Heyes Lane Primary School

We start the year by revisiting our Year 3 core skills by creating character description’s from the Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe. We then move onto our topic ‘Turbulent Earth’, where the children become experts in natural disasters and the climate emergency. We will refine our map and atlas reading skills and use and apply our mathematical knowledge including place value and reading negative numbers. Our computing unit on ‘Investigating Weather’ helps us to find out about climate science and understand how to gather and interpret data. This culminates in a multimedia presentation showcasing the children’s knowledge and skills.

Next, we travel back in time to Ancient Egypt where, as historians, we explore the tomb of Tutankhamun. What secrets were held within the tomb? Why was it hidden for so long and who finally re-discovered it? Was the tomb cursed? The children will investigate the mysteries of Ancient Egypt, practising and developing new skills in reading and writing along the way.

In this term, as active and ethical citizens, we learn about our impact on both a local and global scale.  We reflect upon our impact on the world through the choices we make. We will learn about the effects of palm oil production and the damage it does to our rainforest habitats. As writers, we take up the challenge of persuading our community to limit their consumption of this product. Our aim is to make a positive change in the lives of members of our school community.

As part of our immersion into the rainforest, we explore the science behind food chains within this environment and how animals are adapted to this habitat. We will learn more about how we process food and how this links to diet and nutrition.

We spend the Summer Term thinking about Roman Britain and the legacy left by Ancient Rome on our country. We explore the idea of leaving our own legacies as individuals through our words and action. During this term we learn all about the Roman Empire and its vast reach consolidating and further developing our geographical skills. In Computing sessions, we design websites featuring information about gladiators we have created. In Art we examine the use of symbols and the power they held both in Roman and Modern times. Our art and design skills are developed through the creation of purses and coins which are then used to vote in the Year 4 forum!

Alongside this, in Science we explore sound learning about how sound travels, how we hear sound and how sounds are created. We use our learning to design and make our own musical instruments that make sounds in a variety of different ways.

The summer term is used to think about healthy lifestyles and how our diets affect our learning and the way we live. We learn about where our food comes from and how we can make sustainable choices through the food we grow and eat.

Over the course of the academic year, the children will complete 3 sets of summative assessment in autumn 2, spring 2 and summer 2. In reading, the children will complete one test paper consisting of 3 texts which vary in genre. Questions will test the children’s use of key reading skills including fact retrieval, word recognition and inference. The maths assessment is completed over three papers consisting of: arithmetic, reasoning 1 and reasoning 2. The arithmetic paper tests the children on the core skills and the questions are designed to be completed efficiently. Each reasoning paper is longer in length and may contain word and two step problems. The spelling, punctuation and grammar assessment tests the children on the content taught according to the Year 4 National Curriculum. The aim of these assessments is to gain a greater understanding of what the children can do independently. In addition, the teachers use these tests to identify gaps and inform future teaching.

Help from parents and carers at home can certainly help to consolidate the learning done in school.

· Reading – hear your child read as often as possible and ask them appropriate questions about the text. (question stems on website)

· Homework – This is designed to either consolidate work done in the week or to provide pre-learning for an upcoming topic. Generally the homework each week alternates between Maths (using the My Maths website) and English.

· TT Rockstars and Spelling Shed – while we are mindful of the amount of screen time each child has, you could encourage your child to practise both their times tables and spelling fluency using these sites.