Welcome to Year 4!

To contact the year leader please email: 

heatherlands.office@coastalpartnership.co.uk

Please phone the office if you have an urgent message or enquiry.

The Heatherlands Way

PE days: Monday (indoor) & Tuesday (outdoor) - Children to come into school dressed in PE kits.

Voyage with the Vikings….

We’ve had a fantastic term full of exciting learning! In History, we’ve travelled back to the time of the Vikings and Anglo-Saxons, exploring why the Vikings came to Britain, what Danelaw was and how the Norse language influenced the English we speak today. We also learned about life for noblemen and what brought the Viking era to an end. The children have been so curious and enthusiastic throughout these lessons.

In English, Katherine Rundell’s book The Explorer has really captured everyone’s imagination. We acted out a section from the book, bringing the four very different main characters to life. Sassy but insecure Con; Kind and mature Fred, the leader of the group; Lila is quiet yet logical and confident; Little Max is cute and mischievous. Our diary entries written from Fred’s perspective were brilliant, and we’re looking forward to more creative writing inspired by the book next half term.

In Maths, the children have worked hard on their times tables in preparation for the Multiplication Check. Thank you for supporting this at home! Please continue to keep up the hard work over the school holidays. We’ve also been learning about money, thinking about how to estimate costs when shopping with cash and making sure there’s enough to pay. It’s such an important life skill!

The children had a lot of fun in Forest School last week, where they learned how to treat minor first aid injuries. We also loved the outdoor version of the game Pictionary!

It’s been a wonderful term full of curiosity, creativity and hard work. We’re so proud of the children and grateful for your continued support. Thank you.

This week in Year 4, we kicked off Anti-Bullying Week with a splash of colour—odd socks day! The children had great fun expressing themselves and celebrating what makes us all unique. We created a thoughtful class pledge to stand up against bullying and designed superhero-themed posters showing how we can all use our powers for kindness.

In our topic lesson, we took our learning outdoors to the writing shack, where we role-played trading goods and resolving disputes—bringing history to life! We learnt that people would have travelled for days to trade their goods with others and they used a very exciting name for it. They called it ‘a thing’! How ordinary.

In maths, we’ve been exploring fractions using bread as a real-life context to help us understand number lines (give it a go at home—it’s surprisingly effective!). This week we’ll be learning about improper factions and how they can be turned into a mixed number.

In English, we’re diving into The Pedlar of Swaffham, and the children are using their knowledge of conjunctions and sentence structure to retell parts of the story. We have seen fantastic improvements with the children’s handwriting since September and we’re proud of their progression! Keep it up everybody.

Science has been all about sound—we’ve been experimenting with instruments to learn how vibrations help us hear. And in computing, we’ve started planning our very own audiobooks, which we’ll be recording next week. Do you listen to audiobooks at home? We’d love to hear your favourites!

This week, Year 4 have been reviewing our topic and thinking about how we could share our vast knowledge about the Anglo-Saxons. We have been working in groups to prepare a presentation to show to the rest of the class. We considered our main sub-headings such as Anglo-Saxon Daily Life, Villages and Sutton Hoo.

In art, we have been studying the work of a famous artist called Henri Rousseau, in particular a painting called 'The Surprise.' The subject is a tiger in the Amazon Rainforest. We have used this as inspiration for our own paintings. We have thought about perspective and even making our work 'dream like.'

In Science, we have continued to study food chains, thinking about animals in a variety of habitats.

Welcome to Year 4!

The children in Kimmeridge Class continue to enjoy their swimming lessons. It is wonderful to see their confidence in the water grow each week. Lulworth Class will be the next class to begin their swimming lessons on Monday 10^th November. If you have any queries, please do ask the class teacher.

We are embracing the beautiful autumn weather. In our science lessons, we have been identifying and classifying plants and animals. The children have really enjoyed their outdoor learning, and they used their creativity skills to make some fantastic artwork in their early morning work. We thought they were amazing!

In our English lessons, we have been working incredibly hard on improving our handwriting in particular. The children have admirably followed the Heatherlands Way, demonstrating aspiration and resilience in their efforts and have made huge amounts of progress. We are very proud of them all.

Our maths learning has moved on to multiplication and this week we have been making links between the 3, 6 and 9  times tables. Thank you for your continued support and all you are doing at home to improve your child's times table knowledge.

Happy weekend!