In English we will be moving on to our new text for the next full term: Animal Farm by George Orwell. This book contains a lot of ambitious themes, which we will be exploring carefully through our guided reading sessions. We will think about previous work we have carried out around Communism, Socialism and Democracy, before exploring how these ideas are discussed within the story itself. We will look carefully at the situation in Russia during the time this book was written, considering the Russian Revolution and the overthrowing of Tsar Nicholas II and then looking at what George Orwell had to say about this situation through his story. In our writing sessions, we will first be writing a biography about George Orwell, before moving on to writing our own version of an allegory by the end of the half term. We will build up to this through lessons exploring the following skills: use of metaphor in writing, varying types of conjunctions, complex sentence structure, use of characterisation and description through use of vocabulary and ‘show not tell’.

In Maths we will be continuing to develop our understanding of place value and the four operations, as well as extending our knowledge of fractions and their decimal and percentage equivalents. We will continue to cycle back and review our work on addition, subtraction, multiplication and division while building on this prior knowledge to extend our written methods. We will develop understanding of shape and position by starting to look at coordinates, translations, reflections and rotations.  We will continue to investigate ratio and how this links to our work on fractions and decimals. To tie this all together, as we work through, we will be applying everything we learn to word based problems, which will help us develop our reasoning and problem-solving.

In History, we will begin our learning by looking at tensions in Europe before 1914, and what led to the start of World War I. The children will learn who was involved in the war and where it was fought. We will then move on to applying our knowledge of the Industrial Revolution to look at how and why World War I was fought differently to wars we have studied before. We will look at how WW1 was fought on land, at sea and in the air before going into more depth around how battles were fought on land, looking closely at trench warfare, both in terms of what it was and what life was like for those living in the trenches. The children will then circle back to Britain and focuses on life on the ‘Home Front’. Finally, we will look at the Treaty of Versailles and we will also begin to look at some of the consequences of the war.

In Geography, we will be building on the children’s understanding of the seven continents from Year 1 and subsequent world geography including studies of Europe and Asia. We will study the human and physical geography of New Zealand, using maps to identify key settlements. The children will learn that due to New Zealand’s remote location, it was one of the last places in the world where people came to live. They will locate Polynesia and learn that voyagers came by canoe to New Zealand approximately 700 years ago. They will learn that there are volcanoes and geysers located in New Zealand and will explore these in more detail, linking to our previous work on natural disasters. We will learn that New Zealand was a British colony (building on knowledge of colonies from History) and that King Charles is the head of state. After this, we will move on to learn more about the Māori, the race of people who have lived in New Zealand for approximately 700 years. We will investigate how the Māori have their own traditions, customs and language, including the Haka, a traditional dance. The children will learn about the conflict that occurred when Europeans came to New Zealand and also about the diseases brought to New Zealand by the Europeans and the impact on Māori populations, drawing parallels with the impact of European arrivals in Australia. Finally, we will investigate the climate, biomes and wildlife that exist in New Zealand.

In Science, we will be delving into the world of astronomy. We will learn about the theory of the Big Bang and that the universe is still expanding today. The children will develop their understanding of gravity, introduced last term, by looking at gravity’s affect within our solar system. We will then expand further on this by looking at the celestial bodies within our solar system, including the different types of planets. Following this, we will start to look at the phases of the Moon and the role that the Sun plays in this. Tying all this knowledge together, we will finish our learning by looking at our galactic neighbourhood, looking at the Milky Way, Andromeda and Laniakea. 

In Art, we will focus on print making, starting by looking at Hogarth’s series of prints ‘Industry and Idleness’. We will consider how printmaking allows the production of many copies of one image which can be cheaply produced. The children will then go on to consider different printmaking processes looking at examples by famous artists: screen printing by Warhol, relief printing (in particular, wood cuts) by Hokusai and intaglio printing (dry-point and etching) by Rembrandt. The children will already be familiar with the prints of Hokusai from studying The Great Wave in the unit on ‘Line’ in year 3. From this year 3 unit, and from the year 2 unit on Murals and Tapestries, they will have experimented with relief printing using a polystyrene block. In this unit they will develop this process as they design and create their own final pieces.

Finally, in RE we will investigate the question ‘Should believing in the resurrection change how Christians view life and death?’. We will start by looking at what the word ‘resurrection’ means and link this specifically to Christian beliefs. After this, we will consider some stories from the Bible that deal with resurrection and discuss how these stories help shape the beliefs Christians have around the concept. The children will then explore Jesus’ resurrection in more detail, thinking about how the story is told in the Bible, what the Disciples witnessed and how this impacts the way Christians view their faith today. Finally, we will look at how church practice is impacted by the idea of resurrection and also how Christians implement the ideas behind resurrection in their everyday lives.