Welcome to Year 4
Our Class Teachers are Miss Capper and Mrs Schumacher
ROMAN BRITAIN
This term is packed with exciting topics across the curriculum that will inspire curiosity, creativity, and critical thinking.
Key Questions
- Was the Roman army really as powerful as History suggests?
- Why did the Roman’s want to invade Britain when they were already so successful?
- Did the Celts try to resist the Roman invasion?
- Did the Romans have an impact on Britain during the Roman era and in today’s modern world?
- What was life like in the North West during Roman times?
HISTORY
The Roman Empire and Its Impact on Britain
This half term, Year 4 will be embarking on an exciting historical journey to explore The Roman Empire and its influence on Britain. Through engaging lessons, children will develop a strong understanding of how the Romans shaped the history, culture, and landscape of our country. Studying the Romans helps children build a strong sense of historical context and national heritage. They will make connections between the ancient past and the world they live in today and deepen their understanding of how Britain has been shaped over thousands of years.
Children will explore key aspects of Roman history, including:
- Life in early Rome and the rise of the Roman Empire
- Important Roman leaders, including Julius Caesar and Emperor Claudius
- The power and organisation of the Roman army
- Julius Caesar’s failed invasion attempts in 55–54 BC
- The successful invasion under Claudius in AD 43
- Celtic resistance, with a focus on Queen Boudicca’s revolt
- A comparison of Roman and Celtic settlements
- How the Romans defended their land and expanded their territory
- The development of towns like Chester and Caerwent, and the spread of Roman technology, culture, beliefs, and early Christianity
- The lasting legacy of the Romans in Britain, including roads, language, architecture, and law
As young historians, Year 4 will also build a wide range of historical skills:
- Evidence & Interpretation: Using multiple sources to understand the past more accurately
- Chronology: Placing events and figures on a timeline, using BCE and CE
- Historical Significance: Discussing the importance of key people and events
- Cause & Consequence: Understanding why events happened and their impact
- Similarity & Difference: Exploring different accounts of historical events
- Change & Continuity: Recognising how things changed or stayed the same over time
- Organisation & Communication: Presenting historical understanding using relevant details and time-specific vocabulary
Science
This term, Year 4 will be learning all about the human body and how it functions, with a focus on the digestive system, teeth, and food chains. This unit, called Animals Including Humans, helps children understand how living things survive, grow, and interact with their environment.
Year 4 will also understand how our bodies work and how living things interact in ecosystems builds strong foundations in biology and scientific thinking.
This unit encourages curiosity, supports healthy habits, and develops confident scientific communicators.
Children will explore and understand:
- The basic parts of the digestive system in humans and their simple functions (e.g. stomach, intestines, mouth)
- The different types of human teeth (incisors, canines, molars) and what each type does
- How to construct and interpret food chains, identifying producers, predators, and prey
As scientists, pupils will build a wide range of enquiry and investigation skills, including:
- Asking questions and deciding how to investigate them
- Setting up comparative tests independently
- Observing carefully and identifying patterns and relationships
- Using evidence to draw simple conclusions
- Communicating findings using scientific vocabulary
PATHWAYS TO WRITE 
This half term, Year 4 will be exploring the beautifully illustrated and thought-provoking book Gorilla by Anthony Browne. This story follows a lonely girl named Hannah who longs for attention from her busy father. On the night before her birthday, a magical encounter with a gorilla helps her experience the adventure, connection, and joy she's been missing. The book explores themes of loneliness, imagination, and emotional connection and making it a perfect text for discussion and creative writing.
Using Gorilla as inspiration, children will develop a variety of writing pieces across both fiction and non-fiction genres, including:
- A non-fiction fact file
- A diary entry from the character’s perspective
- A third-person narrative
- A fantasy story
Throughout this unit, children will also be learning and applying key grammar and composition skills, including:
- Using expanded noun phrases with adjectives, nouns, and prepositional phrases
- Choosing appropriate nouns and pronouns for clarity and cohesion
- Using fronted adverbials with commas
- Organising writing into clear paragraphs around a theme
- Re-capping the use of inverted commas for direct speech
Children will also focus on handwriting, aiming for joined, legible, and consistently sized writing across all work.
Reading
Children will continue to develop their reading through reading sessions. These lessons will be structured around the VIPERS reading domains:
- Vocabulary
- Inference
- Prediction
- Explanation
- Retrieval
- Summarising
They will also work on reading fluency and focus on improving pace, expression, and confidence when reading aloud.
Children should also continue to update their BOOM Reader log with their personal reading.
The class book for this half term is 'Call me Lion' by Camilla Chester.
Children’s Rights and Global Goals
This half term and including next half term, Year 4 will be learning about key global and personal responsibilities.
Children will explore:
- SDG 11: Sustainable Cities and Communities and explore the key question: What makes a city or community safe, inclusive, and sustainable?
- Article 17: Access to Reliable Information (UN Convention on the Rights of the Child)
Our learning about children’s rights will be woven throughout the curriculum this half term.
In our Geography unit on settlements, children are learning how and why communities are built, what makes a location suitable, and how people interact with their environment.
In Science, our work on the digestive system will help us understand our right to be healthy and the importance of nutritious food, clean water and looking after our bodies.
In History, as we learn about the Romans, we will compare their lives with our own and consider how access to food, clean water, sanitation, healthcare and education has changed over time. We will explore whether everyone in Roman society had the same opportunities and how this compares with our rights today.
These links will help the children understand that rights are not just something we learn about, but something that connects to our everyday lives and the world around us.
PSHE
This half term in PSHE, we will be focusing on healthy lifestyles, wellbeing and positive mind-sets.
The children will learn about the importance of eating a balanced and varied diet, including the role different food groups play in keeping our bodies healthy. We will also explore the importance of hydration and physical activity, and how these can help us maintain energy and keep our bodies strong.
We will also focus on mental and emotional wellbeing. The children will learn to recognise some simple signs that they or others may be struggling, understand why it is important to ask for help, and explore the difference between a fixed and growth mind-set.
Finally, we will consider how kindness and helping others can have a positive impact on our own feelings and wellbeing.
Please check your child’s Curriculum Map for further details. Don’t forget to follow their learning journey on Seesaw, where you’ll find updates, homework, and announcements.
Thank you for your support,
Miss Capper and Mrs Schumacher