Welcome to our class web page where you can find out about our amazing learning journey. You will find

information about our activities, examples of our work and comments from us! Please visit often to see our learning journey develop.

Key Information:

4AH have outdoor PE on a Monday with Sporting Chance and indoor PE on a Wednesday. 

4AH's entrance and exit point is through the classroom door leading onto the playground. At the end of the day, children will be released from the coloured spots on the upper part of the playground. Year 4 teachers have their planning every other Wednesday while other teachers will be covering their classes.

Term 6

Knowledge Organiser: What effect does Palm Oil have on the World?

Learning Overview

We will be continuing our enquiry 'What effect does palm oil have on the world?' This term, we will be learning about climates and biomes, how they could change over time and the effect that this has on our rainforests. We will also be learning about living things and their habitats, classification and life cycles of different types of animals. Alongside our enquiry, we will be exploring Global Goal 15 ‘Life on Land’ which looks at protecting, restoring, and promoting sustainable use of the terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably managing forests and reversing land degradation and halting biodiversity loss. 

Times Table Camp Party!

4AH were vwet pleased with Dexter who won the Times Table termly championship. The reason was that by winning the class won a party!! Thank you Dexter!

Being an Artist - Art Week!

This week we have been artists and practising our drawing skills. We were lucky enough to be joined by Mr Taylor who taught us how to draw cartoons and he explained that most drawings, especially cartoons can be broken down into smaller, simple shapes. This helped us create our own cartoon people and then we followed some videos explaining how to draw cartoon animals and buildings. We also used nature to create art inspired by the artist Andy Goldsworthy! Finally, we had a visit from Mangotsfield secondary school who taught us new pottery skills as we made a sculpture of some coral using different techniques to create different textures.

No Pens Day!

Today, we worked on our oracy skills and completed all of our learning without using a pen to write with! In Jigsaw, we learnt about changes. Some changes we have control over whilst we have little or no control over other changes which happen in our lives. To develop our oracy skills further, we discussed a variety of questions such as 'What would you change about the school?' to 'Are tests good for assessing people's skills?'

We all had a lot to say today but we always thought about what we were about to say and used or talk tactics to support us.

Ambition

This week saw the conclusion of our current enquiry- 'What effect does palm oil have on the world?' In order to meet our ambition, we made palm oil free soap. This involved using a soap base, heating it and then carefully pouring it into moulds. Next we added colour and a scent. They need to be left for a few days so that they are hard enough to be removed from their honeycomb moulds. 

RE Day at St Stephen’s

Today we have been learning about superheroes in religion. We started off with a collective worship led by Regan who explained that Jesus is his super hero. Later on in the morning, we had a session led by Encounter Christianity entitled: ‘How can Jesus inspire us?’ During the session, we looked at Jesus' life as an inspirational figure and at people who were inspired by him.

In the afternoon, we went to the hall where we had a session about Jewish Heroes. The end of the day was rounded off with a session with Lisa where we got to hear about what everyone else had been leaning about throughout the day.

Careers Week

This week we will be thinking about the future and what careers we might like to do when we are old enough. We started off the week with a whole school assembly, we found out that Ms Wilson had had many different jobes including making boxes.

Later on, we had a session with Connie who runs her own bridal shop and is a seamstress by trade. We are really looking forward to finding out about all the amazing jobs we might do in the future.

Swimming!

This week, we have had swimming every day. Although some of us were a little nervous at the start, we all had a fantastic week. At the end of the week, we were assessed and then had some fun time!

Term 5

Knowledge Organiser: What effect does Palm Oil have on the world?

Learning Overview

Our new enquiry this term will be 'What effect does palm oil have on the world?' This term, we will be learning about climates and biomes, how they could change over time and the effect that this has on our rainforests. We will also be learning about living things and their habitats, classification and life cycles of different types of animals. As part of our enquiry, we will be visiting the Living Rainforest near Newbury and taking part in some workshops where we will be learning about amazing adaptations.  Alongside our enquiry, we will be exploring Global Goal 15 ‘Life on Land’ which looks at protecting, restoring, and promoting sustainable use of the terrestrial ecosystems, sustainably managing forests and reversing land degradation and halting biodiversity loss. 

Athletics in the sunshine

Today we were really lucky, not only to be in school on a Monday but to have the sports coach. In preparation for Sports Day, we were taken through our paces. We worked on our javelin throw, long jump and shot put.

The Living Rainforest

This week, we took a trip to The Living Rainforest in Newbury. There, we were given a tour in groups around the centre, learning about the different animals and the amazing ways in which they adapt to their habitats and ensure survival in the rainforest. We had opportunities to ask questions about the different animals - some of whom were free roaming - as well as some independent exploring of this amazing biome. 

Coronation Celebration

Throughout the school we have been celebrating the coronation of King Charles this upcoming weekend. We made bunting to decorate the hall, crowns fit for Kings and Queens and then we designed a portrait ready to hang in the National Gallery! The children were also able to have their lunch as a year group picnic style.

We all had lots of fun and it was a lovely way to end the week!

Mini biomes within our school

Today we continued with the start of our new enquiry ‘What effect does palm oil have on the world?’ by going out into the school grounds and looking at different ‘mini’ biomes. We visited the pond where we noticed that there were very few visible animals and insects. In contrast, we saw many different insects in the secret garden and under the trees on the corner of the school field. We thought about how these areas change through the seasons and what impact we have on these biomes.

Term 4 

In Term 4, we will be continuing with the enquiry, ‘Who were more powerful: the Athenians or the Spartans?'.  We are travelling back in time to Ancient Greece where we will be using our historian skills to explore this famous civilisation, considering their legacies, laws and democracies and how these have impacted us in present day.  As well as this, we will be using our artist skills to create an Greek sculpture. Finally, we will be using our writing skills to create our ambition which will be an orally presented debate answering our enquiry question.

Our class book this term is The Adventures of Odysseus by Hugh Lupton. We are setting sail with Odysseus as he fights to find his way back home after the brutal Trojan War. On his ten year journey, he endures harrowing ordeals, battles monsters and learns what it means to be a hero. We will be using this book to inspire our writing which will be using fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases with modifiers to add more detail to our writing and exploring using the perfect tense form. 

Wacky Fun!

Tody was a littlle strange! Everyone came to class looking a little wacky, we had shirts on back-to-front, odd socks and even odd shoes.  There was a rumour that Mr Hamlen was wearing a beehive wig but sadly there is not any photographic evidence!

Electrical Science Week!

For Science week we have been scientists and investigating electricity. We have looked at what uses mains electricity and battery power in the home, creating a simple electrical circuit and finally we conducted an investigation into what material would work best as an conductor in a circuit.

No pens day!

Every term, we put down our pens and learn through talking! We explored a new talk tactic of 'probe' which means to dig deeper, ask for evidence or justification of another person's answer. Alongside using this and other talk tactics of build, challenge, summarise and clarify, we discussed several discussion points as well as playing oracy games. 

After lunch, we went into the hall and used our oracy and teamwork skills to be Metacogs. Our challenge was to get from one side of the hall to the other without touching the ground. We could stand on or in the items we were given but nowhere else! We had to rely heavily on our communication skills as well as our teamwork skills.

World Book Day dens and fun

Today we celebrated World Book Day by wearing our PJs, onesies or snuddies. Why you may well ask, because the theme was bedtime stories. We had great fun creating stories from ideas suggested by 7 other members of the class, shared our books which we had brought in with 6SP and made some reading dens to snuggle into and enjoy a story or two.

Hockey skills

This term Year 4 are learning hockey and developing their skills. We are really lucky to have Sporting Chance taking us through our paces. 

Minotaur mayhem!

Today we started off our new writing sequence by immersing ourselves in the Greek myth ‘Theseus and the Minotaur’. We will be using this myth to support our writing over the next few weeks. Our writing will be incorporating inverted commas and complex sentences alongside all the other targets we have learnt so far this year.

To enable us to fully imagine how Theseus felt treading carefully through the dark, dank chambers of the labyrinth, we created our own (using a little imagination) out of cardboard boxes and the play pod equipment. There was even a minotaur roaming the corridors of the labyrinth in the guise of Mr Hamlen!!

Term 3

Knowledge Organiser

Learning Overview

In Term 3, we are starting our new enquiry, ‘Who were more powerful: the Athenians or the Spartans?'.  We are travelling back in time to Ancient Greece where we will be using our historian skills to explore this famous civilisation, considering their legacies, laws and democracies and how these have impacted us in present day.  As well as this, we will be using our artist skills to create an Greek sculpture. Finally, we will be using our writing skills to create our ambition which will be an orally presented debate answering our enquiry question.

Our class book this term is The Adventures of Odysseus by Hugh Lupton. We are setting sail with Odysseus as he fights to find his way back home after the brutal Trojan War. On his ten year journey, he endures harrowing ordeals, battles monsters and learns what it means to be a hero. We will be using this book to inspire our writing which will be using fronted adverbials and expanded noun phrases with modifiers to add more detail to our writing and exploring using the perfect tense form. 

Play Pod fun

This afternoon we were able to explore the contents of the Play Pod. We created dens, devised games and generally had lots of fun. We had a brief recap of the scrap rules and then we were off!

Being an Orator: No Pens Day!

Today we had another 'No Pens' Day. This meant that all of our learning was oracy based and we could not write anything down at all. The children explored our new talk tactic of instigating new ideas into their discussions, as well as building upon the tactics they already know. We followed our steps to success for listening and discussing and had lots of interesting points to bring up in debates.

Invasion Games

This term we are learning various skills involved with playing games such as netball and football. The skills we looked at today were passing a netball ensuring we maintain control of it. We then went on to develop our original game adding rules and trying to make the game a little harder!

Engage!

Today we started our new enquiry-Who were more powerful: The Athenians or The Spartans? Sadly, a crime had been committed in the classroom. A trial was held to ascertain who the guilty person was. There was a role for each member of the class from Defence Lawyers to Clerk, from Court Ushers to the Jury and of course a Judge.

Each side, presented their case and cross examined a range of witnesses. I think we may well have a few budding Rumple of the Baileys in our midst! Following cross examination, The Jury retired and digested the evidence. In 4AH we could not come to a unanimous decision so a majority verdict was called with a guilty decision given.

Pop-up challenge!

To conclude our enquiry- What is the journey of a raindrop? We completed our challenge. This was to create a pop-up book based on the water cycle. We have recently written some amazing explanation texts on the water cycle so we all had the necessary information at our fingertips to write a fantastic book using or engineering skills for a younger child.   

Better late than never!

Due to the unexpected early closing of the school at the end of last term, we were not able to do our fun biscuit decorating. Today, we became a little Christmassy again! We decorated three biscuits each, some looked like Rudolph, some were very fancy and some were unique!

Term 2

In Term 2, we are continuing to delve deeper with our enquiry, ‘What is the journey of a raindrop?'.  This will involve learning about the water cycle and the three states of matter: liquids, gases and solids. 

At the end of the enquiry the children will design and make their own pop-up book that will explain the water cycle. This will be completed individually and we are hoping to share our work with children at the infants school.

In addition to our Water Enquiry, we will continue reading 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane' within our English lessons. This is a tale about a toy rabbit who goes on adventure with his owner, but soon becomes lost and he encounters a range of different changes and characters throughout the story.

Being an Artist!

This week we have enjoyed being artists and learning about the Japanese printer Hokusai and his famous print of 'The Great Wave'. We have tried printing with a variety of techniques such as cardboard and string and also carving polystyrene. We then printed using special ink into our sketchbooks to try our new skill. We thoroughly enjoyed making our new prints and using our new skills. I'm sure we will see some future artists in the Bristol Museum and Art Gallery soon!

Intra-house competition

Today, Dean and Alex from CSET ran our first intra-house competition of the year! I This involved dribbling a football up and down the hall around numerous cones. Some were quick, some were steady but all cheered each other on.

Christmas Jumper Day!

Have a look at some of our amazing Christmas Jumpers! 

No Pens Day!

Today, we worked on our oracy skills all day and did all of our learning without using a pen! In reading we looked at a text about Muhammad Ali and used our oracy skills to unpick the text and answer questions. We finished off the morning by learning and reciting the poem Please Mrs Buttler by Allan Ahlberg.

PE with Sporting Chance

This term we are very lucky to have Sporting Chance to help us develop our football skills. In the first week we looked at passing and this week we worked hard perfecting those skills by passing the ball whilst maintaining possession.

Term 1

Our first enquiry ‘What is the journey of a raindrop?' will involve learning about the water cycle and the three states of matter: liquids, gases and solids. To help us answer this question we are going to be developing our knowledge and skills as scientists and geographers both in class and during practical fieldwork on our trip to Vassals Park. 

At the end of the enquiry the children will design and make their own pop-up book that will explain the water cycle. This will be completed individually and we are hoping to share our work with children at the infants school.

In addition to our Water Enquiry, we will be reading 'The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane' within our English lessons. This is a tale about a toy rabbit who goes on adventure with his owner, but soon becomes lost and he encounters a range of different changes and characters throughout the story. We will be immersing ourselves into this story and throughout the term we will be writing character descriptions and diary entries from different characters’ perspectives.

This term, when we are being mathematicians, we will be building on our prior understanding of place value to order and compare numbers up to 10,000 as well as revisiting our understanding of the operations addition and subtraction.

Year 4 trip to Vassells Park

This week we put our walking boots on and walked to Vassells Park. Although it was a long walk, it was well worth the effort as we were able to do a range of activities linked to our enquiry ‘What is the journey of a raindrop?’ Part of our learning means we need to visit a river and carry out observations of the surrounding area. We looked at the River Froome and a couple of tributaries feeding into the river.

We also went on a senses nature walk as well as playing nature bingo. One of the other activities was to sketch different, natural phenomena in the park. A visit to Vassells Park wouldn’t be a full visit without a session in the playground area!

We were very pleased to see school on our return- well done Year 4!

Being a Geographer

As part of the exploration phase for our enquiry 'What is the journey of a raindrop?', we have worked as a year group to create our very own river. We searched for materials that might be found at the bottom of a river which the water flow might pick up. Some of us acted as the source, pouring the water down our river which had meanders and tributaries

Being an Athlete

This week, we have put our agility, balance and coordination to the test in some athletics challenges. We have run, jumped and thrown our hearts out and we are now looking forward to getting our results back and using these to be Metacogs and evaluate and improve our skills. 

Being a Metacog:

We know that an important part of learning is being able to work with others towards a shared goal. We were set a challenge to make the tallest free-standing tower out of spaghetti! This task helped us to realise the importance of communicating, sharing ideas, helping one another and most importantly, not giving up when something is difficult! 

St Stephen's Church visit

Article 14 You have the right to think what you like and be whatever religion you want to be.

Today we visited St Stephen’s Church to further deepen our understanding of what a Christian place of worship is and the various different key features it holds. Lisa made us feel so welcome and answered many of our questions. We will take this new learning back to school and use it when we continue with our RE question of the term- ‘What is a place of worship?’

Please look at our RE E-book above to find out more.

Engage!

Today we started off our new enquiry with our engage. We initially looked at the question- ‘What is the journey of a raindrop?’ and unpicked what it meant and what the words journey and raindrop really mean.

We were then scientists and looked at how a raindrop forms and what causes it to change shape. A pipette was used to simulate smaller raindrops coming together to form larger raindrops. We noticed the surface tension of the water made a convex curve.

It was a thoroughly scientific afternoon!

Being an Orator: 

This week, we have been developing our oracy skills and building on our previous knowledge. We thought about what to summarise means and how this fits with our trio discussions. Following on from that, we looked at how we can challenge someone who has a different opinion to our own without falling out over it.