Year 4 Holly Class 2026 - 2027

Meet Holly Class Team!

Support Staff: Mrs Swindells and Mrs Thompson

Mrs Beach	Miss Lambert	Mrs Swindells
Mrs Thompson	Miss Choy

Curriculum Information for Autumn 1

English

In our English lessons this term we will be focusing on the action toolkit. We will be learning the warning story  ‘The Old Warehouse’ and using this text to understand how to write the best action. We will be learning how to use progressive ing openers to drop  the reader straight into the action, how to vary our sentence length to affect the reader and inject action into the setting creating atmosphere through personification and similes. We will be using a wider range of dramatic fronted adverbials and conjunctions to extend our sentences.

Reading

In our guided reading lessons we will be reading a range of stories from the book- A world full of animal stories and folktales by Angela McAllister. We will focus on a different story each week building our understanding of vocabulary and answering literal and inference questions based on our reading.

Maths

In our maths lessons this term we will be working on Unit 1, Unit 2 and Unit 3 in our Power Maths. In Unit 1 we will be exploring the place value of four digit numbers and using this to find 1000, 100, 10 and 1 more and less. In Unit 2, we will continue place value and using this knowledge to compare, estimate and round numbers to the nearest 1000, 100 and 10. In Unit 3, we will be exploring addition and subtraction. We will be building on our knowledge of the formal written method from Year 3 to help us add and subtract four digit numbers with and without exchanging.

Art and Design

In our art and design lessons this term we will be exploring tone, texture and proportion to create realistic and expressive drawings, inspired by artists Sarah Graham, Nicola McBride and Beatriz Milhazes.

History

In our History lessons this term we will be answering the question: How much did the Ancient Egyptians achieve? We will be learning about the River Nile, looking at artefacts from Tutankhamun’s tomb and finding out about the different groups of people who contributed to the achievements of the Ancient Egyptians.

Science

In our Science lessons we will be learning about Teeth and digestion. We will be learning about the main parts of the digestive system and what they do. We will be finding out the four types of teeth and how to look after our teeth.

Computing

In our Computing lessons we will be learning coding with Scratch. We will be exploring variables, use conditions and sensors to control what happens in a Scratch game, create variables to keep a score, debug and evaluate our games.

PE

In our PE lessons we will be learning Football and Fundamentals. In our football lessons we will be focusing on dribbling, passing, defending and gaining possession. In our fundamental lessons we will be focusing on developing our balance, our agility when running to help us change speed and direction, our control when jumping and skipping with a rope.

French

In our French lessons we will be recapping classroom instructions, learning how to have a conversation using a range of vocabulary and understanding how to use masculine and feminine correctly.

PHSE

In our PHSE lessons our topic is How can I make healthy choices? We will be learning about what a balanced diet is, investigating how physical exercise affects the body, how to keep our energy up throughout the day, how to support others, how to respond when things feel hard and why helping others is good for us.

RE

In our RE lessons we will be learning about Judaism. We will be finding out the answer to the question: How do Jews demonstrate their faith through their communities? We will be learning about the synagogue, what the Sukkot is and the rules for Jews to follow in the Torah.

Music

In our music lessons we will learning about body and tuned instruments. We will be identifying structure and texture in music, create musical rhythms using body percussion and create a piece of music with four different layers.

Important Information for Autumn1

PE- Year 4 will have their PE sessions on Monday and Wednesday.

PE Uniform: 

• Team colour t-shirt
• Plain black shorts
• Black pumps for indoor PE
• Trainers for outdoor PE
• Tracksuits, sweatshirts and leggings can be worn for outdoor PE in colder weather 
• Ear rings must be removed and long hair must be tied back

Reading Book Changes

Expectations

It is expected that all children will read at home at least five times each week. This can be a mixture of reading with support from an adult and independent reading. It can be their home reader, a magazine, newspaper, library book, or any other book that your child would enjoy reading. All home reading should be recorded in home-school diaries, this can be as simple as individual date and signature and the book that has been read as well as comment about how your child has read.

All children at Whitby Heath read daily in class whether it be on a 1:1 basis or working within group. As a school, we aim for ‘Strive for Five’. Using our Dojo reward system to celebrate this achievement. As a result, parents will receive a notification of this via the Dojo app as well as children receiving a stamp in their Reading Record indicating their total number of reads each week. 

Each child has an allocated day that their book/s will be changed, linked to their house teams:

Donaldson- Monday

Seuss- Tuesday

Dahl- Wednesday

Rowling- Thursday

In school, we use children’s Reading Records to keep a record of what the children are reading rather than a dialogue between parents and school. We love to see parent comments about how they have got on if you have listened to them reading aloud or have asked them some questions about what they have read. We look forward to catching up with parents about children's reading progress in our parent’s evenings. 

Homework Information

Mirodo tasks: Set every week

English homework will be set every week on Class Dojo. This will be either a spelling activity or an oracy activity. This will be rotated on a two week basis. 

Times Tables

Please also practice the times tables that your child is on. Children are tested twice every week and cannot move on to the next times table until they have passed their current level three times. This includes multiplication and division.

ClassDojo

Should parents need to contact the Year 4 team please send a direct message through ClassDojo. All communication from school will be shared in this way. 

Other useful websites for learning at home

Mirodo:

https://app.mirodoeducation.com/login

Mathsframe for the MTC

https://mathsframe.co.uk/en/resources/resource/477/Multiplication-Tables-Check

• Timestables Rockstars
  

https://play.ttrockstars.com/auth/school/student
All children have a login for this website.

• Hit the Button

https://www.topmarks.co.uk/maths-games/hit-the-button
A great way to practice times tables at home.

• Newsround
  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround
A place for children to keep up with current events!

• National Geographic Kids
  

https://www.natgeokids.com/uk/
A lovely website for children to learn more about animals, wildlife and the world around them.

• BBC Bitesize
  

https://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/primary
A place full of information that covers the range of the subjects and topics we study in school.