Year 4

Knowledge and Content

Living things and their habitats

Pupils will recognise that living things can be grouped in a variety of ways and they will use classification keys to help group, identify and name a variety of living things in their local and wider environment. They will also recognise that environments can change and that this can sometimes pose dangers to living things.

Animals, including humans

Pupils will learn the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans. In addition, they will identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions. Pupils will construct and interpret a range of food chains identifying prey, predator and producers. 

Materials and their properties

In this unit, pupils will learn to compare and group materials together, according to whether they are solids, liquids or gases. They will identify the part played by evaporation and condensation in the water cycle and associate the rate of evaporation with temperature and observe that some materials change state when they are heated or cooled, and measure or research the temperature at which this happens in degrees Celsius.

Sound

Pupils will explore how sound is made associating some with something vibrating. They will recognise that vibrations from sounds travel through a medium to the ear and that sounds will get fainter as the distance increases. Children will find patterns between the pitch of a sound and features of the object that produced it and between the volume of a sound and the strength of the vibrations that produced it.

Electricity

Pupils will identify common appliances which run on electricity and construct a simple electrical circuit including various components. They will recognise some common conductors and insulators, and associate metals with being good conductors. They will be able to explain whether or not a lamp will light in a simple series circuit, based on whether or not the lamp is part of a complete loop with a battery. 

Working Scientifically

Pupils will ask relevant questions and plan different types of scientific experiments to answer questions. When conducting experiments, they will make systematic and careful observations using a range of equipment, including thermometers and data loggers and take accurate measurements using standard units where appropriate. Pupils will record findings using simple scientific language, drawings and labelled diagrams as well as keys, bar charts and tables. The data gathered, will enable pupils to answer a range of questions. They will use oral and written methods as well as presentations to communicate their findings to others. When making conclusions, pupils will use straightforward scientific evidence to answer questions or to support their findings and use their results to draw simple conclusions, make predictions for new values, suggest improvements and raise further questions.