English Curriculum Coverage – Year 4 2019-2020

Autumn 1 - National Autumn 2 Spring 1 Spring 2 Summer 1 Summer 2 Poetry Day 3rd October Black History Month Active Planet World Book Day Tudors Tudors Romans Romans Active Planet The Iron Man by Ted FaRther by Grahame Baker Winter’s Child by Odd and the Frost Giants Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver The Lion, the Witch and Hughes and Laura Carlin Smith 3 weeks McAllister and Grahame by and Chris by Martin Jenkins and the Wardrobe by C.S.Lewis 4 weeks Baker Smith 2 weeks Riddell 3 weeks Chris Riddell 3 weeks 4 weeks

The Lion and the Unicorn Until I Met Dudley by The Selfish Giant by Oscar Varmints by Helen Ward Shackleton’s Journey by Jabberwocky by Lewis by Shirley Hughes 3 weeks Roger McGough and Chris Wilde and Michael and Marc Craste *book William Grill 3 weeks Carroll and Joel Stewart Riddell 2 weeks Foreman or Alexis Deacon and film 3 weeks 2 weeks 3 weeks

The Matchbox Diary by Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman Tar Beach by Faith Weslandia by Paul Paul Fleischman and and Divya Srinivasan Ringgold 3 weeks Fleischman and Kevin Bagram Ibatoulline 3 weeks Hawkes 3 weeks 3 weeks

Year 4 Progression and Synopses

Term Text Main Outcomes Published Sequence Synopsis – Overview and Outcomes outcomes Autumn The Iron Narrative Narratives This is a four-week planning sequence using The Iron Man by Ted Hughes and illustrated by Laura Carlin in 1 Man suspense, letters, which children will explore the devices of mystery and suspense. They will write a range of different texts-types news article, including letters, a news article and a poem with the extended written outcome being a published narrative. poetry The planning sequence includes exemplified grammar and spelling activities throughout. Drama techniques such as Teacher in Role and Conscience Corridor and Sculptor/Sculpted are used to support understanding and to develop writing.

The Lion and Letters, diary Non- This is a three (plus) week planning sequence using The Lion and the Unicorn by Shirley Hughes, where children the Unicorn entries, character chronological explore the text in its historical context and discuss the themes and imagery within. They explore a range of and setting reports grammatical concepts including dialogue to create inference about a character, a variety of noun phrases to OR descriptions, non- create description, character comparisons using conjunctions, personification and prepositions to describe a chronological setting. Children write a range of diary entries, letters, character comparisons, setting descriptions and finish reports, historical by writing their own evacuation narrative. There is also an optional additional opportunity to write a non- narrative chronological report about women in World War Two, as well as two optional additional spelling sessions.

The Dialogue, diary Autobiographi In this three-week planning sequence using The Matchbox Diary, the children will discover a set of matchboxes Matchbox entry, re-telling, es containing some of the mementoes from the story. After writing predictions about what the objects might Diary mini- relate to, the children listen to the story in stages. They make inferences about why the great-grandfather and autobiography, his family went to America, explore vocabulary and write in role. After exploring prepositions, they create a ship’s log, non- ship’s log that is in the form of a recount. They then investigate migration and read for research to gather ideas chronological about Ellis Island. Following this, the children plan and write a non-chronological report about the great- report grandfather and others who made a similar journey all those years ago.

Autumn FaRther Sequel, retellings, Sequels This three-week sequence begins by introducing the concept of dreams and how important they are in our 2 recounts lives. It continues by exploring the text through a range of activities that include explicit grammar teaching, (postcards), opportunities for shorter written outcomes and book talk. Children create a story-map of the key events from explanation texts the book to write a sequel, they write an explanation text to describe their own flying machine Children finish by writing a longer story about an adventure in a sequel to the text.

Until I Met Letters, Letters This is a two-week planning sequence using Until I Met Dudley by Roger McGough and Chris Riddell. Children Dudley explanation texts write their own explanation texts for everyday objects, inventing their own imaginary responses to the question of how they work, before researching and describing them properly. They also write letters to a fictional ‘Dudley’ character asking for his help to get to the bottom of some more complicated items.

Spring 1 Winter’s Descriptive Descriptive This is a two week planning sequence for Winter’s Child by Angela McAllister, in which children explore and are Child Poetry, Poetry immersed in the theme of the story, making predictions about what might happen if you are not careful what Story Sequel, you wish for. Children continue to explore the themes and language of the text, particularly identifying noun Recount phrases and prepositional phrases and how they are used to create images. Children go on to predict what might happen after the story, as it becomes spring, and write their own simple sequel, applying the grammatical skills learnt. The Selfish Diaries, letters, Reports This is a three week sequence for The Selfish Giant by Oscar Wilde in which children will explore the text Giant posters, reports, through a range of immersion and engagement activities and will write a range of texts, including diaries, own versions letters, posters, reports, and their own versions (narratives). OR (narratives)

Cinnamon Diary entries, Stories This is a three-week planning sequence using Cinnamon by Neil Gaiman in which children begin by making informal letters, inferences about the characters and situations in the story. They go on to consider the emotions of characters dialogue, adverts, including Cinnamon herself (in the form of diaries) and also of their parents when creating adverts. There is limericks and explicit teaching of the conventions of dialogue through drama and children go on to write a story in the style other poetry of Cinnamon using speech. forms, ‘stories in the style of’ Spring 2 Odd and the Explanations, Narrative This 3 week planning sequence is based on the story Odd and the Frost Giants by Neil Gaiman. It includes Frost Giants narrative recount, recounts exemplified grammar activities throughout, as well as drama techniques such as thought-tapping. Visual (Links to setting images are also incorporated. Specific teaching strategies are highlighted in bold and there is a glossary to ) descriptions explain how each of these work in a classroom situation.

Varmints Explanation text Explanation This is a three-week sequence using the film and text of Varmints by Helen Ward and Marc Craste, in which (leaflet), texts (leaflet) children explore the settings and themes, writing a retelling of the story from the main character’s point of retellings, setting view and sharing their thoughts and opinions about the story. The same text is then used to draw out the description process and life-cycle of growing plants. Children use this as a starting point to create a life-cycle flow diagram, charting the changes that take place as a plant grows and what is needed to nurture it in order to give guidance OR to the next generation of ‘varmints’ how to look after plants. Children then use this, alongside their explored knowledge of explanation texts, to write their own explanation of the life-cycle of plants to be published as a leaflet. It is important that children are exposed to a range of explanation texts, through Science and Guided Reading throughout. Tar Beach Play script (own Play scripts This is a three-week planning sequence using Tar Beach by Faith Ringgold in which children explore the theme version), of ‘freedom’ and do so by creating their own story, written as a play script, where they master their own world character by flying over it, eventually writing their own version of a ‘Tar Beach’ story about their own locality or chosen descriptions, place. They will also create retellings, book reviews, character descriptions and dialogue. book review, dialogue (direct speech), retelling

Summer Jonathan Adventure stories Adventure This is a three-week sequence for Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver by Martin Jenkins and Chris Riddell. Children will 1 Swift’s based on stories have read Gulliver’s Travels and been immersed in the various settings that he explores. This will be used as a Gulliver explorations of basis for a variety of persuasive short writing opportunities, such as a poster and a leaflet before children move new lands, on to creating a logbook. The final longer written outcome will be the children creating their own imaginary persuasive lands to use as settings for a new adventure story where they are the explorer. passages Shackleton’s Interviews, Newspaper This is a 3 week planning for Shackleton’s Journey by William Grill. Journey Diaries, Letters, reports Newspaper OR report

Weslandia Report Report This is a three-week planning sequence based around the book Weslandia by Paul Fleischman. It begins with (prospectus), (prospectus) children creating a shelter for their own civilization, as a hook to create engagement with the text. The first retelling, part then continues with children making predictions, describing Wesley’s character and eventually retelling character the story in their own words. In the second part, children begin by creating a non-chronological report, description, book published as a brochure for Weslandia itself, using planning models and information from and inferred from review the text. In the final part, children create their own civilization, based on Weslandia. Grammar and spelling objectives are embedded throughout. Summer The Lion, Narrative set in Narratives set This is a four-week sequence for The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe by CS Lewis in which children explore 2 the Witch another world, a in another the idea that a character can change over time. Children will develop the skills of prediction including and the poem about a world evidencing from the text. They will write a poem about a sweet that bewitches a main character, an imaginary Wardrobe sweet that conversation between 2 characters and write in role. The planning sequence includes exemplified grammar bewitches a main and spelling activities throughout. Drama techniques such as hot-seating and thought-tapping are used to character, an support understanding and to develop writing. Please note that although this text can be read as an allegory imaginary for Christianity and the belief that Christ saves the world from sin and darkness, this has not been referenced conversation in the sequence. Children may need an explanation for ‘Daughter of Eve’ and ‘Son of Adam’. Additionally, as between two the text was written in 1950, there are some words that are not regularly used today and these may need characters and defining along the way. writing in role Jabberwock Nonsense and Narrative This is a two-week sequence for Jabberwocky by Oscar Lewis Carroll where children will use the language of y narrative poetry, poetry the poem to investigate and explore their knowledge of etymology and morphology, before performing the explanatory poem and eventually creating their own nonsense verse with a gruesome creature based on the same descriptions structure.