Class 4
Class 4
Welcome to Class 4
2024-25
Class 4 newsletter Autumn Term
Welcome to Class 4 all! We have already accomplished so much in a week. Here’s a taster of what we have been up to:
Our book that has been shared right across the school is Every Child a Song. The children have enjoyed exploring the learning metaphor of Life in all its Fullness. The book explains that everyone is unique and wonderful in their own ways, and says that EVERY child in the world deserves to be heard. The author used a lot of the UNCRC (United Nations Convention on the rights of a child) to help her tell the story, and the children have also learnt about this.
Whilst reading this book, we have also been thinking about being a good global neighbour and helping others be heard. We had discussions about the ways in which plastic can have a negative impact on both our world, and also mankind. We delved deeper to learn that the UK actually sends plastic recycling abroad to be burnt, only it’s not always being done, meaning that waste is piling up on the streets. The children used their empathy skills and thought about how it would feel being a child living in Turkey and having this atrocity happening around you. They then wrote diaries to convey their emotions. Here are some that were written:
Arthur and the Golden Rope
We then moved on to Arthur and the Golden Rope by Joe Todd-Stanton. A book about an unlikely hero, set years ago in Iceland. It explores several themes: individuality and friendship being two of them.
We wrote letters to Professor Brownstone (one of Arthur’s relatives) asking if we could visit his vault where he has artefacts from all of his ancestor’s adventures, including Arthur’s.
We then went on to write newspapers, which is a challenging ask of Year 4s, with many of them not having read a newspaper. We talked about the language used and what would be included: expanded noun phrases, quotes from eye-witnesses, and the children really delivered!
We then went on to create comic strips to detail one of Arthur’s many adventures. This one was his journey across the sea to reach the land of the Viking Gods. The children absolutely loved this! We spent some time drawing characters beforehand and talking about how a comic should be laid out. They created 8-frame comics to show the perils that Arthur came across on his adventure.
Forest School
The children have had several brilliant forest school sessions this term. They’ve done some data collection, linked to our science learning. They’ve also made kites and most recently, whistles. I’m sad to report that none of them worked, but Mr. Jackson did warn us that it is quite a challenging ask. He has promised that we can give it another go at some point. The children really enjoyed giving it a go though and worked brilliantly!
Welcome to Class 4
Year 4 Annual Curriculum Overview 23-24 Year 4
Forest School
In Forest School, the children embarked on some pond dipping. They were very careful and considerate of the creatures they might find and showed perseverance and determination which eventually paid off when they found not one but two newts. Mrs Willis (with her special license) very carefully handled these to allow us to investigate their colourings and patterns to confirm they were, in fact, two female Great Crested Newts. We also found some very interesting creatures that use leaves to make their homes – using identification guides, we confirmed these were Caddis fly larvae.
World Book Day
The children adored celebrating World Book Day with a difference. The West End Alice in Wonderland research was enjoyed by all and they all got stuck in to learning their parts, creating tableaus and telling the story using their bodies.
Writing
Presentation and quantity of writing has been a real push this past term and the children have made huge strides of progress in both of these areas. Our class text ‘The Boy at the Back of the Class’ has had us hooked and allowed us to explore a huge range of writing for different purposed. We have written informal letters to Ahmet, formal letters to his Head Teacher and even more formal letters persuading King Charles to help us help Ahmet find his family. We have also explored poetry within this unit and learned about the different types of poetry before creating free verse poems of our own.
Mountainous Regions
In Geography, the children have begun to explore some of the highest places around the world. They have learned what makes a mountain a mountain (and not just a hill), the three ways these can be formed as well as the features you would expect to find in a mountainous region.
Using Atlas skills, the children have tracked down some of the most famous mountain ranges in the world and considered how the climate changes when you begin an ascent upwards. It has sparked some very interesting scientific conversations about how it could possibly get colder when you are getting closer to the sun!
Ukuleles
The children spent part of Autumn and part of Spring term learning some ukulele skills. They learned strum patterns, the parts of the ukulele, a few chords and how to change between them. They also composed some of their own tunes and performed to the class.
Victorians
Our Victorian unit saw the children gain an insight in to life during the Industrial Revolution; they have written letters to newspapers about the brand-new railways, compared lives in cities and countrysides both before and after the revolution and explored the inventions (including creating their own posters for these inventions). The children also discovered what life was like for a Victorian child. They learned that not all children could go to school and what a typical school day was like for those that could and also learned about the jobs that those that couldn’t afford to go to school had to do. They compared a days work in the mines, the mills and out on the fields. All children agreed a day at school was definitely preferable!
We also learned about Queen Victoria, who she was, why she was so popular and how she is the 2nd longest reigning British Monarch. The children wrote fantastic biographies about both her and some other inspirational women from the Victorian Era, inspired by our book The Bluest of Blues.
Wiltshire Air Ambulance
The fantastic team from Wiltshire Air Ambulance returned to deliver some vital life saving skills to the children. They have learned how to put someone in to the recovery position, deliver CPR and even discussed how defibrillators work including where to find the nearest ones to the school.
Art Days
We are incredibly lucky to have Mrs Dyminski delivering fantastic Art lessons to the children where we focused our practice mainly on drawing, whilst delving into the work of Michael Craig Martin, and also some Minimalist work too. We have combined these elements with ourselves! Creating some fantastic self-portraits taking into consideration who we are, and what makes us, us! I am sure you will agree, the final pieces look fantastic and would not be out of place in an art gallery.
Slingshot Cars
We had a very enjoyable few days of DT where we were exploring mechanics and producing sling shot cars! The children designed, made and evaluated their designs considering how to make their car more aerodynamic.
Viney Hill
The biggest highlight of our year so far has to be Viney Hill. We took the children to the Forest of Dean on a cold Thursday morning and the children did not hesitate to get stuck straight in to the activities – beginning with the making of the beds! There were some unique approaches to getting bedding on duvets but they were determined and showed excellent team work to get this completed. This determination and team work continued for the entirety of the stay – from climbing up the new high ropes course, completing team challenges in low ropes, crate stacking and orienteering, they battled through the cold weather and kept smiling throughout. It was a delight to take them away and watch them thrive in a completely different environment to the classroom.
Science – Skeletons
In Science, we have started the year by learning about skeletons. We have learned the names and functions of some of the key bones in our bodies and those of animals and drawn some comparisons between different skeletons as well as learning about exoskeletons.
We then took an in depth study in to one of our focus scientists, Wilhelm Rontgen, the man who discovered X-Rays! We found out all about him (including the fact he was expelled from school!!) and wrote our own fact files.
English – Arthur and the Golden Rope
In English, we have begun to explore the story of Arthur and the Golden Rope. We made predictions about the book based on the fantastic map and one of the illustrations from the inside cover before beginning the book.
We then met Professor Brownstone who is the guardian of the Brownstone family vault. We discovered he was searching for people to allow in to the see the treasured items inside and knew we HAD to be among those invited so decided to write some persuasive letters to convince him to choose us!
We can’t wait to keep reading and find out what will happen and how Arthur is connected to Professor Brownstone!
Music – Class Composer – Gustav Holst
The year 4 class composer is Gustav Holst. We spent some time listening to his most famous piece of music: The Planets. As a class, we discussed how each of these songs made us feel before learning some more about him and creating our own fact files.
Learning Metaphor
We have welcomed the children back in to school and got stuck straight in with our learning metaphor ‘Our Common Home : Love your neighbour as yourself’. We explored what this means in terms of our Spirituality, have written letters to our common home, Earth, considered why our home is so special and delicate and therefore why we must look after it. Not just for ourselves but for everyone around the world.
Poem about our Earth
Some of our work on the diversity of Earth; we each researched a different place around the planet and reported back to the class on the flora and fauna as well as the climate and landscapes to show just how diverse our planet is.
We have looked at ways humans are damaging the planet and what we can do to make a change.
When designing a planet protecting superhero, one child said ‘I am drawing us because we can all make a difference’.
We then connected this all together by digging in to the question “Who is our neighbour?”. We reminded ourselves about the story of the Good Samaritan and this lead to us discussing who we should treat as our neighbour. The children wrote their own contemporary versions of the story before drawing who they thought God would want Christians to see as their ‘neighbour’.
We are very proud of how insightful the children’s thoughts and drawings were.
Archive posts 2022-2023
2022-2023
Annual Curriculum Overview 22-23 Year 4
DT Project – Torches
The end of term brought a DT project – our brief was to produce a torch for a chosen client. The children got straight to work carefully designing their torches, considering how they would decorate whilst also keeping it useful. They consider the needs of the client with regards to adding straps, planning colours and materials to use. Their final torches looked fantastic!
Podcasts
In computing, the children were getting to grips with recording software to produce a podcast. They got to choose the subject, plan their podcast and used online software to record and edit.
Music experts – Gustav Holst
When Mrs Crowley asked for some assistance in her Singing Assembly to introduce Gustav Holst to the school, Year 4 jumped in to action. After all, he is our class composer! The children planned and delivered the facts they had learned about this local, Cheltenham-born, creative.
Forest School – Owl Pellets
In Forest School, Mrs Willis brought in some owl pellets for the children to investigate. They dug right in and began dissecting the pellets to work out the diet of the owls that had produced them. Many bones were found and some children were even able to recreate skeletons of the creatures they came from. Using a handy identification chart, the children were able to decipher what had been eaten!
Parent Book Look
We loved welcoming our parent’s in to share what we have already worked on so far this year. A massive thank you to the parents that came along. It was a lovely experience seeing the children talking so animatedly about what they have been learning and their pride was obvious in their faces. We look forward to hosting another visit within the Spring term.
Maths – Measuring Area
Our maths got very hands on when Miss Chomicz asked the class to measure the area of some chose objects in the classroom. This group did not want to leave a single gap and mis-calculate the area so very thoroughly covered the table in post it notes. They then came up with a great idea for measuring the interactive whiteboard and measured two of the sides before multiplying them together!
Art – Printing
The children LOVED exploring printing with a wide range of items – from forks to lego, highlighters to pens and bubble wrap to their hands! They explored complimentary and contrasting colours and learned the difference between monoprinting and reusable blocks.
Science – Melting points
Have you filled a bucket today?
Miss Chomicz shared a story with the children called ‘Have you filled a bucket today?’ which explained how everyone is carrying round an invisible bucket and you can chose to fill other people’s buckets and make them happier (which has the added bonus of filling your own bucket) or you can be a bucket dipper and steal from others buckets. The catch with bucket dipping, however, is that you don’t even get to keep what you took when you dipped! We had a class vote and it was unanimous that we wanted to be a …. BUCKET FILLING CLASSROOM!
Expert Presentations
Our Roman History experts had been working hard at home preparing their presentations on a range of features about the Roman Empire and they absolutely blew us away! The children love to have a chance to ‘be the teacher’ and the rest of the class are so supportive and engaged with the learning. We learned all about the food and drink, expanse of the empire, Gods and Goddesses and the Daily Life of a Roman.
Viney Hill Winter Residential
At the beginning of December, we had the pleasure of visiting Viney Hill for our winter residential. The children were so incredible; challenging themselves, supporting others, working as a team, facing fears and doing all of this with smiles on their faces. We tackled a low ropes course, a building climb, crate stacking and archery. In the evening, we had the pleasure of a night walk through the quiet Forest of Dean (at least it was quiet before we entered!) with Jas guiding us and telling us facts about the history including Henry VIII’s ownership. We got back in to the warmth, wrapped up nice and cosily in our PJs and listened to Miss Chomicz telling the story of How the Grinch stole Christmas before heading up to our beds to get a full night of rest before the activities continued the following day. All of the staff were incredibly impressed with the resilience shown by all children in some chilly temperatures!
Corinium Dobunnorum
We have immersed ourselves in the life of the Romans including a fantastic visit to the Corinium museum. The children had an amazing time exploring all of the local artefacts and finding out about the history that is underneath our feet! Their favourite part was the gladiator workshop; the gore, interaction and opportunity to try on some of the gladiator kits they had available. We also took a rather wet walk to the remains of the Roman town gates in the Abbey Grounds to see what parts of history are left.
How tall is that tree?
Listening to trees breathe and calculating how tall and how old they are were all on the agenda for Forest School this October. The children now know how to calculate the height of a tree and its age using only a metre length of wood.
Roman NCRs
The children have been busy researching the Roman times to produce NCRs (Non-Chronological Reports) with multiple sections including a large range of facts about the Romans. Some of these sections include: food, jobs, life in the army, school, houses and their legacy.
The children have ‘published’ their reports which are now on display in our classroom and they are very proud of the work they have produced.
Roman Soldier
We have begun the school year by investigating the impacts the Romans have had on modern-day Britain. As part of our investigations, we became Celtic spies to gain information on the strengths of the Roman army. Our resident Roman Army expert, Archie, helped us to find out what the Romans wore to protect themselves in battle.
We used this information to decide whether we should stand and fight to defend our land or admit defeat to the Romans. We all agreed that the Roman army had far more strengths than we did so allowed them to invade (just like the Celts did for Claudius in 43AD).
Seed Poetry
Our learning metaphor ‘we are fearfully and wonderfully made’ and the book ‘It all starts with a seed’ inspired some fantastic poetry lessons where the children carefully considered what they would like to grow in to as they progress through Year 4 and beyond. They produced art work inspired by their future trees and wrote poetry to go with their work. They then wrote their poetry out on tracing paper to sit on top of their drawings to allow their work to be visible below their words.
