Year 4

The following are taught during the English lessons in Year 4:

• Reading Skills - The children will be looking at both fiction and non-fiction texts. We will read each text in class and discuss in detail so the children fully understand. Comprehension questions will follow where the children will be required to answer a set of literal and inferential questions ensuring they provide evidence from the text
• Writing Skills - Writing activities will be based on the reading comprehension covered previously. Our aim this year is to up level the children’s writing by using VCOP (Vocabulary, Connectives, Opener, Punctuation), thesauruses, ‘Edingly’ openers and adding description of characters and setting to their writing. 
• Grammar - Children extend the range of their sentences by adding more than one clause and using a wider range of conjunctions. We focus on the correct use of punctuation, including commas and apostrophes to indicate possession as well as the correct use of the past and present tenses and fronted adverbials.
• Spellings - Spelling words will be given each week and tested the following week
• Shared reading - This is an opportunity for the class to read together. The children take it in turns to read aloud and are read to.  Time is also taken to discuss the text in depth to reinforce understanding. 
• Library – The children visit our extensive library every two weeks and choose from a selection of thousands of books. They are encouraged to choose a Greek book alongside their English books which can be either fiction or non-fiction.

In Year 4, we use The White Rose Maths Scheme as well as the Big Maths approach when teaching Maths.

In order to support with the teaching and learning of Maths a variety of resources will be used. These include WhiteRose workbooks, support and extension materials, games and white boards. In addition, mental arithmetic and problem-solving is also taught. 

In Year 4, the children are taught their 6, 7, 9, 11, and 12 times tables. It is advised that they revise these regularly and also relate them to the division facts.

During Year 4 we will be studying the following units in Topic (Science, History, Geography and Religious Education)

• Archaeology   
• Saving the World – Rainforests -Brazil
• Knights and Castles    
• Brazil 
• Animals Including Humans    
• Sound 
• Electricity       
• States of Matter 
• Living Things and Their Habitats 
• Clean Water, Dirty Water (Rivers)
• Buddhism

In these subjects, children will be focusing on learning through undertaking their own enquiries and how to research for their projects independently. Three school trips will also take place throughout the school year which will be linked to our Topic units. 

In Year 4 Greek is taught by specialist teachers.

The main purpose of teaching the Greek language lesson is for children to acquire the language skills required, so that they can communicate in all aspects of the language, written or oral speech on the basis of the communicative approach of language in order to accomplish the follow one:

• the awareness and familiarisation of students with the language and its structure 
• the use of the language with the ultimate goal of effective communication (written and oral) based on a communication context 
• the reading and writing comprehension (coding and decoding texts) 
• the writing (production of written speech with / on authentic topics and in a variety of textual genres to familiarize children with authentic written communication situations) 
• the emergence, processing, comprehension, and use of grammatical elements through text processing 

During the Art lessons, we teach the children a variety of skills and different media is used such as paint, oil pastels, chalk, coloured pencils. The children are taught about famous artists and where possible, cross curricular links are made with the Topic units.

With the use of laptops, the children are taught to research our topic areas using child friendly search engines and Google Earth. Children will develop their Word processing skills, including touch typing and formatting, as well as how to make power points presentations.

Children will continue to build on their coding skills developed in Year 3 and Key Stage 1.

In addition, a crucial part of the ICT curriculum is ensuring children know how to stay safe online.

Physical, Social and Health Education (PSHE) is now a statutory part of the curriculum which helps the children understand their social, moral, spiritual and cultural development as a facilitator to their cognitive development.

The Junior School PE curriculum is based on the British National Curriculum as well as Greek public-school guidelines.  Students in Year 4 have two PE lessons per week, one of which is taught in Greek. 

Our high-quality PE education curriculum inspires all pupils to experience, enjoy and excel in a wide range of physical activities and competitive sports.  We aim to provide opportunities for our students to become physically confident in a way which supports their health and fitness. 

KS2 students learn and practice new skills across a range of activities that include games and athletics.  All students have the opportunity to take part in afternoon activities as well as tournaments and competitions.

In addition, children are appointed a house team and interhouse matches take place in a range of sports across the year.

Key Stage 2 music is taught twice weekly (one lesson is in Greek) in the KS2 Music Room or in the classroom. Students sing and play folk songs from the UK and Cyprus, as well as songs from countries around the world.  Students deepen their understanding of the elements that make up music through the exploration and creation of sounds and pieces of their own. They also learn how to read and write music notation, to use music vocabulary and symbols, and to work together with their classmates. 

Cross-curricular connections are made frequently with history, science, PSHE, literature and other topics studied in class.

In Years 3 through 6, students participate in:

• Singing a wide variety of folk, classical, and modern songs with expressiveness and good technique
• Performing in instrumental ensembles like drum circle, Orff mallet instrument orchestra, boomwhacker group, body percussion group and class rock band
• Focused listening, appraisal and movement to music
• Improvisation and Composition
• Music Technology such as GarageBand and other DAWs
• Reading and Writing music notation