Teaching Team

Year Four Overview – 2025

Dear Parents and Carers,

Welcome to Year Four!

Below is an outline of the key learning areas and programs that will support and challenge students throughout the year.

Literacy

Reading

This year in Reading, we will be focusing on developing key comprehension skills, including predicting, inferring, using schema, creating imagery, summarising, skimming and scanning, and understanding author motives and key messages. We will begin the year with our guided conferencing groups, where students will read levelled texts and practice fluency, expression, and comprehension strategies. As the year progresses, we will introduce The Reciprocal Reading Program, which encourages students to take on specific roles each week and come prepared to discuss their book with their group. This shift will help deepen their understanding and foster meaningful discussions about texts. Additionally, we will have two dedicated word study lessons each week, focusing on essential grammar and phonics skills to strengthen overall reading and writing abilities. We look forward to a great year of reading growth and engagement!

Writing 

This year, students will participate in the Writing Workshop, where they will engage in weekly conferences to receive and provide meaningful feedback, share their writing, and further develop their craft with both their teacher and peers. Throughout the year, they will focus on key writing skills including sentence fluency, using a range of descriptive language, exploring different genres, adding voice to their pieces, and refining their work through editing, revising and various forms of publishing. Word study will be embedded within our writing lessons as we revisit letter-sound relationships, high-frequency words and letter blends. Additionally, we will emphasise the appropriate use of punctuation, particularly when incorporating dialogue into writing. We look forward to seeing our students grow as confident and expressive writers throughout the year!

Speaking and Listening 

Year Four students will have regular opportunities in all areas of the curriculum to share their learning and listen to others. Students will be encouraged to collaborate in a team learning environment to develop social skills and understand the various language contexts of English. This will allow students to understand specific and appropriate vocabulary for learning areas and develop their content knowledge. Our OLA unit will give students a chance to share their research with their peers and work together.

Year 4 students will demonstrate their ability to apply their respectful interaction skills with their peers, through everyday classroom interactions and lesson activities and reflections. 

They will use speaking and listening skills to focus on interpreting ideas and information from spoken texts. Students will continue to develop their ability to listen for key points in order to carry out tasks and use information to share and extend their ideas.

Mathematics 

Students will participate in five numeracy sessions a week. They will investigate topics across the six main mathematical streams being:

• Number
• Algebra
• Measurement
• Space
• Statistics
• Probability

These sessions focus on developing students’ reasoning, problem solving, fluency, understanding and growth mindset skills. Throughout each unit, students will engage in open-ended and rich tasks that allow them to work towards their individual goals. 

In Term One, students will learn about place value, addition and subtraction, duration and time, as well as collecting and representing data. Then in Term Two, students will explore skip counting, multiplication and division, 2D and 3D shapes, angles, fractions, as well as measurement. Next in Term Three, students will revisit place value, addition and subtraction, and fractions. They will also investigate location and chance experiments. Finally, in Term Four, students will revisit topics from across the year to benefit from multiple exposures and extend themselves further. 

In Term 3, Year 4 students have the chance to take part in the Australian Mathematics Competition. This is not compulsory but a great chance for students to be challenged and show off their problem solving skills!

Technology

It is expected that students have ready access to an iPad.

They are required to bring it to school everyday with enough charge to last the day. 

If your child does not have access to an iPad, please let your teacher know as the school will provide them with an iPad to use for the year. 

Furthermore, the school offers an iPad loan program that lets you loan an iPad for the year and allows your child to take it home each night and over the holidays.

The major applications we will be using within Year Four this year are:

• Seesaw – Students work will be posted as well as important announcements
• Epic Reading – each class has their own code (can only be used for free between 8:30am to 3pm)
• Doodle Maths & English 

***Please speak to your child’s classroom teacher if you have a time lock on your child’s iPad***

Humanities  

Each term, students will explore and learn about one particular aspect of the Humanities curriculum as well as incorporate other learning areas such as technology. 

Term 1: Geography – Students will explore the similarities and differences between the continents of Australia, Africa and South America. We will be looking at geographical landforms and topography. All classes have created an Acknowledgement of Country to show our respect for the traditional owners of the land in which we live, learn and play. 

Term 2: History – Students explore the history and diversity of their community and the celebrations and commemorations, symbols and emblems important to Australians and others. Beginning with the history of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, students examine European exploration and colonisation in Australia and throughout the world up to the early 1800s. 

Term 3: Civics & Citizenship – Year 4’s will Identify how and why decisions are made democratically in communities. They will explain the roles of local government and some familiar services provided at the local level.

Term 4: Digital Technologies – Students will design digital solutions to a problem using the app ‘Hour of Code’ and create instructions for others. 

Wellbeing

Morning Circle

A structured routine at the beginning of class to set the tone for learning, review expectations, and celebrate successes.

The aim is to ground students and establish a common rhythm for the learning day.

Brain Breaks

These are short 1-2 minute activities throughout the day to revitalize focus and attention, aiming to enhance learning.

The aim is to help students maintain or regain focus and energy. This primes students to be “Ready to Learn” again.

Zones of Regulation 

Student wellbeing remains a priority. The Respectful Relationships program helps to support our emotional and social wellbeing as well as exploring the effects that personal feelings can have on how people behave in situations. Students will engage in one-two Wellbeing lessons per week. Activities may include mindfulness, yoga, gratitude, recognising and coping with our various emotions, safety, our school values and encouraging a growth mindset towards their learning. 

School Wide Positive Behaviour Support (SWPBS)

SWPBS is a framework focused on fostering a positive school culture by establishing clear expectations, reinforcing positive behaviors, and providing support when needed.

Components of SWPBS:

• Clearly Defined Expectations
• Positive Reinforcement
• Support and Intervention                                                  

Goals:

• Foster a positive and inclusive school culture
• Promote consistency in behavior expectations
• Develop essential social, emotional, & behavioral skills

Implementation:

• Explicit teaching of positive behaviors

Specialists

The subjects this year are as follows;

• Cooking (Term 1)
• Gardening (Term 4)
• AUSLAN
• Science
• Performing Arts
• Art
• P.E

Home Learning 

Year 4 Home Learning commences this term. Students are encouraged to read for 20 minutes per night to improve their reading ability, and in turn, their writing and vocabulary acquisition. This could be a chapter book, SORA or Reading Eggs; unfortunately EPIC does not provide home access after 3pm. Doodlemaths is a home learning expectation, which will be available shortly. We recommend spending at least ten minutes once per week on the app for students to practise their mathematical fluency at home. We recognise the busy life of families outside of school with other commitments and interests, we value students taking time to connect with their families and friends and to enjoy an activity that sparks joy. Please speak with your child’s classroom teacher should home learning become an area of concern or challenge for your family.

Ways to Help Your Child at Home:

• Make sure your child reads for at least 20 minutes every night 
• Ensure your child is getting enough, good quality sleep.
• All devices to be kept out of their bedroom
• To support wellbeing,  you can encourage them to keep a personal journal. 

2 things that went well for me today, 1 thing I want to let go of, 1 thing I am looking forward to.

Reminders  

• As you know, we are heading to Surf Camp in Week 5. This will be an excellent opportunity to bond and get to know each other. We are all very excited! Please ensure you have read the event details and consented on Compass.

• Year Four will be dismissed each day from the Water Tank Gate on the Office side of the school grounds.
• If you would like to make an appointment with your child’s classroom teacher, please contact us via Compass
• If you have yet to complete the walking permission, photo permission, Year Four Surf Camp, cooking consent and technology agreement, please do so on Compass as soon as possible.
• Term 1 and Term 4 require all students to wear a school appropriate hat while outside.

We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead and getting to know all Year Four families! 

Kind regards,

Year Four Team