Year 4/ Year 5 Class

Teacher: Mrs Holloway

Teaching assistant: Miss Lewis, Mr Crippin and Mrs Merrett

English

In English this term we will be mainly writing historical narratives linked to the book ‘Escape from Pompeii’ by Christina Balit. This will be followed by adventure writing based around the books ‘Amazing Islands’ by Sabrina Weiss & Kerry Hyndman and ‘Koji’s Island’ by The Literacy Company. Our main focus in English will be on sentence structure where we will ensure we punctuate sentences correctly and we are confident at using a wide range of sentence types.

Maths

In maths we will move onto written multiplication and division. Later in the term we will cover fractions, decimals and percentages. A significant amount of our maths this year will rely on us knowing our multiplication facts so we will be  working very hard on our times tables through teaching and using the home school apps Times Tables Rock Stars and Maths Shed with the aim of improving speed and accuracy. The more your child practises the times tables facts the easier they will find the maths this year!   

Topic

Our first topic is called ‘Unheard histories: Who should go on the £10 banknote? We will work on a range of historical skills including extracting information from sources, evaluating historical figures and deciding the criteria for significance.  Later we will investigate ‘Why does population change?’ where we will look at a range of factors which influence population and complete a geography fieldwork task.

Science, DT, Art and Computing

Our first science topic is  ‘Properties and Changes to Materials’ where we will learn about: various properties of material, and know that some materials will dissolve to form a solution. We will also investigate: how mixtures might be separated, reversible changes and the formation of new materials. The second half term we will look at ’ Forces’ where we learn about: gravity, air resistance, water resistance and friction. Also we will explore levers, pulleys and gears. In design and technology we are going to design torches where we will have to carryout product research, set criteria, create a prototype and complete evaluations. In art we are going to learn various drawing techniques such as 3D drawings and using different media such as wax. Stiperstones will continue to look at e-safety and how to be safe online. Alongside this we will be looking at programming and flat file databases.

Reading

In Stiperstones we have a mini challenge to see who can read the most ‘Top 20 recommended reads’. The list of these books can be found inside your child’s  Reading Record. Alongside these books there is a wide range of books for your child to choose from in class. In school, we provide daily reading opportunities, some of which are guided where we focus on the following skills: vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising. We are going to be reading ‘The Land of Roar’. Also we will look at a range of non-fiction texts linked to our geography and science topics. For those children who require further support with their reading they will take part in additional reading sessions as much as possible.

Other

In PSHE we will cover ‘bullying, ways to keep ourselves healthy and money management’. In French we will be enjoying the topics ’Numbers, Calendars and Birthdays. Then moving onto the topic of   ‘Weather’. Whereas PE this term we will be doing hockey, outdoor activities, gymnastics, netball and tennis. Within RE we will have a focus on the question—Why do Christians call the day Jesus died Good Friday?