Class teachers - Miss Tompkinson and Mrs Martin

• May - Co-operation and being a good citizen within society

• June - Showing Gratitude, Care and Generosity

• July - Taking and managing risks

For the final term in Year 4, we will continue to build on the skills learned from the Literacy Tree scheme and develop new skills.  We will start the term reading ‘Until I met Dudley’ by Roger McGough and Chris Riddell—a story where fantasy meets real life. Pupils will write their own explanation texts for everyday objects, inventing their own imaginary responses to the question of how they work, before researching and describing them properly. They also write letters to a fictional ‘Dudley’ character asking for his help to get to the bottom of some more complicated items. Throughout this unit, they will develop their online research skills, identifying how to use varying question structures and styles to gain the most relevant information. 

After ‘Until I Met Dudley’, Year 4 will move onto their final text of the year ‘The Mermaids of Zennor’ by Charles Causley. This fictional fantasy story will allow pupils to bring together all the skills they have learned over the year. They will begin by exploring the story and language of the book before making predictions and creating some letters to characters in the story. They will then go on to create guides to Zennor, retelling the story from the mermaid’s perspective and finishing by creating their own merfolk characters to include in a legend-style story that could be set in Cornwall or elsewhere.

Pupils will continue to participate in Whole-Class Reading sessions each day. Over the week, they will read with the teacher and complete tasks independently and as part of a group, developing Voice 21 skills, spelling, and comprehension. 

We encourage the pupils to read every day at home with an adult. We ask you to ask questions about what is read to develop pupils' recall, vocabulary, and understanding of their chosen text. These can be magazines, fiction or nonfiction books, journals — anything that interests and engages them.

On Mondays, all pupils will continue to participate in spelling sessions.

In our Welsh sessions this term, pupils will begin transferring their skills from speaking about themselves to speaking about others. We will be exploring the lives of significant Welsh figures from the worlds of sports, entertainment, and the arts to help build their descriptive vocabulary

This term, we will continue to use real-life contexts within our maths and encourage pupils to use manipulatives to support them. We will move on to Geometry and Shape, converting units of measurement, estimating and calculating area and perimeter, volume, weight, and time before developing knowledge and recall of 2D and 3D shapes. Pupils will then focus on applying and transferring skills learned.  Pupils will develop their retrieval skills and apply them to more project-based work.  At the beginning of the final term, pupils will engage in consolidation lessons to refresh their memories of the skills learned over the year in preparation for their Welsh Government tests.  Afterwards, they will complete weekly themed projects, developing independent and collaborative learning.  The themes will include: budgeting. Holidays. Olympics, enterprise, inventions. 

Towards the end of the year, we will return to multiplication and division, a skill that will be the foundation of work covered in Year 5. Pupils will be encouraged to practise their times tables, recalling them in and out of order, commutatively, and offering knowledge on division and known facts. 

Our application of numeracy will be continued during our Threads of Fashion work.  Pupils will use chronology skills, ordering, budgeting (rationing coupons), data collection, data analysis, graph interpretations and measuring in readiness for their final term’s outcome.

Our health and wellbeing sessions will now take place on Wednesday’s and will be on a rotation basis between physical PE, tennis, outdoor learning and theory. During the theory lessons, pupils will focus on remaining safe online and how to protect their emotional well-being.  In the physical sessions, they will begin the term practising for sports day. We will then focus on summer sports such as rounders and cricket.  Tennis will continue to be held at the Tennis Club in the dome. 

Following the success of the year 4 enrichment week last term, children will be reviewing their learning throughout this term.

During our challenge sessions, Year 4 will combine all their literacy, numeracy, voice 21, creativity, and digital skills. Pupils will learn about Threads of Fashion and how fashions have changed throughout history. Pupils will first examine the chronology of fashion before comparing social classes and their associated fashions. After learning about the Industrial Revolution, pupils will learn how and why rationing was poignant during the war. With regards to inventions, pupils will link with their literacy book ‘ Until I met Dudley’ and learn how a sewing machine works. As time goes on, pupils will become aware of influential designers in fashion, how colours and material patterns have changed over time, and they will finish by becoming more aware of fast fashion and how it affects society today.  

Our outcome will be a fashion show, where pupils will adopt the ‘make do and mend’ ethos and create new clothing from old donated clothing.  They will learn how to sew and the design process required for creating new outfits. 

PE will now take place on Wednesdays, and children should wear their Oldcastle PE kit to school on this day. 

In some weeks, Year 4 will be working on outdoor learning; these sessions may require pupils to wear appropriate footwear. Parents and pupils will be notified in advance of this. 

Children should bring a water bottle with them each day. Children should bring their reading books to school every day.

Please label all of your child’s property to avoid losing items.

Don't forget to download our School App via the Play or App stores - The School App will provide you with up to date information about activities and events at Oldcastle Primary School.  

Please look out for our weekly newsletter issued via The School App and available on our website on a Friday afternoon.  The newsletter contains all forthcoming diary dates for the school.