Our core text this half term is 'So You Think You've Got It Bad? A Kids Life in Ancient Greece' by Chae Strathie. This is a funny, historical non-fiction text that looks at how tough life was for kids during ancient Greece and the inequalities of the time in an accessible and thought provoking way.  Children will be using the information from the book to create poems about Greek gods with rhyming couplets, similes and alliteration. They will also create their own explanation texts to inform a reader using organisational devices, facts and labelled diagrams.

In reading, children will focus on a range of reading skills including inference, making connections, summarising, evaluating, clarifying and questioning.  They will be reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction texts linked to our Spring 2 topics of ancient Greece, sound and poetry. Children will develop their understanding of texts through comprehension activities and increase reading fluency through daily reading.

This half term Year 4 will continue to focus on the theme of celebrations and their importance within different religions.  Festivals they will be learning about will include Vaisakhi, Wesak, Pesach and Easter.  They will also identify similarities and differences of celebrations within their own communities.

In maths, Year 4 will be looking at fractions and decimals this half term. Comparing and ordering mixed numbers, subtracting two fractions,  understanding improper fractions and converting mixed numbers to improper fractions.

The children will also continue to focus on their multiplication facts up to 12 x 12.

This half term PE will continue to be on Tuesdays and Fridays. Tuesday's session will be an indoor session with a focus on developing, applying, sending, receiving and counter balancing with a partner techniques through focused skill development sessions, healthy competition and cooperative games.  The Friday session will be outdoors with a focus on football to develop the children's agility, coordination and teamwork whilst dribbling and passing a ball. 

Sound will be our focus in science this half term - How do we hear sound?

The children will be exploring and investigating sound, understanding how sound travels, looking into how pitch and volume are altered, exploring the functions of different parts of the ear and investigating how different materials affect the pitch, volume and sound.

The focus in PHSE this half term will be continuing to look at safety and the changing body.  Children will be building an awareness of the physical and emotional changes in puberty and the risks associated with tobacco.  They will also be looking at aspects of citizenship including the role of groups within the local community and appreciating community diversity.

The children will be focusing on Greece v UK in geography this half term. They will use maps, atlases and globes to identify human and physical features, leading on to the exploration of their impacts, describe geographical similarities and differences between the two countries, as well as identifying how a locality has changed over time.

The main computing focus this half term will be for children to use coding, to build an online game and looking at e-safety.

In DT the children will be creating from a design, their very own parthenon. They will research and look at key features of parthenon, before designing their own, then making them using explored cutting and measuring techniques, leading on to their self evaluations of their final products.

In French the topic is the Olympics.  The children will learn 10 nouns for Olympic sports with their correct articles/determiners and how to say the name of the sportsperson in French.  They will also learn how to say, ‘I do’ and ‘I do not do’ a particular sport using the verb ‘faire’ (to do).

Feelings in music is the main focus this half term, the children will learn how listening to different genres of music and how we listen to them, can affect our moods - slow music may make us feel sleepy where as fast, upbeat music can make us feel energised and happy.

• Wednesday 26th February 2025: British Museum trip

• Thursday 13th March 2025: Year 4 Class Assembly