St Paul's C E Primary School

Year 4

3rd March

Y4 have really hit the ground running after the half-term break and have had a fantastic first week back. We have celebrated World Book Day this week and have found some really creative ways of celebrating our ever-expanding vocabularies. Thank you for the time and effort that was clearly put into these costumes and ideas! In our Literacy lessons, we have continued to study, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ by Shirley Hughes. This is a tale of bravery and friendship as a young boy is evacuated from London during WWII and we are using this text as a stimulus to help us create our own non-chronological reports. We have been learning about the evacuees and hearing some real-life stories of people who lived through this time. In Maths, fractions have been the focus and we have been adding and simplifying them again this week. In RE, we have been looking at the key words creation, miracle and Gospel and learning more about Jesus – the Son of God. In PE we have been learning some tennis skills and in Spanish we completed some challenges where we had to name the different parts of the face.

17th February

We have had a great last week of the half term and made sure that we have completed a lot of the work that we have been looking at over the past couple of weeks. We have written out poem about ‘Cinnamon’ in our English lessons, making sure that we have included some rhyming couplets, similes and personification in our writing. In Maths, we have continued our chapter looking at fractions and are now more confident in adding and simplifying them. In RE, we have looked at Shabbat which is the Jewish Day of Rest and happens each week from sunset on Friday to sunset on Saturday. In our Science, History and computing lessons we have finished off our current topics and completed our assessments. Have a lovely half-term break everyone.

10th February

We have packed a lot into our week with two special days to complete some useful activities. On Tuesday, we observed ‘Safer Internet Day’ where we discussed how to keep ourselves safe online and whether or not particular activities were better or worse with the use of technology. On Thursday, it was the LDST Wellbeing Day and we had the chance to host a special assembly that was zoomed out to all the other 16 LDST schools simultaneously, led by Mrs. Jackson and Rev. Wade. We also learned some useful strategies to keep our mental and physical health in top shape. In our English lessons, we have put together the final touches on the plans for our poem about Cinnamon. In Maths, we have started a new chapter all about fractions and we have been learning about hundredths and mixed numbers in particular. In our RE lesson, we continued to look at the transfiguration of Jesus and read a story about Jesus’ authority and in PE we taught each other the dances that we had choreographed in previous lessons.

3rd February

In our English lessons this week, we have been continuing to study the Neil Gaiman book, ‘Cinnamon’ and thinking about some poetry language features such as alliteration, personification and similes. In maths, we have been learning how to present information in various different types of graphs including bar graphs, line graphs and pictograms. In RE this week, we have learned about the transfiguration of Jesus. We have been talking about keeping our environment clean in our PSHCEE lesson and in Art we have studied the Edward Hopper painting, ‘Tables for Ladies’ through role-play.

27th January

We have had another interesting week in Y4, starting to read a new book in our English lessons, ‘Cinnamon’ by Neil Gaiman. We are looking into different ways in which we can be creative when writing poetry and have studied rhyming couples and acrostic poems this week, whilst using similes and personification as some of the language features that we can potentially use in the future. In Maths, we have been completing multi-step word problems using both multiplication and division and tested what we have learned by completing our chapter review. In RE, we have looked at the authority of Jesus and tried to compare this with people that have jobs where authority is necessary in the modern world. In Spanish this week, we have completed a spelling test, focussing on the months of the year and in computing we were learning how to create and fill in a spreadsheet.

20th January

We have been working really hard yet again this week in year 4, ensuring that we are up to date and getting to the end of our current schemes of work in both English and Maths. We have completed our extended write by sending a letter to the selfish giant, persuading him to open up his garden once more. We wrote using all the key ingredients of a formal letter, using paragraphs and rhetorical questions as we went. We have been dividing in maths this week, showing that we can divide both two and three-digit numbers. In our RE lesson, we were very lucky to have Rev. Mark visit our class to tell us what it is like to be a vicar in the Church of England and he answered some of our questions. We have continued looking at life in Britain during the Anglo-Saxon period in History and have been creating our own dances based on what we know about the Anglo-Saxons in PE.

13th January 2023

In Y4 this week, we have been reading a new book in our reading lessons called, ‘I Was There…1066’, all about a young boys experience as an Anglo-Saxon soldier during the Battle of Hastings. We have continued to look at ways in which we can write persuasive letters in our Literacy lessons and started to think about the content of the letter that we will write to the Giant next week, asking him to reopen his beautiful garden to the local children. In our Maths lessons, we have been multiplying 3-digit numbers and learning how to partition and rename in order to make them easier to work out. In our RE lesson, we have been discussing how Jesus could calm a storm and walked on water. We have been learning some guitar parts to a well-known Ed Sheeran song in our Music lesson and started a new topic, ‘Sound’ in our Science lesson.

16th December

In Y4 this week, we have been writing some balanced arguments in our English lessons. We have argued for and against some discussion points such as, ‘should we be building on greenbelt land?’. Some very interesting arguments were put forward in both cases. In our Maths lessons, we have been multiplying and dividing by 0&1. In RE, we had a mini festival with jammy doughnuts and we were given chocolate coins to learn about the Hanukkah tradition of gelt. We have also made some Christmas cards this week and in PE, we had a dodgeball tournament mixed with musical statues. We have also had a Christmas party to celebrate the end of the term. Merry Christmas and a happy new year from Y4.

9th December

In Y4 this week, we have started to look at how you would begin to shape an argument both for and against, based on the question, should we build on our greenspaces? In our book, ‘Varmints’, we see greenspaces being built on and habitats and environments change so we are looking at the positives and negatives of doing so. In Maths, we have finished off our chapter for multiplication and division by looking at some word problems and completing the chapter review. Our RE lesson was about the Jewish Menorah and what the 9 candles represent. In Science, we continued to build our circuits and predict if electricity would flow through when changes were made and in PSHCEE, we have looked at bullying, what is classed as bullying and who we should talk to if you are feeling affected by it in any way.

2nd December

In year 4 this week, we have got back to our usual routine after last week’s assessments. In our English lessons, we completed our extended write, creating some instructions on how to make a delicious sandwich before stating our new book, a short story called ‘Varmints’ by Helen Ward. We will be writing a discussion piece and learning how to make arguments for and against over the next couple of weeks. In Maths, we have been working out word problems involving multiplication and division. In our RE lesson, we learned about the Jewish tradition of Hanukkah, how it began, its story and how it is celebrated. In PE, we have been choreographing our own dance routines that incorporate lifts and in Geography, we have been learning about the tallest mountains in different locations around the world.

25th November

Resilience and hard work have been the keys to success this week in Y4 as we have made it through assessment week. Our English and Maths lessons have been put on hold as we have completed a variety of examinations to see where we are up to with, Grammar and Punctuation, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic and general Maths. It has been a pleasure to see our pupils shine and show what they are capable of with the results in general being particularly pleasing. Well done to all of our pupils that have worked so tremendously hard this week with what has been asked of them. We made a picture of Mary and Joseph based on their story in our RE lesson and we answered questions about what we had learned. In our Science lesson this week, we created electrical circuits and tested some conductors and insulators to see if our prediction were correct. We also had the pleasure of watching the Three Lions kick off their World Cup campaign on Monday, with an exciting and incident packed 6-2 victory over Iran and a day that I’m sure our pupils will remember for a long time to come. Hopefully, this time it really is going to come home. Come on England!!!

18th November

This week, we have been finishing our look at how everyday things work, reading the explanation text, ‘Until I Met Dudley’ and been making sure that we can add all of the things that we need to write a great set of instructions and although it may seem a little early still, we have wrote an instruction for wrapping a Christmas present. In maths, we have delved into division and studied how a good knowledge of our times tables can help us with our divisions. We have focussed on two key words in particular this week, quotient and inverse. In our RE lesson, we were introduced to the ‘Festival of Lights’, that is celebrated within the Jewish religion. We also looked at the symbolism of light within Christianity and read John – 1 1-14. We took a look at the tallest mountains in the UK during our Geography lesson and learnt the Spanish names of some vegetables in our Spanish lesson. Another successful week!

11th November

In Y4 this week, we have continued to look at how everyday things work, reading the explanation text, ‘Until I Met Dudley’ and been working on some of the skills that we will need to write our own instructional text next week. We have taken a look at fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases in particular when practising making our writing as interesting as possible. In maths, we have really focused in on our 9 and 11 times tables and tried to use our relational understanding of the 10’s times table to work out our answers. In RE, we have been answering questions all about the festival of lights and in computing we have been learning about internet safety and how phishing emails intend to scam us. We also had a visit from a scientist this week, who took us through some impressive yet simple experiments in the hall showing us how light and sound works!

4th November

We have hit the ground running in Y4 since we have returned from our half term break. In our Literacy lessons, we are studying a brand new book for the next three weeks, ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by Roger McGough which is a helpful explanation text showing us how everyday things work, such as vacuum cleaners and dishwashers. We will be writing our own set of instructions to describe how something works and to help us, this week we have studied the layout and key features of explanation texts and instructions and focussed on using bossy verbs within our writing. In our Maths lessons, we have begun a chapter about multiplication and division. This week, we have mainly focussed on the 6, 7 and 9 times tables. In our RE lesson we have been talking about Jesus being the light of the world and learning about the Christingle and what all of the different colours represent. We have also started a new Science scheme of work this week about electricity. We have focussed particularly on electrical hazards for our first lesson.

21st October

In the final week before half-term, Y4 have completed their extended write in our English lessons, writing a sequel to our book, ‘FArTHER’. To complete this we created a title for our story using a homophone, organised texts into paragraphs and wrote temporal adverbial sentence openers. All of these skills we have been working on during our other English lessons this week. In our Maths lessons, we have been solving word problems using both addition and subtraction as well as using some mental strategies to solve subtraction problems. In RE, we finished writing our psalms about what we would like to praise God for, or what we need his help with or ask forgiveness for. We also drew a picture of what our psalms mean to us. We also attended church this week to celebrate the Harvest festival. It was a lovely occasion and gave us the chance to be generous and try to help our wider community and give thanks for the things that we have. Have a great half-term break, everyone!

14th October

We have had another productive week in year 4, writing a diary entry in the role of the father from our class book, ‘FArTHER’ telling of his journey off to war and the emotions that he felt in leaving his family and his dream of flying behind. We also started to use imperative verbs in order to write a set of instruction that his son could use in creating his very own flying machine. In Maths, we have been finding our own different methods for working out some additions and subtractions, both with and without renaming in a place value chart. In our RE lesson this week, we wrote our own psalms to praise God and say thank you .Science was the topic of the day on Tuesday as well as we spent some time looking at the classification of animals and plants and even created our very own classification keys and food chains!

7th October

In Y4 this week, we have begun to read our new book, ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith, which tells the short story of how a young boy is entranced by his father's ambition to fly. When his father goes off to war & doesn't return, the boy takes up that dream & makes it come true. We have been using pictures from the book to communicate ideas about where the story is going and started to write a diary entry in the role of the father, explaining the circumstances around him having to leave. In our Maths lessons, we have been using addition to solve problems including addition without renaming and renaming in the ones, tens and hundred columns. In our RE lesson, we are looking at stories of Jesus and how he brought light into people’s lives. In our art lesson we have been making patterns with geometric shapes and in PSHCEE we have been discussing what is and isn’t OK!

30th September

In what has turned out to be a very productive week in Y4, we have completed reading our book, ‘The iron Man’ and also written our newspaper reports about the Iron Man’s epic battle with the space creature, ensuring that we have come up with a catchy headline, wrote in paragraphs and quoted some direct speech from the characters in the book. In our Maths lessons, we have also completed the first chapter in our Maths No Problem scheme and assessed our knowledge through the chapter review. We have now begun to focus on addition and subtraction up to 10,000 and completed the first couple of lessons from chapter 2. In RE, we have learned that some Christians have had to endure great struggles and persevere in difficult circumstances to keep faith in God and follow his way. Our PE lessons have seen us playing both hockey and cricket and in History we have learned how the Industrial Revolution effected and changed Britain.

23rd September

In Y4 this week, we have continued to focus on some of the attributes that we will need to be a successful journalist as we aim to write a newspaper report based on Ted Hughes’, ‘Iron Man’. We have also been honing our reading skills whilst working our way through the book by practising our vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and summarising skills. In Maths, we continue to work on our times tables but we have also been practising how to round four digit numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000. Our RE lesson this week saw us recalling the story of Jonah and the Whale and we even had a professional cricket player in to teach us some batting and fielding techniques during our PE lesson!

16th September

In our second week back, we have already completed our first extended write of the year! The class have produced some excellent work completing a newspaper report detailing the strange goings-on that we have read about in the first couple of chapters of our class novel, Ted Hughes’ ‘Iron Man’. We made sure that we wrote a catchy headline using alliteration, answered the 5 W’s as all good journalists would and offered some facts and opinions about the story. In our Maths lessons, we have been looking at number patterns and recognising if numbers up to four digits are greater or smaller than comparable numbers. We have been playing hockey in our PE lessons and been working on a fitting tribute to the late Queen Elizabeth II in our Music lessons as we learned how to play our national anthem.

9th September

It has been a very positive start to the year, and we are very much ‘business as usual’ in our first week back. This week in Y4, we began to study our new book in our Literacy lessons, Ted Hughes’, ‘The Iron Man’. We are aiming to write a newspaper report about the story, so we have been looking at what makes a good headline, how the 5 W’s work in journalism and the features of a newspaper report. In Maths, we have done a lot of work on place value, looking specifically at number patterns, and comparing and ordering numbers up to 10,000. We have also started to learn about the industrial revolution in History.

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15th July

It has been transition week this week and our Y4 class have spent their mornings with their new teacher for next year, Mr. Rigby in what will be their new classroom. The feedback that they have given me has been very positive and I think that everyone is looking forward to moving upstairs to upper KS2. In our RE lesson this week, we completed a quiz about all that we have learned over the course of the year and in DT draw a design for a new pavilion for Wigan park and created a structure based on their design using cocktail sticks and marshmallows. As this will be my last blog for this year, may I take this opportunity to thank you all for your continued support. It has been an absolute pleasure to teach this class this year, I couldn’t have wished for a better group.

8th July

As we come to the end of the school year, it is safe to say that Y4 are still running on all cylinders and there has been no let up in the quality or quantity of work that has been produced over the last week! In our English lessons, we have been reading the classic, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and really been engrossing ourselves in the text, making inferences about how certain characters must be feeling at different points in the story. In our Maths lessons, we have started to focus on geometry and have been learning more about acute, obtuse and right angles as well as how they would fit in to certain shapes, particularly quadrilaterals and the three different types of triangles (equilateral, isosceles and scalene). During our RE lessons, we have been reading some text and recapping some Bible stories and we even took out Geography field trip out to Haigh Hall on Friday to study the River Douglas and the canal system.

1st July

In Y4 this week, we have put what we have learned over the course of the year to the test, as the Summer assessment week has rolled round. As usual, we have been tested on our spellings, grammar and punctuation, reading, arithmetic and maths reasoning. These weeks always prove tough ones, and a lot of resilience and patience is required. I can say though that that class have once again dealt with this magnificently well and without having really crunched the numbers and the data just yet, it seems another very successful assessment period has been had. Well done to Y4 for their efforts this week! In our RE lesson, we have tried to consolidate all of the knowledge that we have acquired this term to really deepen our understanding of the Bible and the church. We have continued to focus on rivers in Geography in preparation for our field trip next week. Finally, well done to a number of boys from our class this week who have taken part in a football tournament at Wigan Athletic’s training facility! They represented the school well and can be proud of their efforts.

24th June

This week in Y4, we have been writing our very own nonsense poems, in the style of Lewis Carroll. In order to do this effectively, we have taken some time to create our own nonsense words using portmanteau, blending two words and meanings together to come up with a brand new word. We have also been creating our own creatures to be the main focus of our poems, much like the Jabberwock was in Carroll’s. In Maths, we have been looking at area and trying to find the difference between area and perimeter. We have been creating our own figures and shapes and experimenting with changing the area and perimeter. In RE, we have been looking at how people pray and worship across different religions and in Geography we have been studying rivers.

17th June

This week has been an eventful one in Y4 as we have been really focussed on completing our times tables check. It has been a pleasure to see the confidence grow in our class as we have got to this point and thank you for all the hard work and effort that has been put in at home as well. We did manage to sneak in a regular Maths lesson this week as well, starting a new chapter on area. In our English lessons, we have been writing descriptions about some of the wonderful creatures that we meet in Lewis Carroll’s, ‘Jabberwocky’ and discovering how onomatopoeia can be a useful writing technique when trying to write descriptive poetry. In our RE lesson, we have learned about what a church bell could signify when rung as well as writing our very own prayers for our prayer tree and discussing that it doesn’t matter where or when you pray. We have also taken part in Sport’s Day this week, where thankfully the weather was very much on our side. Congratulations to all those that took part.

10th June

This week in year 4, in our Literacy lessons have we have begun to study Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem, ‘Jabberwocky’ and tried to make some sense out of it. It has certainly been something different to study and it’s been really enjoyable to read and annotate. In Maths, we have finished our chapter about measurement and we are now confident in measuring and converting measurements using a number of different units. In our RE lesson, we were asked the question, ‘why should we pray to God?’ and in Spanish, we completed an assessment on some of the things that we have been looking at recently, including questions on Jack and the Beanstalk and vegetables. In our Science lesson this week, we have started to look at our final topic of Y4, Environmental Science.

27th May

Y4 have taken up the role of journalists this week to tell the story of Ernest Shackleton and his epic voyage to Antarctica in the form of a newspaper report. We have been writing direct quotes, alliterative headlines and using the past tense to complete our extended write. Somewhat ironically, we have also had a visit from a journalist from the Wigan Observer in this week as well, documenting some of the great things going on here at St. Paul’s and particularly in Y4. The reporter was excited to find out all about what we have been learning on the guitars and to find out the role of our school dog, Nero and how he helps out in class. In Maths, we have spent the week fine tuning our multiplication skills ready for the check which is due to take place after the half-term break. We have also been looking at converting millilitres to litres and centimetres to metres in our ‘Maths – No Problem’ books as well. In our RE lesson, we have just finished up our unit about different places of worship for certain religious beliefs and we have assessed our learning as we finish topics on states of matter in Science and the ancient Egyptians in History.

20th May

In Y4 this week, we have been learning all about Ernest Shackleton’s amazing Antarctic exploration in our English lessons, preparing to write a newspaper report all about it for our assessed piece of writing. In Maths, we have started to look at measurement and have been working with weight and volume so far. We have been converting grams to kilograms and comparing different volumes using litres and millilitres. We have also been ramping up our preparations for the Multiplication Tables Check and ensuring that we are practising every day! In RE, we have focused on synagogues and the types of things that you would expect to find inside and in Science, backing up last week’s ‘Chocolate Experiment’, we have seen some naturally occurring changes of state when we have been focusing on the water cycle. Another great week in year 4.

13th May

This week in Y4, we have completed our extended write in our English lessons. We have invented new lands that we have discovered on our voyages around the whole, much like what we have read about in ‘Gulliver’s Travels’, and we have written our own adventure stories to tell these tall tales! We have wrote our about our adventures in role as an explorer and tries to paint a sensory picture, by writing what we have seen/smelt/felt/heard and using those to support building our noun phrases. In Maths, we have been working some more on our time tables and making sure that we are now practicing each and every day in the last month leading up to the times tables check. We have also completed our chapter about money, where we have been estimating amounts and rounding this week. In RE, we have created a Venn diagram to show the similarities and differences between Synagogues, Anglican and Catholic churches. Hieroglyphics were the focus of our History lesson this week as we have continued our studies around ancient Egypt and in PSHCEE, we have asked the question, what can we do to make a difference?

6th May

In what has proven to be an unusual week with the bank holiday and the polling day, Y4 have still shown that they can produce some excellent work, despite the disruptions from both at school and at home! In our English lessons, we have continued to follow the story of Gulliver and his eventful travels and visited Laputa and Balnibarbi. We have compared the lands that Gulliver has visited so far, had a look at different nouns and how we can group them and used quotation marks in our writing. In Maths, we have been using money, albeit fake, to support our learning and have practiced rounding money to the nearest one and ten pounds. During our RE lesson this week, we have again looked inside a Catholic church and have seen some artefacts from inside them. During Science, we have learned how evaporating, melting and freezing describe changes of state and in History we have continued our voyage through ancient Egypt.

29th April

In Y4 this week, we have continued to follow the adventures of Gulliver during our English lessons. We have looked at real ship’s logbooks, the Halsewell from the 18^th century and had a go at writing our own based on Gulliver’s travels onboard the Antelope. In our Maths lessons, we have finished our topic on decimals and moved straight into the next chapter of lessons regarding money. We have even roleplayed being customers and shopkeepers, finding the correct money and change to buy certain items. In RE, we have seen inside a Catholic church and discussed some similarities between those and the Anglican churches that we are more familiar with and looked at last week. In History, the ancient Egyptians are currently in our focus and during PE, we have been playing cricket.

22nd April

Y4 have had a really positive first week back after our well-needed Easter holiday. We have started to read the classic, ‘Gulliver’s Travels’ in out Literacy lessons and have been focussing on using fronted adverbials and homophones as part of our learning about some of the crazy tales that Gulliver tells us about his adventures. We have also seen how Gulliver’s map of the world may differ from the real one. In Maths, we are continuing to focus on decimals and we have been rounding decimal numbers to whole numbers this week. In RE, we have been naming the features of an Anglican church and looking at how building used for worship may look different in each religion. We have began our new topic about the ancient Egyptians in History and have also begun a new Science topic, States of Matter.

1st April

As we make our way to the end of another term here at St. Paul’s, we have been reminded of what a wonderful school community we have. On Wednesday, we attended church to celebrate Easter for the first time in the last few years! It has been great to be back in church recently and I think the children have really appreciated being able to visit again. We have been studying a series of books in our English lessons with the over-riding theme ‘no-outsiders’. We have taken some of the messages that these books have spoken of and tried to re-tell these stories in our own words whilst having discussions around the meanings of each story. In our Maths lessons we have continued to study decimals and we have been comparing decimal numbers and finding different ways to write them down. We have completed our Science assessment to complete our scheme about the human digestive system and have been singing Easter songs during Music.

25th March

Resilience and hard work have been the keys to success this week in Y4 as we have once again made it through assessment week. Our English and Maths lessons have been put on hold as we have completed a variety of examinations to see where we are up to with, Grammar and Punctuation, Reading, Spelling, Arithmetic and general Maths. It has been a pleasure to see our pupils shine and show what they are capable of with the results in general being particularly pleasing. Well done to all of our pupils that have worked so tremendously hard this week with what has been asked of them. In our RE lesson, we have looked at Peter’s betrayal of Jesus and spoken a lot about forgiveness. In Science, we have seen how the internal organs work in the digestive system and in Music, we have been learning the chords of G, C and D major in order to play a Bob Dylan classic, ‘Blowin’ in the Wind’.

18th March

We have been working hard again this week in Y4 as we have been preparing to create our non-chronological reports about the evacuees during WWII to link in with the book that we have just finished reading, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ by Shirley Hughes. We have found out about the struggles that the evacuees faced and the reasons why they had to evacuate in the first place and now we are using our skills and new-found knowledge to put all of this together to write our reports. In our Maths lessons, it has been all about decimals this week and we have learned how to convert fractions to decimal numbers with our main focus being tenths and hundredths. In our RE lesson, we have been looking at little closer at Easter and have learned all about the Last Supper and the sacrifices that Jesus made at that time. In Spanish, we watched a version of jack and the Beanstalk to search for words that we know and to hear how fast the Spanish language is spoken and in PE we have been playing netball and tennis. In Science, we have been learning about teeth and their role in the digestive system.

11th March

We’ve had another great week in Y4 as we’ve finished yet one more chapter of our Maths work. We are all gaining confidence now when speaking about all aspects of time and should be able to read the time both in analogue and digitally using a 24-hour clock as well as converting unit of time from seconds to minutes, minutes to hours and hours to days. We have been looking at the life of a WWII evacuee during our Literacy lessons and writing a non-chronological report all about or findings. We are reading a book called, ‘The Incredible Story of Classical Music’ during reading lessons and have been learning about famous composers such as Bach, Handel and Vivaldi this week. In our RE lesson, we saw some Jewish artifacts such as a menorah, a kippah and a Torah and during our Geography lesson, we used tablets to search mountain ranges and find out how tall certain mountains are.

4th March

Y4 have really hit the ground running after the half-term break and have had a fantastic first week back. We have celebrated World Book Day this week and have found some really creative ways of celebrating our ever-expanding vocabularies. Thank you for the time and effort that was clearly put into these costumes and ideas! In our Literacy lessons, we have started to study a brand-new book, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ by Shirley Hughes. This is a tale of bravery and friendship as a young boy is evacuated from London during WWII and we are using this text as a stimulus to help us create our own non-chronological reports. In Maths, we have begun a brand new chapter all about time, so far we have learned how to read a 24-hour clock and converted seconds to minutes and minutes to hours. In RE, we have looked at the Jewish holy day, Shabbat which starts every week at sunset on Friday and ends at nightfall on Saturday. In Geography, we have used atlases to find well known mountain ranges from around the world, played benchball in PE and have learned how to play the chords of G, C and D major on the guitar during our Music lesson!

18th February

We have had a great last week of the half term and made sure that we have completed a lot of the work that we have been looking at over the past couple of weeks. We have written out poem about ‘Cinnamon’ in our English lessons, making sure that we have included some rhyming couplets, similes and personification in our writing. In Maths, we have completed our chapter looking at fractions and are now more confident in adding and subtracting them, simplifying and converting improper fractions into mixed numbers. In RE, we were writing some prayers of thankfulness and in our Art lesson we have been looking at the work of Fiona Rae and creating our very own abstract paintings. Have a lovely half-term break everyone.

11th February

In Year 4 this week, we have really focussed in on some of the skills that we will need to write our poem about Cinnamon, the princess from the book of the same name by Neil Gaiman. To do this, we have looked at themes that are presented in poetry and looked at some of the unanswered questions that the book leaves after finishing reading it. In Maths, we have been adding and subtracting fractions this week as well as converting improper fractions into mixed numbers and simplifying fractions. In our RE lesson, we have continued to study the miracles that Jesus was able to accomplish and the impact that they had on the people around him. Our Science lesson saw us completing our final assessment on our most recent scheme of work, ‘Sound’ and in History, we have finished looking at the Anglo-Saxons and are now prepared to be assessed on this nest week.

4th February

We have had another interesting week in Y4, starting to read a new book in our English lessons, ‘Cinnamon’ by Neil Gaiman. We are looking into different ways in which we can be creative when writing poetry and have studied rhyming couples and acrostic poems this week, whilst using similes and personification as some of the language features that we can potentially use in the future. In Maths, it has been all about fractions this week, including looking into mixed numbers and simplifying fractions. In our RE lesson, we read the bible passage Matthew 14:22-33 about when Jesus walks on the water and spoke about how the miracles that Jesus performed helped people to believe in him and how they could show true faith towards him. In Science, we have continued in our discoveries about how sound works and in History, we have emersed ourselves in the Anglo-Saxon way of living.

28th January

We have been working really hard yet again this week in year 4, ensuring that we are up to date and finishing off our current schemes of work in both English and Maths. We have completed our extended write by sending a letter to the selfish giant, persuading him to open up his garden once more. We wrote using all the key ingredients of a formal letter, using paragraphs and rhetorical questions as we went. In Maths, we finished our chapter on graphs and consolidated our understanding, even having time to being our next chapter, ‘Fractions’. In our RE lesson, we have looked at some of the miracles that Jesus was able to achieve, including how he managed to bring Lazarus back from the dead. In History, Anglo-Saxon punishments were our focus whilst antithetically, we looked at keeping ourselves healthy in PSHCEE. During our Art lesson this week, we have looked at the work of Edward Hopper and acted out one of his paintings before creating samples that we would like to use for our paintings next week.

21st January

In Y4 this week, we have been reading a new book in our reading lessons called, ‘I Was There…1066’, all about a young boys experience as an Anglo-Saxon soldier during the Battle of Hastings. We have continued to look at ways in which we can write persuasive letters in our Literacy lessons and started to think about the content of the letter that we will write to the Giant next week, asking him to reopen his beautiful garden to the local children. In Maths, we have been studying graphs this week, looking at picture, bar and line graphs in particular. In Our RE lesson, Mrs. Jackson has been telling us about how Jesus, being the son of God, showed his power and authority and in our Music lesson, we studied Richard Wagner’s, ‘Ride of the Valkyries’ and how Wagner was inspired by his love of Norse mythology to write this epic piece of music.

14th January 2022

In English we have been doing a book review on The Selfish Giant. We have been learning about Rhetorical questions.

In Maths we have been dividing 2 & 3 digit numbers and solving word problems.

In history we have been discovering why the Saxons invaded England.

17th December

In Y4 this week, we have been writing some balanced arguments in our English lessons. We have argued for and against some discussion points such as, ‘It is a good idea to keep a pet tiger’ and ‘it is better to use public transport’. Some very interesting arguments were put forward in both cases. In our Maths lessons, we have been multiplying 3-digit numbers and learning how to partition and rename in order to make them easier to work out. In RE, we have looked over our curriculum of GRACE and understood how God is present throughout all of our school subjects. We also completed some work around advent and the nativity. We have also made some Christmas decorations this week and in PE, we had a dodgeball tournament disguised as a snowball fight. We have also had a Christmas party to celebrate the end of the term. Merry Christmas and a happy new year from Y4.

10th December

In year 4 this week, in our English lessons we have continued to study ‘Varmints’ and have been creating arguments for and against building on Greenspaces around towns and cities, using some useful verbs and adjectives to clearly make our points. In Maths, we have been looking to further our understanding of multiplication and have been using partitioning methods to help solve some tricky 2-digit multiplications. In our RE lesson, we labelled the parts of a Christingle and learnt about what they mean and represent. We have been learning some festive songs in our Music lesson and in PE, we used some equipment to complete a gymnastic performance. We have also completed our assessments in both Geography and Science.

3rd December

In year 4 this week, we have got back to our usual routine after last week’s assessments. This has meant that we have started new topics in both Maths and English as well! In our Maths lessons, we have now started a new chapter called, ‘Further Multiplication and Division’ and have been focusing on how to times and divide by the numbers 1 and 0 and how to times three numbers together. In our English lessons, we have read ‘Varmints’ by Helen Ward and been learning how to construct a balanced argument by stating facts and opinions to help us give reasons for and against a number of topics, including whether or now we should build on greenbelt land. In RE, we have been looking at the Jewish tradition of Hanukkah and we have seen a Torah and a dreidel, which is played at Hanukkah. In Spanish, we have been holding conversations through questioning and in Geography, we have been looking at the climates around mountains. We have also had great fun in our DT lesson, where we have been making torches out of recycling and some of them even worked!

12th November

In Y4 this week, we have continued to look at how every day things work, reading the explanation text, ‘Until I Met Dudley’ and been working on some of the skills that we will need to write our own next week. We have taken a look at fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases in particular when practising making our writing as interesting as possible. In maths, we have delved into division and studied how a good knowledge of our times tables can help us with our divisions. We have focussed on two key words in particular this week, quotient and inverse. In our RE lesson, we were introduced to the ‘Festival of Lights’, that is celebrated within the Jewish religion. We had the opportunity to see some of the symbols of the festival and even had some artefacts to see up close. We took a look at the tallest mountains in the UK during our Geography lesson and learnt the Spanish names of some vegetables in our Spanish lesson. Another successful week!

5th November

We have hit the ground running in Y4 since we have returned from our half term break. In our Literacy lessons, we are studying a brand new book for the next three weeks, ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by Roger McGough which is a helpful explanation text showing us how everyday things work, such as vacuum cleaners and dishwashers. We will be writing our own set of instructions to describe how something works and to help us, this week we have studied the layout and key features of explanation texts and instructions and focussed on using bossy verbs within our writing. In our Maths lessons, we have began a chapter about multiplication and division. This week, we have mainly focussed on the 6, 7 and 9 times tables. In our RE lesson, we completed a quiz to assess all of the knowledge that we acquired last half term about psalms, David and Goliath and Jonah and the Whale and how God chose them to do their own specific jobs. In our Geography lesson, we have been using an atlas to search mountains from around the world and find out as much as we can about them and in our Music lesson, we have picked up the guitars once more, learning all about the anatomy of the guitar and practiced reading tablature to0 play a well-know rock riff!

21st October

This week, we have completed a lot of our current schemes and assessed how well we have done. In our English lessons, we have written a sequel to our book, ‘FArTHER’ in our extended write books. We chose a new title for our sequel, making sure that we used a homophone. One of the most used titles that we came up with as a class was, ‘Even FArTHER from the Son/Sun’. In Maths, we have completed our look at addition and subtraction and will begin to focus on multiplication and division after the half-term break. In our Science lesson, we have also completed our assessment on the classification of living things, having learned how to create a classification key, what a food chain is and how to classify different species of plants and animals amongst a host of other interesting things. In RE, we had an opportunity to write our own plasms after studying David’s psalms and played some invasion games during PE.

15th October

This week in year 4, we have been reading the story of ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith and talked in some detail about homophones. For our extended write next week, we will be writing a sequel to FArTHER, all about how the family pursue their dreams of air and flight. In Maths this week, we have been practising different methods when subtracting and renaming in each of our place value columns. In our Science lesson, we have looked at the food chain, thinking about producers and consumers and what makes a predator and prey. In History, looking at the Industrial Revolution, and the living conditions for working Victorians and in PE, we have been playing invasion games and had a go at dodgeball and in Spanish we have been taught all about masculine and feminine words.

8th October

This week in our literacy lessons, we have started to read our new class book, ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith. The story tells of a father and son relationship and their dream of flight before the father is taken away to serve the military. In our lessons this week, we have created some multi-clause sentences using conjunctions and predicted what may happen in the story using some of the images from the book. In Maths, we have been using mental strategies to add two numbers and started to look in more detail at subtraction and finding the difference between two numbers. In RE, we’ve looked at the jobs that God chose for Samuel, Jonah and Moses and in History we’ve learned about the life of a coal miner in the Victorian age.

1st October

In year 4 this week, we have completed our study of our book , ‘Iron Man’ by Ted Hughes. Our assessment piece was to use all of the information that we have gathered over the past few weeks to create a newspaper report telling of the epic test of strength in the last chapter between the iron man and the space dragon! We made sure to answer the 5 W’s in our report and give some facts and opinions just like journalists do when they are writing up news stories. We created some great headlines using puns and alliteration and made sure to write in the third person and the past tense whilst using paragraphs to break up our information and including some direct quotes from our characters using speech marks. Quite a lot to include for our first assessed piece but we’ve managed it all the same! We’ve started a new chapter in our Maths lessons too, this time focussing on addition and subtraction up to 10,000. We have started this by reminding ourselves about column addition and how to rename numbers using place value. We have been looking at the Victorian coal-mining industry in our history lesson and have been practising some Harvest songs during Music. In our RE lesson, we discussed the story of Jonah and the whale and the importance of always listening to God.

24th September

In year 4 this week, we have learning how to round to 10, 100 and 1000 in our Maths lessons and even rounded to make estimates. We have practiced this by taking an imaginary shopping trip to buy some items and then estimating how much certain items would cost when bought together. We have continued to read Ted Hughes’ ‘Iron Man’ in English and focused in particular on writing in paragraphs and the use of alliteration to help us create our newspaper reports next week. We have also had a go at summarising our story so far by picking out some of the key events that have taken place up to now. In our Music lesson, we looked at the history of popular music and learned about some of the genres of music that have sculpted what we listen to today, including jazz, soul and hip-hop music.

17th September

This week in Y4, we began to study our new book in our Literacy lessons, Ted Hughes’, ‘The Iron Man’. We are aiming to write a newspaper report about the story so we have been looking at what makes a good headline, how the 5 W’s work in journalism and the features of a newspaper report. In our Maths lessons, we have continued to focus on place value and looked in more detail at greater and lesser than and number patterns. In our Science lesson, we have started to study the classification of living things and in Art we have been making charcoal drawings. Our RE lessons have seen us looking at God, David and the psalms.

10th September

In an exciting first week back to school, Year 4 have been remarkable and returned motivated and ready to learn! They have coped with the new challenges very well and it has been very much back to business as usual, with a few tweaks to the routines along the way. Our Literacy lessons have seen us cover a variety of topics to gauge understanding of our abilities in the subject, including an extended write ‘All About Me’ and breaking down the text ‘War Boy’ to show our comprehension skills. In Maths, we have done a lot of work on place value, looking specifically at number patterns and comparing and ordering numbers up to 10,000. We have also started to learn about the industrial revolution in History and been talking about emotions in PSHCEE. It really has been a great first few weeks back in school.

16th July

We have had a great last full week in school before our Summer holidays this week and managed to tie up a few loose ends in the process. On Tuesday and Wednesday morning we took part in some transition activities to set us up for moving to Y5 in September with Miss Fletcher. We managed to let Miss Fletcher get to know us a little better with some of the work that we completed as well as having a go at some Maths that we expect to encounter as we move up. In our Geography lesson, we answered the question, ‘Why are rivers important to people?’ and in our PE lesson, we played a game called Fruit-bowl. In computing, we are completing some online research using search engines like Google and completed a TT Rock Stars challenged and in Art we used art straws to create a 3D open pavilion.

9th July

In Y4 this week, we have been focussing on symmetry in our Maths lessons and been focussing on completing and making symmetrical shapes. We have almost completed reading our book, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ in our reading lessons. In our Spanish lessons, we have played games in order to learn the names of pets and animals, we’ve played one of our favourite games, benchball during our PE lesson and we have also created a Venn diagram during our RE lessons to help us understand some different religions. We have also had plenty of football themed activities sprinkled into our lessons this week because, after all, it’s definitely coming home! Come on England!

2nd July

In year 4 this week, we have been completing our end of year assessments in both Maths and English. These assessments are based on 6 tests, grammar and punctuation, reading, spelling, arithmetic and 2 maths reasoning papers. They are based on the skills that we have covered over the course of the year. The children of year 4 have yet again handled the pressure and the workload admirably. In fact, I would go as far as to say that most of them actually enjoy the challenge. They have been well-rewarded this week for all of their efforts with plenty blessings in the jar, dojos awarded and games of football in the sun! In our afternoon lessons, we have been taking part in a mini-Olympics in our PE lessons, in our RE lessons we have been looking at prayer in detail and in Spanish, we have been learning the names of animals and pets. ¡Magnífico!

25th June

This week in Y4, we have been planning to write our adventure story, based on what we have read in the book that we are studying, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. We have created our own characters, settings and even plotted out a story map so that our adventure will be as exciting and enthralling as it can be. In our Maths lessons, we have begun a new topic, Geometry in which we have been learning all about angles (right, acute and obtuse) and triangles (equilateral, isosceles and scalene) so far. We have also had our Geography field trip this week, taking a trip to Haigh Hall and the area local to it to study the River Douglas and it’s flood plains and defences. In Music, we have taken a look at Sergei Prokofiev’s, ‘Peter and the Wolf’ to learn a little more about orchestral instruments.

18th June

Y4 have completed their most recent chapter of their ‘Maths No Problem’ books this week and consolidated everything that we have learned about area. We have fully immersed ourselves into the land of Narnia in our reading and English lessons and are now about half way through ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’. We have been working on skills to help us write our own fiction story next week. We have been learning about some orchestral instruments in our Music lesson and been treated to some performances from the staff at Wigan Music Service via YouTube. We have also started our new Geography topic, ‘Rivers’ this half term and we are very excited about our Geography field trip to Haigh Hall next week!

11th June

We have had a great start to the new half term this week and worked hard on our return to school. In our Literacy lessons we have started to study C. S. Lewis’, ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ and we have been looking at creating noun phrases using different types of nouns, like proper, concrete and abstract. In Maths, we finished off our last chapter of work about measurement and have now started to focus on area. We have also enjoyed our sports day this week and had a great time competing with and against each other in a variety of different disciplines.

28th May

In our final week of the half term, we have had a positive time, reflected on the year so far and tied up a few loose ends in many of our subjects. We have had assessments this week in History, Music and Science to finish off our schemes of work covering the Egyptians, composing using an open position pentatonic scale and states of matter respectively. We have also wrote our very own nonsense poems in our Literacy lessons, using portmanteau to create some new vocabulary to match Lewis Carroll’s writing style, influenced particularly by his poem ‘Jabberwocky’. In our Maths lessons, we have been converting units of measurement and focused on grams to kilograms, cm to metres and metres to kilometres.

21st May

In Year 4 this week, we have continued to unscramble Lewis Carroll’s ‘Jabberwocky’ poem and have not only tried to work out the nonsense words in the poem, but have also been making our own up in some creative ways. We have used verbs and adjectives to describe some of the other creatures mentioned in the poem and even come up with some beasts of our own that we can use in the poems that we will write for our assessments next week. In our Maths lessons, we have been measuring mass and converting between different units of measure as well as measuring volume in litres using decimals. In our PE lessons, we have been having a go at quick cricket and in Music, we have been using our new found knowledge of the minor pentatonic scale to compose our own pieces of music.

14th May

We have had a positive week in Y4 on the whole this week where we have completed the topic of ‘money’ in our Maths lessons, and finished the chapter off with a knowledge assessment. Towards the end of the week, we managed to begin our new chapter about mass, volume and length. In our Literacy lessons, we have begun to study Lewis Carroll’s famous nonsense poem, ‘Jabberwocky’ and tried to make some sense out of it. It has certainly been something different to study and it’s been really enjoyable to read and annotate. In our Science lesson this week, we had to experiment with chocolate! We saw how we can change its state of matter by heating and cooling.

7th May

Although we have had a slightly unusual week with the bank holiday on Monday followed by the polling day on Thursday, Y4 have still managed to knuckle down and have a very positive week. We have continued to focus on ‘money’ in our Maths lessons, learning how to estimate, add different amounts and work out how much change should be received. We have even thrown in a couple of fun, interactive games to consolidate our learning in this area. In our Literacy lessons, we are still reading ‘Gulliver’, learning of his travels to Laputa and Luggnagg. We are gearing up to write a narrative piece about the book and have been practising writing extended noun phrases and punctuating speech to help us produce the best piece of writing we can for our assessment. In History, we are currently learning about the ancient Egyptians and their pyramids and learning how to play the minor pentatonic scale on the guitar in Music.

30th April

In Y4 this week, we have reflected on our time back since the most recent lockdown ended. We have highlighted some of the positive moments that we have had and discussed how we can be even better as a class moving forward. In our English lessons, we have continued to follow the story of ‘Gulliver’ and read about the time that he spent with the giants of Brobdingnag. We have summarised the chapter and used our writing skills to create log books from the ships that Gulliver sailed on. In our Maths lessons, we have begun our new chapter about ‘Money’ and learned some of the similarities and differences between this and our last chapter on ‘Decimals’. We have also spoken about who betrayed Jesus in our RE lessons and been playing invasion games during PE.

23rd April

This week, Year 4 have been straight back into their stride as we have all enjoyed our time off for Easter. We have started to study a new book in our Literacy lessons, the classic ‘Gulliver’ by Jonathan Swift and have practiced our summarising skills and made some predictions about the story along the way. We have been looking at old log-books from ships and trying to write our own versions from Gulliver’s point of view. In our Maths lessons, we have been finishing off out topic on decimal points and learning how to convert fractions to decimals. In our Music lessons, we have been learning all about scales and have started to play the minor pentatonic scale on the guitars and in our Science lessons we are starting this new term off with the topic of ‘States of Matter’.

19th March

In Year 4 this week, we have started to study our new book, ‘The Matchbox Diary’ which is a story of an Italian immigrant starting a new life in America. We are going to be writing our own recounts for our extended writes before Easter, so this book is helping us find out all of the language skills that we’ll need to use. In Maths, we are continuing to focus on decimals, this week looking more at hundredths and how we can use value counters (1’s, 0.1’s and 0.01’s) to create different numbers. We have been learning about Lent in our RE lessons and got back into the groove with our guitar lessons as well, learning some fun rock riffs.

12th March 2021

In an exciting yet tentative first week back to full time school, Year 4 have begun to find their feet once more, either getting used to double the class size or returning to school altogether! They have coped with the challenges very well and handled the situation with in a manner that they can be proud of. Our Literacy lessons have seen us reading ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ which tells the tale of a young evacuee during WWII and working on all the skills that we’ll need to eventually write up a non-chronological report. In Maths, we have started a new topic about decimals, particularly focusing on tenths and linking this with what we already know about fractions. In a very exciting addition to our class, we have now all met ‘Nero’ the Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy and he has been helping us along the way during our lessons and helping to ease the transition back into full time schooling.

18th December

We’ve had an exciting and different week in Y4 this week, finished off with a day of party games and fun on Thursday. English and Maths lessons took a backseat as we’ve concentrated on History every morning this week, catching up on the topic that was missed due to lockdown during the Summer term of Y3. We’ve managed to cover the Tudors in full, learning all about Henry VIII and his six wives and how and why he established the Church of England. We’ve studied Queen Elizabeth I and the superb job she did to establish trade links and exploration of the world and we’ve looked at what life would have been like for a variety of different people in Tudor England.

11th December

In year 4 this week, we have continued to study the book ‘Varmints’ in our Literacy lessons and have been considering and explaining the hidden meaning behind the story. We have looked at different types of verbs and adjectives that we may be able to use in our discussion text as well as practicing writing complex sentences using subordinating conjunctions. In our Maths lessons this week we have been multiplying by 100 and multiplying two digit numbers, both with and without renaming. We were learning a Christmas classic in our Music lesson, using guitar tablature to play ‘Silent Night’ and have completed our end of term assessments in a number of lessons this week, including Geography, Science and RE.

4th December

This week in year 4, we have started to look at our new book ‘Varmints’ in our Literacy lessons, which tells of a pastoral world in need of protection and of the souls who love it enough to ensure its regeneration. We will eventually be writing a discussion text, so we have been looking at the writing skills of for and against arguments and connectives. In our Maths lessons, we have started a new chapter of our Maths No Problem workbooks, were we are focusing on further multiplication and division, this week concentrating on dividing by 0 and 1 and multiplying three numbers. We have been in a festive mood in our Art lessons and have been designing and making our very own Christmas tree decorations. We have continued our study of mountains in Geography, been looking at coding in our Computing lessons and in PSHCEE we’ve focus on diversity and thinking about the people that we share our world with.

27th November

As we have previously mentioned, test week is always a tough one as it takes a lot of resilience, patience and a strong work ethic to be able to get to the end of it without giving up or getting frustrated. We do ask a lot of our pupils during this time and we are very keen to set them up for taking tests in the future in their stride, knowing what is expected of them and following a suitable code of conduct. With this in mind, Year 4 have handled this week with great aplomb and shown that they will be ready and relaxed about whatever they will face. Also this week, we have spoken a lot about kindness and how being unkind can affect others in a number of ways. We have made a kindness pledge as a class and promised to be more conscious of our actions and what we say and how being unkind never moves us forward, in fact it probably moves us all a step backwards and is inhibiting to everyone involved.

20th November

This week in year 4, we have been creating our extended write in our English lessons. This has involved us writing a set of instructions on ‘How to Make a Delicious Sandwich’. There have been some very interesting ideas put forward in some cases and I’m not sure the adjective ‘delicious’ would be suitable but there has certainly been no lack of quality with our responses from a writing point of view. We have included bossy verbs, selective adverbial language and sequenced imperative statements and used presentational features such as numbering and bullet points to create our instructions and even used a dictionary to write up a glossary at the end. Speaking of delicious, Classroom Kitchen was on the menu again this week and another healthy version of some classic cuisine was created as we took a trip to the Mediterranean to rustle up a lovely vegetable paella. In our Maths lessons, we have been looking at multi-stage word problems and in Science we have begun our new topic ‘Electricity’.

13th November

Year 4 have been remembering the sacrifices made by others this week to mark Armistice Day. We had a special assembly, led by the vicar over a zoom call on Wednesday and heard one particular story of a young soldier from WW1. In our Literacy lessons, we have continued to look at our book, ‘Until I met Dudley’ and have been taking an in depth look at how you would write a set of instructions. In our Maths lessons, we have started to study some different methods to divide, concentrating on dividing by 6, 7, 9 and 11. We have also been learning some key words linked to division like quotient, sharing and inverse. In our RE lessons, we have been discussing Jesus being the light of the world and in Spanish we have been learning the different names for parts of the body. Also, in PSHCEE, the topic that we are currently studying is ‘Same but Different’.

6th November

In what has been a very positive first week back after our half-term break, Year 4 have excelled themselves once again. We have started a few new topics this week in various different subjects, including starting a new book to focus on through our reading and literacy lessons. ‘Until I Met Dudley – How Everyday Things Really Work’ is a book that helps us in understanding how to write explanation texts as well as writing instructions. With this in mind, this week we have practised using imperative/bossy verbs in our writing and have looked at the various layout and style features of these kind of texts. We have also discussed the important of writing instructions in a logical order. In our Maths lessons, we have started a new chapter in our books about multiplication, and have focussed in on the 6, 7 , 9 and 11 times tables in particular. We have begun a new topic in our Geography lesson where this half-term we will be studying mountains and our Music lesson this week has seen us learning the chord progressions from Ed Sheeran’s ‘Perfect’.

23rd October

Year 4 have been very busy yet again this week with the completion of an assessed piece of extended writing amongst a variety of other activities. In our extended write, we have been writing a sequel to ‘FATHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith, writing our versions from the point of view of the grandchild in the book and answering the book’s final question, ‘what will he do, I wonder, if my father’s dream should visit him?’. We have made sure to write our sequels including some of the skills that we have been practising recently, using temporal adverbial openings to sentences and creating a title to our story using homophones. In our Maths lessons this week, we have been delving deep into subtraction and learning various methods to work our how to take away. We have also completed an assessment in our History lesson this week, rounding off our topic of the Victorians and the industrial revolution and the same can be said in Science and our topic, the classification of living things.

16th October

In Year 4 this week, we have been learning all about subtraction in our Maths lessons and trying to work with different methods in order to find the answer. We have finished reading our book in our Literacy lessons and have been summarising the key points of the story and started to plan to write a sequel to the book ready for our extended write next week, focussing on homophones and imperative verbs in particular. In our computing lessons, we have been learning all about online safety and in Science, we have taken a closer look at the food chain and how certain animals are classed as predators and others as prey as well as building our own food chains, looking at producers and consumers.

9th October

This week in year 4, we have started to study our brand new book, ‘FArTHER’ by Grahame Baker-Smith and have learned about using conjunctions to form multi-clause sentences and annotated pictures form the book to make predictions about what could happen in the story as we read through. In our Maths lessons, we have been adding and renaming numbers and using a couple of different methods to find the correct answer. In our Music lesson we got the opportunity to test our music reading skills by working out a tune and playing it on the guitar and in Science we have continued to classify plants and animals based on their characteristics. We have also spent some time mixing colours and understanding primary and secondary colours in our Art lessons and have learned some more about the Victorians in History.

2nd October

We have had a challenging week in year 4 this week, but it has given us a good opportunity to test our resilience and growth mindset. It has been exam week and we have spent all week completing various numeracy and literacy assessments to find out where we are up to after returning to school from our extended time away. On the whole, we have done very well and can be proud of our efforts and have quickly got to grips with exam technique and expectations. When we have not been completing our tests, we have been learning all about the story of David and Goliath in our RE lesson, continuing to look at the lives of the Victorians in History and have even had this half-terms ‘Classroom Kitchen’ session, where we made a healthy summer coleslaw.

25th September

Year 4 are really starting to get into their stride now as we are becoming more and more familiar with the new routines in school and the expectations that have been placed upon them. We’ve had another great week as a result. Our Literacy lessons have been focussed around creating our extended write this week, writing a newspaper report based on our book, ‘The Iron Man’. In Maths, we have been rounding numbers to the nearest 10, 100 and 1000 and making estimates. In our Music lesson, we have begun to use our new found knowledge of tablature to start learning how to play the melody to ‘Happy Birthday’ and in Science, we have focussed our attention on the classification of living things and being able to tell the difference between vertebrates and invertebrates in the animal kingdom.

18th September

In an exciting yet tentative first couple of weeks back to school, Year 4 have been remarkable! They have coped with the challenges very well and handled the situation with great maturity, so it has been very much business as usual, with a few tweaks to the routines and a few extra hand-washes along the way. Our Literacy lessons have seen us reading Ted Hughes’ ‘The Iron Man’ and working on all the skills that we’ll need to eventually write up a newspaper article about the happenings in the book. In Maths, we have done a lot of work on place value, looking specifically at number patterns and comparing and ordering numbers up to 10,000. We have also started to learn about the guitar in our Music lesson, understanding the anatomy of the guitar to start off with before moving onto learning how to produce a clean tone on the instrument and starting to understand how to read a special form of written music, called tablature. It really has been a great first few weeks back in school.

20th March 2020

In an extremely difficult week with what has been an unprecedented situation, year 4 have been exceptional! They have coped with the challenges very well, asked some important questions and handled the situation with great maturity. Regardless, we have been pretty much business as usual and in our Literacy lessons we have been preparing to write our non-chronological report about WWII, based on the book that we have just read, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’. In Maths, we have complete our work about graphs and started some work on fractions. We have looked at different types of mountains in our Geography lessons and been doing some orienteering in PE. In our Music lessons we have been using technology to have a go at sequencing and in RE we have been learning about the places Jesus visited during his ministry.

13th March 2020

In year 4, we have really tested our resilience and mindset as another challenging week has come to an end. This week, we have been completing our Spring term Maths and English tests. It has been tough but a really useful exercise to find out exactly where we are in each of these subjects at this point in the year. In our PE lesson, we have been using our teamwork skills to complete some orienteering tasks and in our Geography lesson we have started our new topic, mountains!

6th March 2020

In year 4 this week, we have continued our classroom kitchen course, making our very our vegetable paella, which tasted fantastic and was very healthy too! In our Maths lessons, we have started to look at graphs and bar charts and how we can record information on them. During our Literacy lessons, we have continued the study of the book, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ and have paid particular attention to parenthesis and main, relative and subordinate clauses, which will help us when writing our non-chronological reports about WWII next week. In Science, we have looked at the water cycle and taken our final Science assessment based on the states of matter. In PE, we have looked at team building and the Importance of communication.

28th February 2020

This week, we have celebrated Ash Wednesday in church, where we gained a greater understanding of why Christians choose to give something up for Lent. On Thursday, we also took part in the first week of our ‘Classroom Kitchen’ course that will run for a total of three weeks. This week we had a go at making some coleslaw. In our Literacy lessons, we have begun to study a new book, ‘The Lion and the Unicorn’ which is about the evacuation of a young boy during World War 2. Our focus over the next few weeks will be chronological reports and our final aim will be to write a report all about WW2. We have made a really positive start to the new half term and are excited about the challenges that are ahead.

14th February 2020

We have taken an interesting look into Anglo-Saxon religion this week in our History lesson, learning about the Pagan Gods that were worshipped and the conversion to Christianity. We have finished off our or dance sessions with Mr. Saunders in PE and have also been practising tactical attack and defence in our other PE lesson. In Science, we have experimented with the changing states of matter, using items such as chocolate and jelly to take a practical look into this. During our English lessons, we have created our poems in our extended write books and edited them, including some of the skills that we have been practising over the past couple of weeks, such as alliteration, similes, personification and using rhyming couplets. In Maths we have been focusing on multiplication and division using 3 digit numbers.

7th February 2020

We have been putting a real emphasis on some of the skills used in poetry this week in Y4, taking a detailed look at aspects such as rhyming couplets, alliteration, similes and personification. This should help us in our big poetry write next week! We have been reading the book, ‘1066 – I was There’ in our reading lessons. This has helped us practise skills such as inference, retrieval and explanation as well as linking in to our current History topic, the Anglo-Saxons. We have tried to write using Anglo-Saxon runes in our History lesson as well. On Thursday, four members of our class represented St. Paul’s at the interschool Science challenge held at Nicol Mere Primary School. Our team performed very well and they can be really proud of their efforts.

31st January 2020

After completing units of work in English and Maths last week, this week’s theme has centred around new topics. In Maths, we have begun to take a look at further multiplication and division and really creating a deep understanding of the fundamentals in these areas. In our Literacy lessons, we have begun to study poetry, using Neil Gaiman’s ‘Cinnamon’ as a supportive text. In our Science lessons we are continuing to look at states of matter and the changes that can occur within the three states and in History, we have looked at how England was divided up into separate kingdoms during Anglo-Saxon times.

24th January 2020

This week has been an exciting and busy week once again in Year 4. After last weeks visit to Quarry Bank Mill, we have been reflecting on the lives of young people growing up in the Victorian era and realised how far England has progressed in the last 100 years or so. We have also been spending more time looking at our new History topic, the Anglo-Saxons, where we have been creating a timeline of major event through 450AD to 1066. We have also been reading the book, ‘I was there…1066’, to support us during our reading lessons. In Literacy, we have just completed our study of ‘The Selfish Giant’ and produced an extended write using the format of a formal, persuasive letter to ask the giant to open his garden to the children. In Maths, we have also just completed our assessment on all of the work that we have covered recently on multiplication and division.

10th January 2020

We have had a great start back after our Christmas holiday in Year 4. We have started a new book in our Literacy lessons, looking at Oscar Wilde’s ‘The Selfish Giant’ where we are focusing on the skills needed to write a formal letter. We have also started a new History topic all about the Anglo-Saxons. In our Maths lessons, we have continued to learn more about division and been looking at the relationships between division and multiplication. We have settled back into school well and are looking forward to the term ahead!

13th December 2019

This week in Year 4, in a shorter week than usual with the polling day on Thursday, we have still managed to pack a lot in! We have had the story of the nativity by the Coverdale puppets on Tuesday as well as a group from Hawkley Hall High School performing a pantomime during the afternoon. We have also been visited by the ‘Open the Book’ group to talk about the meaning of Christmas on Wednesday. We have studied a new book, ‘Varmints’ during our Literacy lessons and have taken a thorough look at multiplication during our Maths lessons.

6th December 2019

This week in Year 4, we have completed our study of the book ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by writing our own instructions about how to make a delicious sandwich using some of the skills that we have been learning about over the past few weeks, including the use of bossy verbs, adverbs of time and writing in chronological order to name a few. In Maths, we have begun to take a deeper look at multiplication, focusing in particular on the 6, 7 and 9 times tables. In PE, we had a gymnastics competition in which had to demonstrate our abilities in balancing, jumping and rolling. We have also taken a look at Charles Dickens’ ‘A Christmas Carol’ and linked this to our studies about Victorian times.

29th November 2019

We have had a challenging week in Year 4 this week, but it has given us a good opportunity to test our resilience and growth mindset. It has been exam week and we have spent all week completing various Numeracy and Literacy tests. On the whole, we have done very well and can be proud of our efforts. When we have not been completing tests, we have been map reading and using a compass to find directions in our Geography lesson and have started a new song in Music.

22nd November 2019

We had a very exciting start to the week in Year 4 as we were visited by the ‘Mad Science Roadshow’ in our assembly on Monday, were we looked at sports based experiments. In our Literacy lessons, we have focused on skills including the use of bossy verbs, temporal adverbs, conjunctions and prepositions. In our Maths lessons we have completed our assessment for the last section of our work which was all about addition and subtraction within 10,000. We have studied Judaism and Hanukkah – the festival of light during our RE lesson and looked at the Victorian classroom during our Topic lesson. This week, Year 4 also earned an extra break time as we won the weekly attendance award during celebration assembly. Well done, Year 4!

15/11/19

In Year 4 this week, we have started to study our new book, ‘Until I Met Dudley’, focusing on how to write down a set of instructions using bossy (imperative) verbs. In our Maths lessons, we have been looking at word problems using addition and subtraction. As it has been anti-bullying week this week, we took part in odd socks day on Tuesday to raise awareness. On Wednesday, we made some slight changes to the game of Kingball that we played to pay attention to the anti-bullying week slogan, ‘Change Starts with Us’ and on Thursday we designed our own anti-bullying posters in our Art lesson.

8/11/19

In Year 4 this week, we have written a sequel to the book that we have been studying in our Literacy lessons, ‘FArTHER’, as an extended write. We have also self-assessed this piece and edited it to make it as good as possible. In Maths, we have been learning different ways in which we can subtract and discussing which methods we preferred and found the easiest to work with. We have also concluded our Science topic, ‘Electricity’ and are now ready to move onto our next topic which will be ‘Sound’.

1st November 2019

This week in Year 4, we have been using different strategies for subtraction in our numeracy lessons, trying to split numbers into number bonds to make our subtractions easier. In Literacy, we have continued to focus on the book ‘FArTHER’ and have started to plan and write our very own sequel to the book, which we will complete next week. We have started to learn a new song in our Music lessons also, the classic ‘What a Wonderful World’, by Louis Armstrong.

18th October 2019

In Year 4 this week, we have continued to study Graham Baker-Smith’s ‘FArTHER’ and we have used the pictures in the story to infer, as well as completing an extended writing piece based on a diary entry by one of the characters. In Maths, we have been working on column addition and using mental strategies to make some questions easier to answer. We have also been creating electrical circuits in Science to light a bulb and played a Kingball tournament in PE. On Wednesday, we celebrated Harvest at church, where we had the opportunity to make a charitable donation and perform the songs that we have been practising in Worship assemblies.

Friday 4th October 2019

We have had a very productive week this week in Year 4! We have completed our Maths work involving numbers to 10,000 and moved on to study addition and subtraction. We have also moved on our studies in English as well, as we have completed looking at The Iron Man at the beginning of the week, culminating in producing an extended write focusing on writing a story. We have had the opportunity to meet the new vicar in vicar’s assembly on Wednesday and in our RE lesson, we found out about who God chose to do certain jobs. We have been looking at complete electrical circuits in Science and focused on Victorian fashion during our Art lesson.

27th September 2019

This week in Year 4, we have completed our first big extended write in our Literacy lessons, based on the book that we have been studying, Ted Hughes’ ‘The Iron Man’. As part of this extended write, we have created an astronomer’s log book, charting the arrival of a gigantic space dragon coming to Earth! In our Maths lessons, our main focus this week has been on rounding numbers and estimates. We have been trying to beat our personal bests in PE in a number of activities and have looked at the dangers and hazards that electrical equipment in the home can cause. Another very busy, but thoroughly enjoyable week has been had by all!

20th September 2019

We have had a very positive start to the new term in Year 4, and plenty of good opportunities to test our resilience and mindset. We have continued our Maths work involving place value and 4-digit numbers and found the new ‘Maths No Problem’ workbooks to be very useful. We have been studying Ted Hughes ‘The Iron Man’ in our Literacy lesson and looked in particular beginning to explore the use of conditionals in our writing and how we can build suspense in a piece of text. We have also been looking at 4 figure grid references in Geography, the Victorians in our topic work and discovering about Thomas Edison’s invention of the lightbulb in Science. On top of all of that, we have had the opportunity to start learning our brass instruments and taking them home for the very first time!

5th July 2019

'In Maths, we moved on from Time to Angles and we now know how to make angles and where to find them. In English, we are currently doing poems that teach us a lesson. This week, we met our new teacher and went into our new classroom. We did some lessons that we will be doing in September. Our Topic is Victorians and it is our favourite. We are learning about Victorian inventions.' Klaudia, Year 3

28th June 2019

'This week we acted out our play of The Cautionary Story of Jim and we tried to rhyme using rhyming couplets. In Maths, we learned how to read roman numerals within our topic of Time. The Life Caravan visited school on Monday and we learned about the brain and healthy eating. We practised our song for Church and learned about Victorian schools in Topic.' Libby, Year 3

21st June 2019

This week Year 3 have started a new book in English called, 'Jim, A Cautionary Tale'. We have learned about syllables in poems and acted out part of the book in groups using musical instruments. We are continuing our topic of Time in Maths, looking at time in seconds, hours and minutes. It would be beneficial if you could discuss what time it is regular intervals at home during the weekend with your child. In Science, have been discussing how to keep our bodies healthy and what nutrients different foods contain. On Friday, an athlete was invited into school. The children had a fun time in the hall, completing a number of activities on a carousel.

14th June 2019

'On Monday, we had a Science assembly and everyone really enjoyed it.

On Tuesday, we did a Spanish test about numbers and months which was really fun.

On Wednesday, we played games with Mr Saunders. We played dog, cat and chicken.

On Thursday, we looked at the Eatwell Plate, designed meals and researched why exercise is good for our bodies.

On Friday, we continued looking at Time in Maths and wrote a persuasive letter for English.' Klaudia, Year 3

7th June 2019

'In English, we read a book called 'How to Live Forever'. In this book, there are four old men and we had to describe them in today's lesson. We had to use adjectives like 'sensible', 'brave' and 'kind'. There is a young boy in the book called Peter and we had to describe how we think Peter sees the old men. We had to use the words 'mean', 'cruel' and 'rude' and put them into sentences.

In Maths, we looked at 'Time'. We learned about am and pm. Am is when you wake up and pm is when your probably having your tea and going to bed. The long arrow on a clock counts the minutes and the short arrow counts the hours.

In P.E. we practised for Sports Day and had skipping races, running races and the egg and spoon race.' Nicole, Year 3.

17th May 2019

Year 3 have tried really hard this week with a hard topic in Maths. We've been looking at Equivalent Fractions and Simplifying Fractions...which we're definitely getting better at! In English, the class have looked at writing a mystery story using lots of descriptive language. We looked at reflective materials during our Science lesson on Light and Dark and learned about 'retro-reflective' materials.

10th May 2019

Year 3 have had a busy week this week learning about equivalent fractions in Maths. We've tried really hard using the multiplication method and picture splitting method so far! We have looked at the present perfect tense in English, relating this to our mystery book Harry Burdick. We looked at 'Shadows' in Science and continued learning about the Victorian era in Topic. We are continuing our class reader, Street Child learning all about Jim Jarvis.

5th April 2019

Year 3 have enjoyed the Easter festivities this week. We took part in the Easter Story at Church and visited a number of stations, each explaining the story of how Jesus died. We also made Tzatziki Dip and everyone enjoyed tasting this Greek dish with pitta bread. We wish all of Year 3 a restful Easter ready for a fun packed summer term!

29th March 2019

We have had a busy week in Year 3 this week. On Monday the Water Safety team came in school to teach us how to stay safe near water. We learned about the importance of being able to swim and the safest places to swim are. On Wednesday we had our water safety swimming lesson. We were taught what to do if we came into danger in water. In English we finished our Pandora's Box poems and in Maths we continued our work on fractions.

22nd March 2019

This week in our English lessons, we have been focusing on creative writing using Greek quest myths for inspiration. We have looked at the story of Jason and the Argonauts and the Quest for the Golden Fleece and used that as a bases for our own writing. We have also started to write a non-chronological report about mythical creatures that we have designed.

In our Maths lessons, we have been looking at fractions. We have been working out how to make whole numbers from given fractions and adding fractions together to work out some problems.

15th March 2019

This week in Year 3, our English lessons have been based around speech punctuation and extended writing. We have been focusing on Greek mythology and the adventures of Perseus to help us achieve our writing targets.

In Maths, we have been calculating the perimeters of rectangles and looking at column addition. We have also used our calculations to be able to accurately draw out rectangles of varying sizes.

8th March 2019

This week Year 3 have had a very busy week. On Monday we went to Liverpool Cathedral to take part in an Easter workshop. We took part in lots of activities that taught us all about Easter. On Wednesday we went to St Paul's Church and celebrated our Ash Wednesday service. We all had the chance to receive ashes on our forehead or hands.

1st March 2019

This week in Maths Year 3 have started the topic of measurement. We have been looking at the different tools we use to measure distance and the units we measure in.

In English the children are learning to describe a setting. We have looked at adding adverbial phrases to the sentences they produce.

In Science we have been learning about our joints. We have been moving around finding different joints on our bodies and it was a very exciting part of our Science topic this week.

15th February 2019

The children have moved on to using money this week in Maths. We have looked at converting pounds and pence, adding and subtracting and giving change. In English, Year 3 looked at adverbs and creating a poem for a Greek God using expanded noun phrases. The children tried really hard and created some fantastic verses using other skills such as similes in their poems. We are continuing to look at the human body in Science and naming bones this week. Have a lovely rest over half term!

8th February 2019

The class have looked at a number of Ancient Greek Gods this week in English and Topic. In particular, Poseidon and Zeus. They have written expanded noun phrases and used a text to answer comprehension questions. The children continued their work on division in Maths and have started a new topic on Money which they have grasped extremely well! Well done Year 3!

1st February 2019

Year 3 have tried really hard to write their own Magic Box poem this week based on Kit Wrights, 'The Magic Box'. They have used expanded noun phrases, senses, similes and some prepositions in their writing. They have also been looking at partitioning numbers in Maths when working out multiplication and division questions. We looked at Ancient Greek artefacts in Topic and found that Ancient Greeks painted Gods/Goddesses, the Olympic games and other important aspects of their life and on to pots and vases.

25th January 2019

Year 3 have continued with multiplication this week in Maths. It's been a little tricky at times but it's fine to be stuck and we're putting in lots of effort. We have started our new topic on Ancient Greece and looked at Myths, in particular Pandora's Box.

18th January 2019

Year 3 have been practicing their creative thinking and problem solving skills in English, using the story of the Snow Angels. They have been finding out about identifying strengths and finding ways to use their strengths well.

11th January 2019

Year 3 have had a good start back after the Christmas holidays. The children wrote about what they got for Christmas focusing on 'a' and 'an' for English this week. They have also looked at 'there', 'their' and 'they're' homophones. We have finished off our Volcano topic by writing our own information booklet on Volcanoes, Earthquakes and Tsunami's. The class enjoyed learning about Earthquakes and Tsunami's.

21st December 2018

Year 3 watched a Pantomime on Wednesday afternoon. The children enjoyed the part when they turned the rat into a mouse because 'it was really funny.' They also liked it when the big spider chased Sarah. The children visited Santa on Tuesday morning for Breakfast which was very exciting...they enjoyed the crumpets and chocolate Santa gift! Year 3 have completed lots of fun Christmas themed activities in class and looked at co-ordinates today which was tricky but fun!

14th December 2018

Year 3 have had fun this week watching the Coverdale Puppet show. They liked it when the donkey kept popping it's head over the wall. Year 3 also enjoyed meeting Monty the dog on Thursday. The children thought it was funny when Cookie jumped up at Santa. We have also been re-visiting inverted commas and a/an in English.

7th December 2018

Year 3 have tried very hard in their tests this week so a big well done to them! On Monday, the classroom kitchen came into our class and the children made mince pies. The children said they liked "putting the mixture into the pastry" and "kneading the butter and flour together". The class said they had a fun swimming lesson on Wednesday. They said their favourite parts were "diving into the pool to get the sinkers", "jumping in and doing a cannonball" and "doing handstands in the deep end."

30th November 2018

In Year 3 this week we have been doing lots of reading work and multiplying and dividing by 3. In RE we did our diamond nine where we ranked the characters in the Nativity story in order of importance. We also looked at pronouns in Grammar. We have compared two newspaper articles based on different volcanic eruptions and used a Venn Diagram to display our findings. In English, we have been revising adjectives, nouns, pronouns, adverbs and prepositions.

23rd November 2018

Year 3 are working very hard to improve their handwriting this week and are doing a great job! In English, the children have been looking at paragraphs, inverted commas and features of a diary. In Maths, they have been using inverse and rounding and looked at problem solving with equal groups (multiplication). We have continued our Volcano topic and looked at how volcanic eruptions effect the environment around them and people that live nearby. Also, well done to the Year 3's that represented St Paul's in the football tournament on Thursday. They had a great time and impressed Mr Riley and Coach Shaun with their fantastic attitude and teamwork.

16th November 2018

Year 3 have worked on adding suffixes to words this week in their English skills lessons. They have learnt all about the stages of a volcanic eruption in Topic and started to plan an eye witness account writing as if they are a survivor for Extended Write. The children have looked at magnetic materials in Science.

9th November 2018

This week Year 3 have been working on column subtraction in Mathematics. They have been solving problems using column subtraction to find the answer. In Literacy the children have been writing imaginatively and describing how a volcano erupts. In Science the children investigated magnets and found out which materials were magnetic. As a class we also thought about what is the most destructive part of an eruption and we are looking forward to finding out more about volcanoes!

2nd November 2018

Year 3 have had a fantastic first week back.

We have had a very exciting discussion about our new topic 'Volcanoes!' We can't wait to learn about out new topic.

St Paul's C E Primary School

Headteacher: Mrs A E Jackson. Deputy Headteacher Mr A Rigby.

Warrington Road, Goose Green, Wigan WN3 6SB

Tel: 01942 243068

Email: Stpaulswigan@LDST.org.uk

© 2024 St Paul's C E Primary School.
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