Welcome to Year 4

Class Teachers

Pine: Miss Owen

Oak: Miss Marten-Long

Support Staff: 

Mrs Chrissy Cleveland (Pine based)

Miss Kirsty Lewis (Oak based)

Key Messages/Dates

• PE is on a Friday. Please ensure that your children come to school in full PE kit.
• French Culture Day - 13th January 2026 (French attire is entirely optional) 
• 11B411 Promise (Break a Record) January/February
• PGL Residential - Wednesday 29th April - Friday 1st May
• Multiplication Table Check (MTC) - TBC 
• Forest School - Spring 2 (Please remember to bring your wellies!)

What are we learning in Year 4 this term?

Spring

Reading

These are the texts that we cover throughout the year:

At St Margaret's we are passionate about reading! We teach daily reading session based on a Curriculum for Unity School's Partnership (CUSP) text.

This term, our core text is 'Varjak Paw' by SF Said and later we will look at 'Young, Gifted and Black' by Jamia Wilson. The core texts are supplemented by a variety of additional texts, to support children developing their reading fluency and confidence across a range of text types.

Writing

At St Margaret's Primary Academy we follow CUSP for our writing curriculum. The CUSP curriculum is a vocabulary rich, knowledge based approach to help develop pupils' retrieval, vocabulary and deepen learning. During the Spring term, Year 4 will be looking at the following:

• Stories from Other Cultures: Pupils will explore narratives set in diverse locations, focusing on how setting influences plot and character.

• First Person Diary Entries: Students will use imaginative writing to step into the shoes of others, focusing on personal reflection and emotive language.

• Poems Which Explore Form: A deep dive into the structure and rhythm of poetry, allowing pupils to experiment with how the shape and layout of a poem impacts its meaning.

• Explanatory Texts: Pupils will learn to explain "how" and "why" things happen, using cause-and-effect conjunctions and clear, logical structures.

• Persuasive Writing – Adverts: Children will study the art of persuasion, using rhetorical questions, positive adjectives, and "power words" to influence an audience.

Maths

At St Margaret's Primary Academy we adopt a Mastery approach to teach maths lessons. The mastery approach supports children in becoming fluent and confident mathematicians. Maths lessons include ‘Foundational Skills’ where children recap previously learnt skills. This term we will be looking at:

• Adding and Subtracting

• Multiplication and Division

• Length and Perimeter

• Fractions

• Decimals

During these units, pupils will use a variety of concrete resources and pictorial representations to move toward abstract mathematical concepts. We focus heavily on mathematical talk and reasoning, ensuring children can explain how they reached an answer, not just that they found the correct one. Children will also have the opportunity to practice and develop their times table knowledge daily. 

Multiplication Table Check (MTC)

The Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) is a mandatory assessment for Year 4 pupils, designed to evaluate their fluency in multiplication tables up to 12x12. This assessment is completed online in a similar nature to soundcheck on TTRS. The MTC aims to ensure that students have a strong grasp of basic multiplication facts, which is crucial to their mathematical development

Science

During the Spring term, Year 4 will be exploring the unit 'Animals, including humans'.

Through this unit, pupils will be taught about the following:

• The Digestive System

• Food Chains

• Dental Health

Children will engage in practical investigations to see these concepts in action, such as simulating the digestive process or examining the impact of different liquids on tooth enamel. They will continue to build their scientific vocabulary, using precise terms to explain the biological processes they observe.

Home Learning

We expect children to read a minimum of three times a week at home; this should be logged on Boom Reader https://www.boomreader.co.uk/

Children are expected to practise their times tables at home regularly using Times Tables Rock Stars (TTRS) https://ttrockstars.com/ 

If you need support with logging into either services or are unaware of your child's login, please reach out to a member of the Year 4 team.