Welcome to Year 4!

2026-27

In Year 4, our teachers are Miss King (Class 4), Miss Cryer and Mrs Taylor (Class 5) and Miss Davies (Class 6). We are also supported by our dedicated Learning Support Assistants (LSAs): Mrs Bridgeman, Mrs Howlett and Mrs Parkin.

If you have any questions, please get in touch with your child's teacher. If they are not around at pick-up, you can speak to them by phoning the school office and requesting an appointment.

Keep referring back to this page for regular updates about the children's learning. 

Curriculum Newsletters

Year 4 Autumn 1 Curriculum Newsletter

Update - Friday 23rd October 2026

In our EIGHTH and final week of this half term, the hard work has not stopped. In English, the children have been contributing to collaborative fact files all about Jamaica. In honour of Black History Month and to consolidate our geography work, we chose to produce informative writing about the island's geography. As luck would have it, Miss Banton was on hand to inspire us with her first-hand experience. The children adored listening to her and were able to retain lots of new facts to include in their writing. They loved the sound of the colourful houses in Jamaica and lots of us decided it would be a vibrant and exciting place to visit. 

In maths, we decided to take a break from addition and subtraction and do some work on area. The children have been recapping what area is and using squares to measure the area of different shapes. As a fun end to the half term, we had a go at making our own self-portraits out of squares. The Minecraft fans amongst us thought this was the best thing EVER! We also began our new art topic, which involved lots of colour mixing and even designing and naming our own shades of paint. 

As the final week draws to a close, we want to emphasise how proud we are of the effort the children have put in to these first few weeks of Year 4. It has been a long half-term but they have shown total commitment to their learning. We hope you all have a well-deserved rest and enjoy the autumn break with your friends and family. 

Update - Friday 16th October 2026

This week the highlight has definitely been cooking our healthy snacks in DT and meeting the author of 'The Boy Who Grew Dragons', Andy Shepherd. 

All the teachers were so impressed with the children's independence as they worked in groups to prepare one of 5 different healthy snacks. At the end, we tasted each snack so we could start thinking about how we would like to innovate the recipes after half term. 

   Thursday was the day we met Andy Shepherd via an online webinar. It has been so lovely to hear so many parents telling us how their children have come home full of inspiration after Andy's talk. She was brilliant to listen to and gave us lots of ideas about where stories come from, including how she has taken inspiration from trees to write her latest series of books: 'The Wood Where Magic Grows.' Cue Class 5 going outside to see if we could see any faces in the trees down in forest school! 

      

Many of Andy's books are available on Sora, which all children at Oakridge can access for free using the QR code on the front of their reading diary. If you have any difficulty, let your child's class teacher know and they will be happy to help or provide their QR code if they don't seem to have one!

We leave you this week with our favourite quote from Andy Shepherd:

"Practise using your imagination. The more you use it, the stronger it will get!"

    

Update – Friday 9th October 2026

This week we embraced the challenge of learning the column method to add numbers with up to 4 digits in maths. Why not ask us how many tens are in 100 and how many hundreds are in 1000? In English, we have been writing our final pieces, which have been really impressive. Many of the children have applied the new Year 4 skill of using paragraphs to structure a story. In geography, we have been planning a journey across America, thinking about what we would need based on what we know about the human and physical geography of the different places. In computing, we have been learning about variables and how to programme our own game on Scratch. Next week, we look forward to tasting some of the healthy snacks we will learn to make and package after half term. We ask that our parents and carers look out for a letter this week explaining what we need from you after half term to support with this part of our DT topic. 

Update – Friday 2nd October 2026

We have had a very exciting week in Year 4. Highlights include experimenting with toothpaste to better understand how it protects our teeth. First, we covered eggs with different types of toothpaste, then submerged them in vinegar. The next day, we considered what our observations can reveal about the way toothpaste works to defend our teeth. Then in DT, we practised making prototype packaging for Miss Cryer's new healthy snack product: The Banana Booster muffin! We really enjoyed exploring how a lot of packaging is made from a net that is folded, secured and reinforced. A big thank you to MacDonalds in Chineham for giving us so much packaging to play with! In English, we began planning our own fables. We have been very impressed by the children's imaginative ideas. In maths, we began our new unit: addition and subtraction, starting with adding ones, tens, and hundreds to four-digit numbers. Geography has also been very interesting this week as we have been comparing places across the world that appear very similar but have major differences too. We all feel very inspired to visit the Lake District, Sierra Nevada and  the Alps to see for ourselves! 

Update – Friday 25th September 2026

This week we have been blown away by the children's apprentice pieces in English. They have applied all the skills we have learnt so far with real care and attention and we are feeling very proud and excited for what the rest of the year will bring. In maths, we have started learning to round numbers to the nearest ten. The children have been using number lines to identify which multiple of ten the number is nearest to. Next week we hope they will be able to transfer this skill to rounding to the nearest 100 and the nearest 1000. In science, we have been learning about how to look after our teeth and creating posters to remind us to prioritise brushing twice a day. In PSHE, we discussed consequences and how these can be good or bad depending on our actions. It led to important conversations about empathy, and how multiple people can be affected by the consequences of our actions and it is important to consider this before we make a choice about how to act. 

Update - Friday 18th September 2026

This week, Year 4 have really impressed us with their writing, as we have started writing more extended paragraphs as we practise writing our own fable. 

In maths, we have been learning to partition flexibly and estimate on a number line. We have found these skills quite challenging but as always, we have been really proud of the children’s resilience. 

In our afternoon curriculum, we looked at children’s rights in PSHE. In particular, we focused on our right to learn and we explored what it is like to learn in this school and in our individual classes. In science, we had fun using mirrors to look inside our mouths at our teeth. We learnt about our 4 different types of teeth and their primary functions. Why don't you ask us if we can remember the jobs of our molars, premolars, incisors and canines. 

Excitingly, we also started practising our Diwali dancing on Tuesday this week, ready for the Light it Up festival in October. Check it out here: https://kalathearts.co.uk/whats-on/diwali-light-it-up/ 

Update - Friday 11th September 2026

This week, our hard work has not stopped! In English, we have been thinking about how to set the scene for our fables. This has included using a zone of relevance to find the most precise vocabulary to describe the setting for our reader and we have also started to practise putting this into sentences. 

We have been SO impressed with the children’s maths too. They are doing so well with our place value unit and many of them are accessing the reasoning tasks which are designed to really challenge their thinking and get them to prove, justify and explain using everything they have learnt about place value so far. 

In geography, we have continued to practise locating the countries in North America and South America, and we have now started to think about the climate zone some of these countries are in: polar, temperate, Mediterranean, tropical or desert. 

In PSHE, we have been making posters about our responsibilities at school and why they are important, and in DT we have been learning how methods of food preservation have evolved over time, in preparation for designing packaging for our very own healthy snack.

Update – Friday 4th September 2026

We are so proud of how well the children are settling into Year 4. Our first week whizzed by very quickly and we have made a strong start with our learning across the curriculum: 

In maths this week, we have been revising place value and representing and partitioning numbers to 1000. We have also been looking at number lines and learning how to accurately calculate the value of each interval on a range of different scales. This is always a tricky skill and a great one to practise at home by learning how to weigh and measure ingredients using measuring jugs or weighing scales. 

In English, we have been reading fables and have begun orally retelling them, taking inspiration from Taffy Thomas the storyteller. I wonder if any of the children have come home and told their grown-ups the story of the sunflower seeds? 

Our afternoon curriculum has got off to a positive start too. The children have shown real maturity in PSHE as we have thought about how to make sure everyone feels valued and included in the classroom. In science, we have started looking at food chains and understanding how they show energy transfer, and in geography, we have started our new topic on North and South America by using an atlas to locate countries on each continent.