Birkby Junior School

Year 4 Staff:

Welcome back, we hope that you’ve enjoyed your break and are ready for a final term of learning in Year 4!

We have an exciting Summer Term coming up, with a range of topics and learning to be covered.

What will we be learning?

This term we will be using the short film – The Piano. Through this we will explore themes, settings and flashbacks. We will also begin our learning in English around ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid’. We will be focusing on understanding the features of diaries. Following this, we will be planning and creating our own diary entries. After learning about Jeff Kinney’s journey to becoming a world-renowned author, we will write biographies about his life.

Throughout the year we have continued to inspire children to choose to read for pleasure and enjoyment. Focussed reading sessions will continue to take place to help strengthen fluency and comprehension skills in retrieving and inferring texts. Our weekly cracking comprehension sessions explore and understand a range of fiction and non-fiction texts. Home reading books are sent home weekly and we encourage parents to try to find time to read as often as possible; discussing books will help your child to become a better reader and help to continue develop their love of reading.

In Maths we will focussing on Measurements - area and time; Shape, reflection and translation and Statistics. We will be furthering our understanding of number problems and applying all concepts to reasoning and mastery activities. Developing fluency in these areas is also important and the children will also be encouraged to learn their times tables and numbers facts to help them develop their mental strategies. As part of our ‘catch up’ programme, Maths lesson ‘starter’ activities will focus on times tables and perimeter.

As in the Spring term, we will continue to be a big push on ensuring that the children are secure in their times tables knowledge. We are hoping to see lots of children feeling like times tables rock-stars!

During Summer 1, we will learning about rivers and the landscape that surrounds them and that they have different characteristics as they move from the upper course, into the middle course and lower course. During our work on Coasts, children will investigate what coasts are, how they are formed, how they are protected and why they are constantly changing. They will also understand that erosion can affect the coast and find out the names of some coastal formations. Alongside this, year 4 will also investigate how tourism has changed some coastal towns and the impact that this could have on the natural habitat. Throughout the whole of the Summer term, we will explore our geography school themes of Location, Place, Relationships, Movements and regions.

Our PE sessions will be taught each week, allowing children to develop skills and team building. On their allocated PE days, children should come to school in their PE kit bottoms and their normal school polo shirt and sweatshirt (e.g. black tracksuit bottoms rather than trousers or skirts). Class teachers will let you know which days your child will have PE. During summer 1, we will focus on athletics and orienteering and in summer 2, we will focus on game skills and tennis.

To support our learning around the Egyptians, we will be designing and creating canopic jars. Pupils will then go on to evaluate our finished products. Music will also support previous work on Egyptians and moving onto Sea Shanties for summer 2. PSHE will provide pupils with opportunities to explore their feelings as well as how to look after their environment. They will then learn the importance of treating other people with respect. RE will continue to learn about the five pillars guide for Muslims ten moving onto how important events are remembered. French will cover how to order food in a cafe. Computing will cover coding and manipulating photographs.

Please see the curriculum newsletter for more detail about other aspects of our learning.

What will I need to bring to school?

You need to remember to bring your homework diary into school every day.  Your teacher will check your diary regularly and an adult at home will need to as well. 

You need to return your home reading pack weekly as well as your homework book.

What work will I need to do at home?

English and Maths homework will be set every Wednesday and will need to be handed in on the following Monday.

Please remember to encourage your child to read their home reading books regularly and return their pack to school each week.

Weekly spellings will be shared with the children and sent home on Wednesday. Children will be tested on these the following week before your receive your next spellings

Bringing your homework diary to school every day will help you to remember what work you need to do.  This is a good habit and will help you to become an independent learner.

Remember to complete Mathletics activities and practise your Times Table using TTRS.

In addition to this, it is important that you continue to read and discuss texts with someone at home on a regular basis.  You will be able to visit the school library once a week, in order to select a new reading book as well as bring home a home reading pack too.

Try and read every day, even if it’s just for 10 minutes.  It doesn’t have to be the school library book or your home reading book – it could be a magazine you have read, game instructions, a recipe or any other texts you have been reading. Remember to fill in your home reading record book, as you do in class, and record all reading.

We know that your child will continue to have a fantastic time in Year 4 during the summer term!