Year 4 are incredibly proud of our special poetry book that we have produced as a class. The work within is inspired by our reading of the classic Edward Tulane book. This is a very moving story about a china rabbit that experiences many highs and lows throughout his journey. We have been inspired by some of the emotion in the book. We used this in Year 4 as a springboard in which to write our own emotive poetry. This has now been presented in a special poetry book, which we are proud to share with other Michael Faraday classes, or visitors to our school.

Elsewhere in Year 4 and we have been continuing our weekly musical quests with Ruth, our friend from Southwark Wider Opportunities musical services. These sessions have been teaching the children many specialist styles and forms of singing. Pitch, presentation, keeping the rhythm and learning different musical scales have all been key to our shared work.

Year 4 will soon be performing a concert for family and friends at Michael Faraday on 24th May. We will be showcasing all the talents within our class, as well as explaining a little more about the theory that we have been learning. This is an open invite for anyone within our community who has Year 4 connections.

Year 4 have been exploring some of the emotive themes that we have found in our current class reading book of Edward Tulane. This tells the story of a china rabbit that passes though many different life situations, and the experiences that he learns along the way.

One such scene involves Edward hearing some homeless people talking about friends or family that are very special to them. We have used this theme as the inspiration for our own Year 4 literacy work. We asked the pupils to write a short piece, introducing someone who is special in their life, and then to explain in a descriptive manner why this is so.

We encouraged the pupils to add in a personal touch, and to give the reader an understanding as to how the special person has touched their lives. You can hear a short selection of these pieces of work being read out in the podcast below.

We will be focussing a great deal this term in Year 4 on continuing to improve our French language skills. The pupils will benefit greatly after a recent course that Pauline and Joanna attended in the French village of Prats De Mollow. This was an intensive course that enables teachers to be able to pass on French language skills to primary school children.

Both of our staff members found themselves back in the classroom for the morning sessions, and then a busy afternoon schedule of completing various teaching tasks around the French mountain village. This knowledge will now help our pupils greatly as we continue to teach language as one of the main subjects at Michael Faraday.

Year 4 have been continuing with their wonderful weekly singing workshops. We welcome into our class Ruth from Wider Opportunities, part of a programme put in place by Southwark Music Services. Both Year 4 classes have been working on building up the structure of different songs, and singing different parts in sequence. We have concentrated on the fundamental parts that make up a song structure – pitch, timing and working together as a group. Year 4 are fast learners, as you can hear from the podcast below!

Year 4 are making great progress with their weekly singing workshop that is taking place this term. We warmed up our voices ahead of our most recent session, and then advanced our work with some singing in the round. The pupils have been asked to focus upon the rhythm in the songs that we are singing, and to be able to work together in a group to try and keep this together. Following the sequence of events is also important, especially when different groups are singling different parts of the song. Staying in key is also crucial to our work. Plenty to remember, but some wonderful results, as you can hear in the podcast below.

Elsewhere in Year 4 and Badgie’s class staged a very moving assembly this week to set the scene for future school activities based around Sports Relief. We wanted all of the other pupils to understand why it is so important that money is raised through Sport Relief, and how this can genuinely help to save lives of children not quite so fortunate as ourselves.

Our assembly featured a short film about a young boy and his family living in Sierra Leone. We saw how having access to healthy, clean water was a daily struggle for him, and how this has an impact on his schoolwork. We then asked our friends from other classes a series of questions from the film.

The Year 4 assembly concluded by showing the results from a Sport Relief survey that the children have produced. We asked pupils across the school which sporting activity they would most like to take part in to try and raise some money. We presented our results in a bar chart. The next step will be for a fundraising plan to be put in place, so that Michael Faraday School can help to raise some money as part of Sport Relief. You can find out more about our plans in the podcast below.

Year 4 staged a well thought out assembly to the rest of Key Stage 2 recently, based all around the story of the Good Samaritan. We welcomed our friends into the assembly by playing some calming music on our ukuleles. We then explained how the Good Samaritan is originally a Christian story from The Bible, but it contains many similar themes and parallels across all the major world religions.

We invited our friends from the other year groups to volunteer any knowledge that they might already have about the Good Samaritan story. Each pupil in Year 4 then read out some of the written work that we have completed, explaining what we think it means to behave like a Good Samaritan. We concluded our assembly by making the connection with the story and the Michael Faraday School motto: Treat people how you would like to be treated.

You can watch a short video showing the fantastic Year 4 ukulele orchestra above.

Year 4 staged a well thought out assembly to the rest of Key Stage 2 recently, based all around the story of the Good Samaritan. We welcomed our friends into the assembly by playing some calming music on our ukuleles. We then explained how the Good Samaritan is originally a Christian story from The Bible, but it contains many similar themes and parallels across all the major world religions.

We invited our friends from the other year groups to volunteer any knowledge that they might already have about the Good Samaritan story. Each pupil in Year 4 then read out some of the written work that we have completed, explaining what we think it means to behave like a Good Samaritan. We concluded our assembly by making the connection with the story and the Michael Faraday School motto: Treat people how you would like to be treated.

You can watch a short video showing the fantastic Year 4 ukulele orchestra above.

Year 4 have been greatly enjoying our weekly singing sessions as part of the Wider Opportunities programme that we are receiving support with from our friends at Southwark Music Services. The pupils have been learning a wide range of new musical skills. These cover breathing control, pitch, keeping time and learning about musical notation. We started off our most recent session with a vocal warm-up. This involved playing a singing game where the pupils added in different layers of skill and memory feats to a growing vocal pattern. We then recapped our initial introduction to musical notation, before learning more about this later in the session. We have learnt how to associate different notes with coffee and tea references. Year 4 responded wonderfully to this, having great fun as well as increasing their musical knowledge. You can listen to a short burst from our Southwark Music Services session in the podcast below.