what is Year 4?

 As in all year groups, the school mission is central to all that we do in Year 4. Developing personal and social skills is an important part of the all-round education we provide. One important milestone in Year 4 is our residential trip to Long Hai where students spend two nights away from home. 

In terms of academics, Maths and English are taught every day. English lessons often relate to our International Primary Curriculum (IPC) topics and sometimes link in with our science units too.  For approximately one hour a day, the children are set by ability into maths groups. 

Meet the Team

Meet our dedicated Year 4 teaching team:

What our children say

Communication with parents

What will your child be learning?

Long Term Plan (Yearly)

Use this document to understand what your child will cover over the course of the year.

Curriculum booklets (please keep in mind these books are very old, but we have kept them here as the information is very useful) : English    Maths 

What will your learning environment look like?

In Year 4, students spend most of the day with their class teachers in their classes. This year, we have new more spacious classrooms providing optimum conditions for collaborative learning. Two classrooms will share an enquiry pod which will facilitate more small group teaching and independent learning. In addition to our 2-night residential trip in March, there are a variety of trips planned to support the children's learning including a walk around our local area and visits to a local school with the aim of strengthening our community links.

Age related expectations

Our Age Related Expectations, or AREs for short, outline our end-of-year success criteria for what a child who has been through each phase at BIS HCMC should expect to be achieving. As your child progresses from year to year, so to will the AREs become increasingly more complex. This gives teachers the opportunity to target areas of development within individual pupils. 

Progress through the AREs will be shared with parents at various points throughout the year, namely through Parent Teacher Student Conferences (PTSCs) and written reports or updates. At the end of the year these will be explained using the statements Support (S), Developing (D), Meeting (M) and Exceeding (E). All AREs for Year 4 can be found on the following document. Click on the arrow to open the whole page.

Assessment, Tracking And reporting

At BIS we use both formative and summative assessments to meet the needs of the students. 

Formative assessment refers to a wide variety of methods that our teachers use to conduct in-process evaluations of student comprehension, learning needs, and academic progress during a lesson, unit, or course. Formative assessments help our teachers identify the next steps in a child's learning.

Summative Assessments which are used to evaluate student learning progress and achievement at the conclusion of a specific instructional period—usually at the end of a term.  We use the GL suite of assessments to support teacher judgement at the end of every  Academic Year for students in Year 1 to Year 6. 

Reporting effort, progress and attainment to parents is extremely important and an integral part of what we do as a school to ensure that we are working with parents to meet the needs of the students. There are two written reports each year in Term 1 and Term 3. There are also two Parent Teacher Student Conferences (PTSCs) each academic year where there is an opportunity to meet the teachers to discuss progress and what parents can do at home to support their child. At BIS, we have an open door policy and parents are welcome and encouraged to make further appointments throughout the academic year with their child's class teacher should they want further updates or have any concerns about their child. 

Specialist Lessons

PE

Physical Education is a fundamental part of the curriculum at BIS with every pupil having two lessons a week with a specialist P.E. teacher. The curriculum covered is broad and balanced allowing pupils to grow physically, mentally and socially. The lessons will develop motor skills, tactics and strategies, assessing performance, and sportsmanship. 

Physical Education at BIS allows pupils to learn about a healthy, active lifestyle in a fun and dynamic way, and is delivered through a range of different sports such as basketball, athletics, swimming and outdoor pursuits. 

Pupils are encouraged to try new activities and stay as active as possible. There are a large number of clubs on offer to accommodate all age ranges and abilities, focusing on skill development and enjoyment. For our elite athletes we also run a range of squads and teams, giving them the opportunity to play in a competitive environment and with a greater emphasis on performance, whilst still having fun!

As a department we have high expectations, and expect all pupils to participate at all times, and in the appropriate full kit. This includes bringing a hat and water bottle to every lesson. 

Music

The Music Department at BIS HCMC believes strongly that the Performing Arts play a significant role in your child’s educational journey from FundinoTots to Year 6 and beyond, and every child should be able to fulfil their musical potential. Our overall aim is for the students to develop a lifelong love of music through an enjoyable, immersive and challenging musical curriculum. The curriculum focuses on singing, movement, the playing of different instruments and introducing music theory. During their music lessons students will learn about the elements of music such as pitch, dynamics and tempo, through a variety of practical activities. All students will have the opportunity to learn a musical instrument for at least one year through our whole-class band programme. 

Our collaboration with the world-renowned Juilliard School allows us access to their innovative Creative Classroom, through the exploration of 12 core works and specially-designed creative activities to complement these. This supplements our already rich musical curriculum which features a balance of performing, composing and listening. The Juilliard Creative Classroom encourages the children to develop confidence in the three main areas of ‘ways of doing’, ‘ways of being’ and ‘ways of thinking’ and visits from Juilliard alumni allow the children to see and hear world-class musicians.

In addition to our thriving curriculum music lessons, at BIS HCMC Primary we are able to offer a wide range of extra-curricular musical activities designed to engage as many students as possible and to further extend their creative learning. This includes multiple choirs, orchestras and ensembles. We are also able to provide access to individual instrumental lessons at the school through a team of highly qualified and experienced musicians. Children can start lessons from Year 1 upwards and are strongly encouraged to do so. Many children take advantage of our link with ABRSM to further their progress through this established and respected examination system. 

ICT

In Year 3 and 4 students have begun to use technology as a tool to aid their learning, but still spend time developing their skill set and advancing their understanding of technology in the world around them and how it affects their lives. At the start of Year 3 students are given their personal email account and this allows them access to the full range of Google Apps for Education and is an introduction to cloud based learning – the classroom is no longer restrained by 4 walls.

Emails, cloud storage, collaborative documents and greater access to the Internet means that we look closely about what we need to do in order to become digital citizens, what is safe to share online and the ways that we need to act in a digital environment. Our robotics takes the next step from simple movements and we incorporate Lego WeDo 2.0, which adds motors and sensors to our robotic creations. We continue to learn about coding and use a coding language called Blockly and a program called Scratch to create video games and animations. We use a combination of devices to create digital content and share our learning by working on projects in areas such as animation, short movies, collaborative presentations and digital story telling.