• Home Learning 6th January 2025

Welcome to Year 4!

*Update 6th January 2026 - please follow the link above to find suggested activities that your child may like to complete whilst at home. Pleaes do get in touch via Class Dojo if you require any support at all with the activities.

Spring Welcome Letter – Year 4 – 2026

Dear Parents and Carers,

Happy New Year to you all! We hope you have all had an absolutely lovely Christmas and have enjoyed spending time with family and friends. I am looking forward to continuing working with your children and am excited to continue seeing them mature, progress and flourish in Year 4. As we venture into the term ahead, we are looking forwards to lots of exciting learning opportunities, including our whole class brass instrumental lessons and our two new topics: ‘Invaders and Settlers: The Romans’ and ‘Volcanoes.’

In Religion, we will begin a new unit based on Galilee to Jerusalem.  Within this unit, we will look at Jesus’s miracles, John the Baptist, Jesus and Peter, and study the sacrament of the sick and reconciliation.

During the first part of the term, our history topic will be ‘The Romans.’ This is such an interesting topic that I’m sure the children are all really going to enjoy. The children’s learning will begin with our exciting trip to Grosvenor Museum in Chester, where they will dress up as Roman soldiers and march to the amphitheatre. They will learn many formations the soldiers used to defend and attack, along with detailed discovery about life as a Roman solider and Roman civilian. They will also learn about why and how the Romans successfully invaded Britain and all about Boudica’s revolt. During the second half of the term, we will learn about ‘Volcanoes’ in our Geography unit.  This is always a popular unit and children love watching real-life footage of volcanoes erupting and learning about the ‘ring of fire’, along with features of volcanoes. We will look at what life might be like living in a volcanic area and compare this to our lives here.

We have some wonderful books planned for our English sessions this term, including an adaptation of Julius Caesar and Escape From Pompeii by Christina Balit. Lots of exciting writing opportunities await our Year 4 children, including exploring and innovating the Roman myth of Romulus and Remus, writing a persuasive speeches and non-chronological reports. Within guided reading, we will be continuing our focus on the VIPERS areas of comprehension, developing vocabulary, inference, prediction, explaining, retrieval and summarising skills.

To support your child with their reading at home, please listen to them read aloud and ask questions which require a balance of the skills listed above. We cannot overstate the importance of reading frequently at home – the impact of reading permeates through the whole curriculum! Please see the school website for Year 4 book recommendations.

In maths, we will be improving our knowledge and skills across a range of areas including multiplication and division, length and perimeter, fractions and decimals. Problem-solving and reasoning skills will continue to form an important part of each unit and within each unit. The children are making fantastic progress with both their times tables and their mental arithmetic skills. It has been fabulous to see so many children increasing the time they spend on TTRockstars; those that are regular users are undoubtedly more confident, more accurate and have a quicker recall speed. In June, children in Year 4 will be completing a mandatory times tables test. The expectation is for them to know all the times tables facts up to their 12x tables and to answer each question within a 6 second window. There will be 25 questions altogether and the test will be completed on a computer. TTRockstars – on studio, in particular - is an excellent practise for this test as it gets children used to the format of questioning.

In science, we will complete our Sound unit, then move on to beginning our unit on electricity which links with DT - making a torch. Always good fun! Later in the term, our biology unit based on digestion will take place (always very popular with the children - expect some interesting dinner table discussions!) Both units are very hands-on and provide lots of opportunities for the children to link their learning in class with both their wider experiences and real-life examples. 

In Computing, we will learn how to use search engines effectively and safely. Music will bring lots of new learning and enjoyment as children will take part in our Year 4 brass lessons once a week, learning either the trumpet or trombone. They will develop their understanding of the interrelated dimensions of music, learn to read music and develop their performance skills as a group. Art will focus on ‘Drawing – Exploring Tone , Texture and Proportion’. Children will develop a range of skills including learning how to use tone to create a 3D effect, and exploring proportion and shading.

PE lessons will continue to take place on a Tuesday and a Friday. Starting this term, please can all children arrive in school in their PE kits with their uniforms ready in their bags to change into after PE.

Homework and spellings will continue to be set on a Friday via Class Dojo. We will continue to learn a maximum of 15 spellings each week, to be tested every Friday. Some children will continue to learn a smaller list of spellings each week. Please get in touch if you would like guidance on how to support your child at home with learning their spellings.

I really am looking forward to continuing working with you and your children this term. Please do come and speak to me with any concerns/questions whatsoever. The best way to get in touch is via message on Class Dojo, or for more formal queries, via email: sbaker@stgabriels.cheshire.sch.uk or mtownson@stgabriels.cheshire.sch.uk (Wednesdays).

Thank you so much for your continued support,

Mrs Baker and Mrs Townson