Year 4 Curriculum outline Autumn 2020
Year 4 Curriculum Outline Autumn 2020 Fire and Ice ~ Colours of History Humanities - Social Understanding Fire and Ice is a fantastic topic in which pupils will be learning key skills such as mapping, evaluating evidence and sources, researching and comparing and contrasting. They will be learning about volcanoes, Pompeii, the water cycle, and deserts, and they will have an opportunity to follow other areas of their own interest. Pupils will be encouraged to ask questions and make connections.
Colours of History is an inspiring theme where pupils will be thinking how colour has shaped our world, for example, colours associated with royalty and battles. Mapping skills will continue through looking at scale, orientation and plans. In R S, pupils will study Hinduism. Pupils will learn about the origins of Hinduism and key beliefs held by Hindus. Pupils will listen, explain, research and show understanding of major festivals, gods and goddesses, how and where Hindus worship and their beliefs related to life and death. They will consider worship in the home and what being a Hindu means in everyday life.
Language and Communication In English, embedded in our Fire and Ice theme, pupils will be focusing on dragons, writing non-chronological reports and legends. How to Train Your Dragon is our key text and we will be completing much of our grammar and comprehension work through this text. Pupils will be revisiting and extending key writing skills, such as using commas, sentence starters, similes, conjunctions and encouraging an ambitious range of vocabulary. In the second half of the term, through our Colours of History topic, pupils will be focusing on historical fiction and persuasive writing. Pupils will focus on Boudicca, writing about events from her perspective. They will be choosing using language, literacy and layout features appropriate to a chosen task and developing their use of clauses within their writing. In Modern Languages, developing good oral communication skills remains at the core of our lessons with the use of written clues to help with pronunciation, comprehension and the consolidation of vocabulary. Linking into the thematic topics, pupils will explore the language, discovering patterns in words and structures, learning about cultural aspects and getting plenty of chances for conversation and working on accents. Songs and rhymes will help pupils recall key phrases and words and embed their knowledge. In French and Spanish this term, pupils will discover a range of weathers, revising seasons and months alongside and apply weather and compass points to talk about weather across the country. Pupils will revise and extend their knowledge of key family members. Pupils consolidate their learning towards the end of term in targeted revision activities. Linking to the thematic learning topics, they will explore the Geography of Spain, using the famous rivers as a starting point for pronunciation practise and learn a poem about autumn. Learning a short poem, Halloween vocabulary and a Christmas song offers performance opportunities and helps the children to learn about Spanish and Hispanic culture.
Mathematical Understanding The term starts with a focus on place value. This topic includes work on Roman numerals, rounding, partitioning, negative numbers, comparing and ordering numbers. Pupils will then move onto addition and subtraction, with and without exchanges, estimating answers and checking strategies.
The next topic is measurement, specifically, length and perimeter, including working with kilometres. Their final topic is multiplication and division where pupils will be asked to recall and use multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 x 12. Pupils will also multiply and divide mentally and with written strategies and solve multiplication problems.
Physical Education and Well-being In PSHEE this term pupils will consider emotions that may be involved in loss and change situations. They will describe what helps and hinders when they are experiencing difficult feelings. They will identify people who can help them if they are experiencing difficult emotions. Pupils will be developing an understanding of what bullying is, how it feels and what strategies can be used to prevent bullying or get help if they need it. The children will also learn about medicines and other drugs, considering safety rules around storing medicines and know what to do if they came across any risky substance. The pupils will also discuss online safety and know what to do if they are worried about anything online. For PE this term the pupils would usually have a weekly swimming session and we hope swimming will start for Year 4 when the government guidance changes. Whilst we wait for swimming to resume pupils will instead take part in PE lessons with a focus on fitness and core sports skills. For games, at the beginning of term all pupils will do summer sports such as cricket, athletics and tennis. Then for the remainder of the term the girls will be doing hockey. Please ensure that all girls have shin pads and long socks. The boys at Rosedale House will play football and some touch rugby in games. At Dame Bradbury’s boys will begin to play contact rugby as part of their games programme. All pupils will need to have a mouthguard. Presuming social distancing continues all team sport teaching will be individual skills based. More information about fixtures can be found at www.stephenpersesport.com or www.damebradburyssport.com
Creative and Performing Arts For their Drama work this term, pupils will rehearse for and perform their year group virtual production. This will include beginning to understand basic stagecraft such as looking into the camera and working within a defined space. Pupils learn to speak audibly and fluently in performance. Drama skills covered include developing observational skills through movement work and developing tableaux within mimed sequences. Pupils will start to consider how to create characters through the use of voice and body language. In Create Design and Engineer pupils will begin with basic colour theory. They will explore mixing using a variety of paints over the weeks. Cold and heat will be under scrutiny as we investigate drawing and mark-making, inspired by a wide variety of global artists throughout history. We will look at abstract art from a collage perspective, layering a canvas with different textures, including sketch-stitching and possibly clay.
In Music this term, pupils will prepare for their year group production; developing their vocal technique and repertoire through rehearsing the musical numbers featured in the show. Following this production, pupils will prepare for December’s Carol Concert. Throughout the rehearsals and preparation for the Carol Concert, pupils will continue to build upon their understanding of the key musical elements and develop an increasingly mature vocal technique. Alongside the production, pupils will study Fanfares, exercising their listening, performance and composition skills. The pupils will warm up their voices each week in a fun and creative way, through fun vocal games and short improvisatory exercises. They will develop an increasingly broad bank of music terminology along the way. In addition, each week the pupils will continue to expand their recorder repertoire, or use their instruments in an orchestral ensemble context, to develop their instrumental technique. As well as building their ensemble performance skills, pupils will develop their confidence and fluency with reading staff notation. This will allow them to experience playing their instrument in a new context with increasing competence.
Scientific Understanding This term’s Science has a focus on the properties of materials. The first topic deals with keeping warm, and includes developing skills like accurate temperature measurement and independent investigations into how good materials are as heat insulators. Pupils will then move on to learning about the properties of solids, liquids and gases, including what happens when materials are mixed together and how they can be separated again. This will allow the pupils to develop key scientific skills, such as precise measurement, handling chemical laboratory apparatus and identifying the presence of substances after carrying out an experiment. How you can help: Visit local museums, such as the Whipple Museum of the History of Science, Saffron Walden Museum and Cambridge Science Centre. These institutions have extended their online resources during lockdown, as has BBC Bitesize Science. Look out also for science programmes on TV or YouTube.
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.