Welcome To Oak's Class Webpage

On our page we will be sharing our learning experiences and providing key information to parents.

Our Class Teacher is Mrs McLaughlin

Our Learning Support Assistant is Mrs Parker

Oak's Expectations

In Oak we are expected to complete the following challenges each week:

Reading - Read independently or with an adult 5 times during the week (Friday - Friday). 

                 Find ZPDs for books you read at home by clicking the image below.

Maths - Complete 10 minutes daily on TTRS (Garage Challenge) to develop our fluency and application of all the times tables. Weekly times table test (Friday). Click the image below.

Maths - Complete weekly tasks on Mathletics. This helps your child to consolidate the skills they have learnt in class. Click the image below.

Spellings - Practise and complete a spelling test (Friday) based on the Year 3/4 spelling list. 

Autumn 2024

The children have worked so hard all term and produced some amazing work across all subjects. Please read below for an indepth description of some of the work covered in both Maths, English and our exciting Autumn Term topic of 'Chocolate'.

Maths

Our first unit of work was Place Value where we consolidated the childrens understanding from Year 3 where they learnt how to represent numbers upto 1000. This 3 week unit taught the children how to estimate, round and partition numbers upto 10,000.

We also had lots of fun in the place value unit of work reading and decoding Roman numerals.

Our second unit of work after half term was learning the formal methods of column addition and subtraction. We then applied these skills to lots of problem solving and reasoning questions.

Our third unit of work was measurement and particularly learning how to find the area of rectilineal based shapes. Finally, we have reviewed multiplication and division by focusing on our existing times tables knowledge and learning the relationship between the two operations and completing inverse operations to solve multiplication and division calculations.

The children have also made great strides in their times tables knowledge with coverage of 3's,4's,6's and 7's.

English

The Wild Girl

The children spent the first half term looking at 'The Wild Girl' by Christopher Wormell. This excellent picture book is about a young girl living alone in the woods with her small brown dog. All is well until one cold winter's day a bear decides to visit their warm, safe cave.

Using this text as our theme we built towards the children creating their own wild story. They developed their own characters, animals and plots to produce their own excellent stories.

Talk for Reading

In Year 4 we looked at Voices In The Park by Anthony Browne as our text. This thought provoking book is about a visit to a park told through the voices of two very different adults and children. With themes of class, society, friendship and prejudice it proved to be a very challenging text which helped develop the childrens understanding of how to deeply read a text and use evidence to prove your thoughts.

Chocolate

What an incredible time we have had with our Autumn Term Topic of chocolate. From understanding the origins of chocolate with the Ancient Mayans to exploring Central America in Geography and making some truly disgusting science experiments in Science.

In Science we began the first half term exploring Solids, Liquids and Gases using chocolate as our theme throughout by exploring reversible and irreversible changes and then exploring the water cycle. After half term we have looked at Animals including humans to look at teeth, digestion and the part played by all animals in food chains. We of course had to eat lots of chocolate throughout purely for scientific reasons.

In History we explored the ancient Mayans that existed from 250 AD all the way upto 1697. Incredibly they survived due to their isolated location in Central America being hid from the rest of the world by Jungles. Thankfully the Mayans helped develop chocolate which we can be eternally grateful for. 

In Geography we looked at the birth place of the Mayan which is now South Eastern Mexico. We compared the land use with Colchester and how the land was essential for the survival of the Mayans. We also compared the Mayans with the Anglo Saxons and found some startling similarities and obvious differences.

Art was based around chocolate and the children learnt various shading and sketching methods to draft pictures of chocolate. They also developed their own idea for a chocolate bar and created a brand and wrapper for the bar.

The children all found the unit of work both fascinating and delicious.

Other foundation subjects covered:

Music:

In Music we began by looking at body and tuned percussion. We were inspired by the different layers of the rainforest and how the animals might be represented. After this we explored 'what is Samba?' and and how percussion could be used to build layers of offbeat percussive sounds to create our own Samba beat.

Religious Education:

Enquiry: Where do Christian religious beliefs come from?

Enquiry: What do we mean by truth?  Is seeing believing?

French:

In the autumn term the children met the French unit Je Peux…( I am Able) which explored how to use French verbs to explain what they were able to do in sentences.  E.g. phrases like I am able to play. We followed this with the unit called Les fruits (Fruits) where we explored some common fruits. 

Spring 2025

The spring term brings Year 4 new and exciting learning opportunities . Please read below for an in-depth description of some of the work that will be covered in both Maths, English and our exciting Spring Term topic of 'The Romans’.

Maths

In maths, the children have begun the term by increasing their understanding of multiplication and division by extending their knowledge of times tables in readiness for meeting different stategies to master the multiplication and division  2 and 3-digit numbers.

Following this we will progress onto our next unit length and perimeter, where the children will explore how to measure the perimeter of rectilinear shapes and polygons. 

We will conclude the spring term by focusing on fractions where we will begin to add and subtract proper and improper factions. Finally, by Easter we will have covered our first unit of decimals which furthers our understanding of tenths and hundredths. 

English

The day I met Aslan 

The children spent the first couple of weeks of the new term finishing off our fictional recount that tasked the children with meeting mythical creatures. We had already placed ourselves in the world of the mighty Aslan from the chronicles of Narnia just before Christmas. Upon our return we progressed onto two independent pieces of writing. First, we planned a meeting with either a griffin, minotaur or fire dragon and then we re- activated our learning of the Maya from our autumn term history to meet Pakal the Great. He was king of Palenque, or Lakamha (in modern Mexico).

This unit helped us to develop our understanding of how to use structure within a piece of writing and when to include information that would engage the reader.

The Tunnel

In our next unit the children will meet another fictional text by the author Anthony Browne – The Tunnel. In this unit we will be focusing on how to build setting and atmosphere. After this we continue to use the Tunnel as our inspiration but construct a recount – a diary entry in the first person from the viewpoint of the character called Rose.

Talk for Reading

In the spring term we are focusing on classic children’s book, Five Children and It by Edith Nesbit. Five Children and It is about five siblings who discover a sand fairy, or Psammead, that grants them wishes. The characters learn that their wishes have unintended consequences and that getting what they want might not be what they really need. This book originally published in 1902 is giving us the opportunity to look at themes such the importance of responsibility when using power, the difference between childish whims and genuine needs and the consequences of the choices we make.

This older text is helping us to extend our comprehension skills. To support the skill of how to unpick more complex ideas from within a text with rich and challenging vocabulary.

The Romans

The topic of the Romans gives us a great opportunity to focus on our locality of Colchester and its links to the Roman Empire. Camulodunum - The 'Fortress of the War God Camulos' - was the capital of Roman Britain and Britain's First City. Have you ever noticed that our school is located on Camulodunum Way!

Our Science, our will support our DT work which looks at the technology the Roman army used – the catapult. We will make careful observations and take accurate measurements to answer the question ‘How effective was the use of the catapult for the Roman army?’

In History, we will enquire about the impact of the Roman Empire on Britain. What happened when Julius Caesar attempted  to invade in 55-54 BC and what were the origins of the Roman Empire and how did the power of its army support its expansion?

In Geography, we will look at the birthplace of the Romans and the expansion of its empire and locate countries and capital cities on modern day maps.

Art will focus on Roman architecture and consolidate the children’s use of shading techniques to produce artwork showcasing The Colosseum in Rome.

Other foundation subjects covered:

Music:

In our first music unit we will focus on using untuned and tuned instruments to reproduce a piece of music inspired by the Hanami festival in Japan. We will extend our understanding of how music can be used to convey meaning. In our secondunit links to the Romans. Here we will explore Roman motifs. A motif is a short, repeated pattern of notes.

Religious Education:

Enquiry: How do religious groups contribute to society and culture?

Enquiry: Why is there so much diversity of belief within Christianity? Continues into Summer term.

French:

In this unit the children consolidate their learning of les legumes the Vegetables. 

Suggested Reading Books for Year 4