The Year Four Team

Curriculum Overview

This Week in Surrey

Week beginning 19th January 2026 

Surrey as always have been superb this week - such an exciting one!

During our DT cooking session we made Humous and the children were such troopers! We used equipment such as peelers, graters, a garlic press and a lemon squeezer to create the humous. There was paprika, chickpeas and olive oil across the room, alongside other ingredients- can you share these with your adults? We chopped vegetables and some children chose to try these alongside the humous. Such a lovely lesson (the classroom still has a certain aroma about it, but certainly worth it!).

We have enjoyed learning about poetry in English, looking at the moon and how we can use personification to bring our poetry alive. It's been interesting to see how writing descriptive sentences can feed into poetry, taking those words that are unneeded and creating a verse. 

We are looking forward to researching the River Trent in Geography and also states of matter in Science!

Miss Towler, Mr Nunn, Mrs Cheesman  

Class Timetable

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

PE is on Tuesday and Wednesday this term.

Home Learning

Spellings will be set on a Wednesday and tested the following Tuesday each week.

Our next spelling test will be on the 27th January.

We are consolidating the above spellings for this week's test.

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

Weekly investigative task

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.
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.

Please see investigative task and groups in attached document below. 

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. 

In preparation for the national multiplication check in June 2026, the children have begun to use the link below. 

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.

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

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

Spelling

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: 

Music Knowledge Organiser