Welcome to Blue Class - Year 4

Welcome to Brilliant Blue Class! We’re a creative, curious, and hardworking bunch who love exploring new ideas and working together. Our classroom is a place where learning is active, exciting, and full of discovery.

 

🛡️ This Half Term’s Topic: Raging Rivers

This half term our topic is “Raging Rivers” 🌊🌍 — an exciting geographical journey exploring how rivers form, flow and shape the world around us. Here is an overview of what we will be learning across the curriculum.

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📅 Year 4 Topics for 2025–2026

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📌 Key Information

🏃‍♀️ PE Days: Monday and Thursday Children must wear their full PE kit to school. Earrings should be removed or covered with plasters. Staff cannot remove earrings for children.

📖 Reading Books: Sent home daily Children should read every night and return their book each day. Please sign their Reading Log at least once a week.

✏️ Spelling Practice: New spellings every Friday on Spelling Shed Weekly practice is essential—please support your child at home.

📚 What We’re Learning

📖 English

This half term, our English learning links closely to our Raging Rivers topic. We will begin by reading a range of fiction and non‑fiction texts about rivers to build background knowledge.

We will be focusing on narrative writing, learning to:

• Organise a story into clear parts

• Build suspense and introduce a dilemma

• Create a resolution and satisfying ending

• Use and punctuate direct speech accurately

• Strengthen descriptive writing

• Continue practising key spellings from KS1, Year 3 and Year 4

New spellings are set on Spelling Shed every Friday. Regular practice at home is vital for Year 4 progress.

📚 Reading

Reading continues to be a key part of Year 4. This half term we will:

• Read daily in class to build fluency and confidence

• Develop inference, retrieval, prediction and vocabulary skills

• Discuss characters, themes and author choices

• Encourage reading at home every night

• Ask children to talk about what they have read to check understanding

Reading Logs help us track progress and celebrate effort.

🔢 Mathematics

This half term in Maths, Year 4 will be learning a range of fraction‑based skills, including:

• Understanding the whole and counting beyond 1

• Partitioning mixed numbers

• Using number lines with mixed numbers

• Comparing and ordering mixed numbers

• Converting between mixed numbers and improper fractions

• Finding equivalent fractions

• Adding fractions and mixed numbers

• Subtracting fractions, whole amounts and mixed numbers

These lessons will build a strong understanding of fractions before moving on to more complex calculations.

🌍 Geography – Raging Rivers

Our Geography focus is Raging Rivers, where children will explore how rivers form, flow and change over time. They will learn:

• The different parts of a river: source, mouth, waterfall, floodplain, delta, estuary, tributary

• The upper, middle and lower course of a river

• That a river is a natural channel of water flowing from source to mouth

• How rivers receive water from wide areas and eventually flow into a lake or the sea

• The four longest rivers in the UK

• The uses of rivers and the advantages/disadvantages of living near one

• The causes of river pollution and its environmental impact

• How riverbeds erode and break down sediment

• What deposition is and how it shapes landscapes

• How many British cities (e.g., Liverpool) developed around rivers for transport and later tourism

🔬 Science – States of Matter

In Science, we will be learning about States of Matter, including:

• The properties of solids, liquids and gases

• That all materials are made of particles and molecules

• How some materials change state when heated or cooled

• How to label diagrams scientifically

• Carrying out scientific enquiries

🤸 PE

PE takes place every Monday and Thursday. Children must wear their PE kit to school on these days, including:

• Leggings/joggers

• T‑shirt

• Jumper

• Pumps or trainers

Earrings must be removed before school or covered with plasters. Staff cannot remove earrings for children.

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🏡 How You Can Help at Home

• Read with your child daily and sign their Reading Log

• Practise weekly spellings using Spelling Shed

• Talk about what they’ve learned in class

• Use books and websites to explore mountain environments

• Support times tables practice: 3×, 6×, 7×, 9×, 11×, 12×

• Try Hit the Button and Times Tables Rock Stars

📌 Please ensure your child brings a named water bottle every day.

 

Look out for our Parent Information Sheet below!