School

In December, we went to the Toby Carvery for a Chef School . This further helped the children in their I.P.C topic. Children met a professional chef; learned about where food comes from and how it is prepared before it reaches the plate.

As part of the two-hour interactive session the class learned about the importance of eating seven portions of fruit and vegetables a day, the nutritional content of vegetables and the numerous ways to cook them. The children also ate a meal of delicious cooked vegetables at the restaurant.

Learning First Aid

Year 4 spent an afternoon learning about some important lessons in First Aid. The afternoon involved discussing the possible dangers around us, helping people who are injured or in need, and learning how to apply bandages and plasters safely and correctly. The children were very enthusiastic and really enjoyed the session and were lucky enough to take some bandages and plasters home. They have also recieved a certificate.

Mrs Scott was happy to see we had some possible future medics in Year 4, and we would like to thank her for an enjoyable and informative afternoon. Thank you Mrs Scott!

R.E. 

Year 4 children have been learning about the Church. We will visit the local Church to expand our knowledge and understanding of the Church and its practices. In particular, we have been looking at how people make a church. We have been comparing different denominations and looking at symbolism inside Churches, as well as improving our knowledge of the different parts of a Church and what they represent. We will be linking our RE to our IPC topic when looking closely at communities. We will be looking at lots of major religions during the year.

In January, we studied ‘Jesus the Son of God’. The children have deepened their understanding of Jesus, who he was, his teaching and behaviour. They have explored the stories of Jesus meeting and healing people, and have used these stories to discuss and show how Jesus was not only a man, but also God. We have looked at stories such as Jesus walking on water and Jesus’ transfiguration.

As part of Our Living Together topic we are discussing tolerance and how we can live well with other people. As part of this we created an ant-racism display. We are proud to be a racism free school, but wan to share our message with others.