Year 4 Curriculum Outline Summer 2020
Year 4 Curriculum Outline Summer 2020
Zootropolis ~ Survival
Humanities - Social Understanding In our Zootropolis topic pupils will start by exploring animals, their characteristics and the environments they live in. They will have an opportunity to explore which animals live in the surroundings near them. They will learn how animals are classified and gain an understanding into how populations size can be affected. By looking at the population size of species they will develop a wider understanding of the environment and conservation. Pupils will be encouraged to answer open ended questions and use a range of thinking skills. Within the topic pupils will learn about medieval menageries through to modern day zoos, allowing them to develop an understanding of how our knowledge of the past is constructed from a range of sources, such as photographic evidence. Pupils will design their own zoo developing their understanding of the use of maps and a key to provide reference points. In the second half of term, our theme is Survival! We will be looking at The Philippines as a case study and will be looking at natural disasters, such as typhoons and hurricanes. We will
also continue to develop our mapwork skills, looking at the compass rose, coordinates and symbols. Thinking about how humans and animals develop survival skills is another key focus. Woven into our study will be discussing the UN sustainability goal of clean water and sanitation. In RS Dame Bradbury’s pupils will continue to learn about key aspects of Christianity, including Ascension and Pentecost, the establishment of the early church, parables and prayer. They will also consider what makes Jesus unique among other faith leaders, considering the miracles that were performed. K ey skills will include describing religion, asking questions and responding sensitively, making comparisons and forming and expressing opinions. At R osedale pupils will be studying Islam, with a particular focus on the five pillars, the Mosque, festivals, the Qur’an and important people.
Language and Communication In the first half of the term for English pupils will be studying the use of flash forward and flash back stories. Pupils will become familiar with the key features of this type of writing. They will progress to writing a story where the flash back and flash forward begins to become embedded into the storyline. In the second half of term, pupils will be studying diaries and thinking about how to write an effective diary entry. They will also be studying fictional diaries as well as diary entries from some great explorer, such as Scott, to fit in with our survival theme. They are also going to be writing adventure stories where they will continue to develop their storytelling skills, using language and structure to ensure a successful outcome. As always in Modern Languages, activities will complement the thematic learning topics. The focus will be on speaking and listening with stories, songs, rhymes and language learning games. Pupils will be encouraged to link the spoken and written word and key pronunciation rules will be reinforced. Pupils will start the term in Spanish with some activities to improve their skills and confidence when talking about themselves and their family. They will then move on to physical descriptions, in particular describing hair and eyes. French vocabulary and structures will focus on understanding and using adjectival agreements in both written and spoken form with colours, learning parts of the body and what to say when feeling unwell and describing oneself.
Mathematical Understanding In Maths Year 4 will start the term looking at numbers up to two decimal places. They will focus on rounding decimals, recognising and writing decimal equivalents, finding the effect of dividing by 10 or 100 and identifying the value of the digits in answers. The next topic is measurement: pupils will need to estimate, compare and calculate different measures, including money in pounds and pence, solve simple measure and money
problems involving fractions and decimals to two decimal places before moving on to looking at time. This will include converting between different units of measure and reading, writing and converting time between analogue and digital. They will also be asked to solve problems involving converting from hours to minutes; minutes to seconds; years to months; weeks to days. Next, maths lessons will focus on statistics and pupils will be given the opportunity to interpret and present discrete and continuous data using appropriate graphical methods, including bar charts and time graphs. They will also look at information presented in bar charts, pictograms, tables and other graphs before spending time on identifying acute and obtuse angles, comparing and ordering angles up to two right angles by size, and comparing and classifying geometric shapes. Before moving on, pupils will identify lines of symmetry in 2-D shapes presented in different orientations and complete a simple symmetric figure with respect to a specific line of symmetry. The final topic is position and direction. This involves describing positions on a 2-D grid as coordinates in the first quadrant; plotting specific points and drawing sides to complete a given polygon; and, describing movements between positions as translations of a given unit to the left/ right and up/ down. Physical Education and Well-being In P SHEE pupils will complete their sex and relationships education where we will look at different environments from a personal safety perspective and learn about safety rules and who and when to tell. They will be able to identify and name body parts, including the sexual parts and distinguish between ‘yes’ and ‘no’ touches. Pupils will learn how to distinguish between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ secrets and be able to recognise what bribes and tricks are. They will be able to assess problems and risks to keep safer, including assertive voice and body language. When considering what, when, who and how to tell, they will consider what makes a good listener and when it is the best time to tell. After half term, pupils will learn about the main stages of the human lifecycle and will investigate perceptions of being ‘grown up’. They will consider their responsibilities and how these have changed and how they will change in the future, including responsibilities that parents and carers have for babies and children.
Creative and Performing Arts
Each week in M usic the pupils will practise their own instruments/recorders to develop their instrumental technique and expand their repertoire. With this regular practice (which should support the learning in students’ instrumental lessons), they will build their confidence and fluency with reading staff notation alongside l earning how to convey expression and more detailed musical markings. As part of this process, students will be encouraged to add their own creative ideas and interpretations into their performances, and we will explore the various stylish options that are available.
Students will regularly submit finished performances for feedback, evaluate and reflect upon their own work, and will potentially have the opportunity to provide feedback for one another. This process of identifying aspects of their performance which could be improved/refined and then honing in to work on these aspects encourages active listening and increasingly mature musical awareness. During the course of this summer term we will also ‘journey downstream’ to complete a more extensive composition project. Using Smetana’s ‘Ma Vlast’ composition as our main stimulus - a piece in which the composer uses tone painting to evoke the journey and sounds of one of Bohemia’s great rivers - the students will consider how to manipulate the elements of music to build a composition from the basic building blocks to a more developed piece. Their compositions will aim to musically take the listener on a journey from the initial start of the river as small springs, through its winding journey past a variety of magical scenes, to its final joining with the sea. Who knew giraffes and fashion houses were related? Building on work completed in Humanities, in C reate, Design and Engineer we will look back at 17th century menageries and the art that surrounded them. With a look at fixings, attachments and joins, we will begin to construct our own Zootropolis automata from scrap materials found at home. We will enjoy the work from a variety of mixed media artisans, past and present, drawing inspiration for those we find most interesting. Through Drama, we will be exploring a wide range of different stimuli, linking to the theme Zootropolis. The stimuli will include African animal folk tales, extracts from fiction including ‘Water for Elephants,’ being a safari tour guide, shadow puppets, endangered animals, mythical creatures and the musical ‘The Lion King.’ Year 4 will be developing skills in the areas of narration, physical theatre, still image and slow motion. Students will develop empathy through character understanding and be able to self-evaluate their work and that of their peers. We will then go onto the topic of ‘Survival’. Pupils will explore monologue, setting and improvisation on a time machine adventure.
Scientific Understanding This term’s Science has a focus on Biology. In the first topic, Habitats, we will be learning about how we can use keys to identify living organisms in order to then classify them into different groups. We will also look at the various ways in which different species interact with each other and how we can use this information to produce food chains, showing the producers, predators and prey in a habitat. In the second topic, Moving & Growing, the focus is on skeletons and their roles in protecting and supporting animals’ bodies and helping them to move. We will look at the various types of skeletons found in both vertebrates and invertebrates and will get to know the names and functions of the major bones in our own human skeleton. We will also cover the biological aspects of human reproduction, in a lesson which will complement what the children will be learning in PSHEE.
How you can help: We would normally recommend visiting local museums, such as the Cambridge University Zoology Museum, Saffron Walden Museum and Cambridge Science Centre to help enrich your child’s Science learning. During the current lock-down, these institutions are still providing learning opportunities via their websites, with two notable examples being: Cambridge Science Centre ‘Cosmos’ - free online activities http://www.cambridgesciencecentre.org/cosmosonline/ Cambridge University Zoology Museum highlights tour https://youtu.be/VV722mhy9Tk Many museums are offering virtual tours of their collections, which you can access online. Some relevant examples are: Oxford University Museum of Natural History https://my.matterport.com/show/?m=bkx57o7jbCk Natural History Museum, London https://www.nhm.ac.uk/visit/virtual-museum.html Smithsonian Museum of Natural History https://naturalhistory.si.edu/visit/virtual-tour Other helpful online resources include BBC Bitesize Science and look out for science programmes on TV.
Digital
The Inner Wheel With the Google apps at the heart of digital curation our pupils use Google Classroom to complete work digitally and hand in work that is produced in a variety of ways. We have identified 7 main apps, our EverGreen apps, that help to showcase our pupils’ learning. An animation, movie or annotated piece of work provides richer feedback for the teacher and ultimately helps to make greater progress. Explain Everything www.explaineverything.com Green Screen www.doink.com Stop Motion www.cateater.com Strip Design www.vividapps.com/Strip_Designer/ Notability www.gingerlabs.com Book Creator www.bookcreator.com Puppet Pals www.polishedplay.com
The Outer Wheel We have a number of apps that we use consistently throughout our curriculum that lend themselves to our creative approach. We avoid apps that are specific to a particular outcome, preferring content free apps that can help to enhance our pupils work and understanding. Some examples are: Minecraft, iMovie, KeyNote, Pages and Padlet.
Coding Another aspect of our digital curriculum is the coding/programming skills that are embedded in all subjects or taught discretely in Years 5 and 6. We have identified a progression of apps that help to develop our pupils ability to code. The apps provide variety and challenge and help to develop the computation skills that are crucial learning in our digital work. We combine the coding experiences with physical output. Using Spheros, BBC Micro:Bits and Ozobots provides visual outcomes that bring our code to life. As our pupils develop further they transition on to written code.
Thinking Toolkit Alongside and underpinning our curriculum we ensure that our pupils are developing as active learners and active thinkers. Throughout each subject area pupils are encouraged to use their range of thinking tools and reflect on when and how they are using them. Pupils are encouraged to reflect on how their thinking tools underpin all aspects of their learning and not just in the more obvious ways. How are they creative in maths? How do they enquire in English? How are they critical in Music? How do they think computationally in PE?
Inclusion This curriculum map outlines the core curriculum for each year group each term but at the heart of our wheel is the individual learner. Each subject area has a progression of skills which enables staff to stretch or support individuals as and when they need a little help, a bit of a push or a just a different way in. Within our classrooms through planning, teacher knowledge and interactions work is differentiated to suit the needs of each individual.