The Year 4 Team

Curriculum Overview

Online Advent Calendar

As Advent begins this Sunday with Advent Sunday celebrated in Churches, we would like to share this online Advent Calendar with you, produced by the Diocese of Guildford. It explores the Christmas story through Christian artwork, investigating a different artist and aspect of the story throughout the term time days of Advent. Please enjoy sharing this with your family as we prepare for Christmas in school and at home.

This week in Devon

Week beginning 15th December

In English, the children have enjoyed hearing the rest of Beetle Boy and are looking forward to finding out the ending. They wrote some fantastic blurbs for the book, introducing the main character, the villain and the dilemma before leaving it on a cliff hanger! Will Darkus find his dad? Will his team of friends protect the beetles?

In maths, the class have been working hard to show their maths knowledge using bar models and other drawings. Some found it challenging to show how they had reached the answer, claiming they 'just knew it!' but all eventually found a way to demonstrate their knowledge on paper.

Thank you to those of you who managed to see one of our Christmas performances last week. The children had a fantastic time and were buzzing when they came off stage. We hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did! The class also enjoyed their Christmas fun afternoon and created some lovely crafts.

After the holidays, we will be continuing with multiplication and division in maths. Please do make sure children are continuing to practise their times tables over the holidays as this will really benefit them in the new year. Christmas is also a lovely time to cosy up with a hot drink by the lights and get lots of reading done! I look forward to hearing about what books the class have enjoyed when we return in January. 

Have a lovely holiday!

Class Timetable

This is an example timetable of what a typical week in Devon will look like.

PE is on Tuesday and Wednesday this term.

Home Learning

All of the children will have an investigative topic-linked learning task to complete, which is rotated over a three-week cycle. The children will focus on one of their three current foundation subjects each week.
To support this, the children are split into 3 groups, which you can see below.
This will be set on a Thursday and due by the following Tuesday.
In class on a Tuesday or Wednesday, the children will then share the outcomes of their research, and the knowledge they have retrieved, within their own group.

Times Tables Rockstars! 

To keep practising the multiplication taught in class, and challenging yourself to keep the ones you already know fresh, don’t forget to log into your Times Tables Rockstars account. 

https://play.ttrockstars.com/

Challenge yourself to beat your score and build your knowledge as you become a Rockstar!

Please ask your class teacher if you need replacement log in details.

Reading

Children should bring their Accelerated Reading Book to and from school each day. When they have finished reading, children are asked to complete a quiz before changing their book. 

https://global-zone61.renaissance-go.com/welcomeportal/6704864

Parents please log your child's reading on the BOOM reader Parent Portal or by using the BOOM reader parent app on your tablet/mobile no more than once a week.

boomreader.co.uk/parents

Below is a list of the 100 most common words that your child is expected to know how to spell by the end of Year 4 (please see attachment).

The spelling strategies document below shows what strategies are used in class, and can be used at home to aid learning new words: 

Spelling

Spellings will be set on a Wednesday and tested the following Tuesday each week. Our next spelling test will be on the 16th December. 

The link below will take you to the spelling scheme we are working from in school.

https://home.oxfordowl.co.uk/english/primary-spelling/

This document contains spelling strategies that are used in class, and can be used at home to aid learning new words:

Southborough's Spelling Strategies

Times Tables Rock Stars

To keep practising the multiplication taught in class, and challenging yourself to keep the ones you already know fresh, don’t forget to log into your Times Tables Rockstars account. 

https://play.ttrockstars.com/

Challenge yourself to beat your score and build your knowledge as you become a Rockstar!

Please ask your class teacher if you need replacement log in details.

This week we are focusing on the multiplication tables for x3, x6 and x9.

If you know them well, maybe challenge yourself with the corresponding division facts. For example:

6 x 7 = 42

42 ÷ 6 = 7

Below is a link to help prepare for the National multiplication tables check in June 2026.

Maths strategies

Please see below attachments for examples from White Rose Maths including the four operations, (add, subtract, multiply, divide) and how we extend learning using reasoning style questions. 

Music Knowledge Organiser