Need to know content of Year 4

[rdaddy]

Can anyone here help, please?

What competencies, content, scores etc should DS be engaged in?
What new activities will he be doing?
What barriers should he be breaking, across all subjects, during Year 4?

What activities could we do this summer in preparation?

Can you either share anything from your experience, or can you point to resources/info offering the above?

Thanks.

Are you just desperate for your child to be 'top of the class' in year four? Or is there a specific reason/area they are behind in?

Not sure why you'd need the entire y4 curriculum? A lot to cover!

OP, it is completely different in Wales. The new curriculum, in it's nature, is supposed to be individual to the school and to draw on their Cynefin (locality) as much as possible and to be bespoke.

For expectations you need to ignore 'expected', 'greater depth' etc from the English curriculum. Some matches up, some is v different. Particularly in Maths.

You need to be looking at Progression Step 2 which should be achieved by and during year 4, with a view for more able pupils being able to start on elements of Progression Step 3. https://hwb.gov.wales/curriculum-for-wales/mathematics-and-numeracy/descriptions-of-learning/

@DrMadelineMaxwell
Thanks very much for your message / diolch am eich neges.

• Yes, I'm aware it is different; I guess I'm trying to get to the bottom of how...

• Thanks for clarifying this about the focus on Cynefin. This probably maps on to our local Welsh-medium schools' "cluster". I know teachers from across the cluster have worked a lot together on putting together the curriculum, but there is no detail from the school for parents except the cluster's annual theme. What I am seeking is to know the actual content of our school's year four, so that I can prepare to help them next year.

• I personally am concerned about Curriculum For Wales' keenness to a) devolve curriculum generation down to teachers and b) focus on locality. I think teachers are already busy and now have spent the last couple of years, on top of COVID-19 and cash challenges, also focused on rewriting the curriculum from the ground up. It's a small country, one which I think could have developed a singular, top-down curricular approach based some stated visions, ambitions and needs for the nation's next generation, rather than define standards by small localities and individual teachers' bespoke ideas. But i) I digress and b) I'm not a qualified educationalist, so...

"You need to be looking at Progression Step 2 which should be achieved by and during year 4, with a view for more able pupils being able to start on elements of Progression Step 3". Thanks very much for clarifying this!*

• I have also been in contact with Welsh Government to ask for help. They acknowledge that the materials they have published about Curriculum For Wales are profession-facing, not parent-facing. I think it is quite challenging for me to read them and to triangulate the new Areas with the Progression Steps, the Statements Of What Matters etc. Given curricula are devolved to schools, WG is leaving it up to schools to publish curricula online for parents. They have shared examples of schools that have done this - however, to me, all of them again represent only the very high-level curriculum aims and have almost no detail about the actual in-term course content the schools will use to achieve tick those boxes. On top of the other workload items I mentioned above, schools have an extra piece of work to publish their actual curricula online - assuming they have got them ready for the upcoming year, that is. The WG person also clarified the Progression Steps information you have given me.

Thanks again.

Croeso.

I agree it is a monumental amount of extra work. We were given an additional training day each year to help but it is a drop in the ocean. We are v far down our own journey in adapting and planning the curriculum and have made sure our school offer is clearly communicated with parents in an accessible way. We have curriculum maps and other info for them on our website and we send home 'supporting your child's info sheets that specify what we teach in the areas of learning.

A wordier, more inaccessible curriculum I have never had to wade through before. And I've been teaching for over 25 years. And don't get me started on having to create all our own assessment methods as each progression step is so broad. Step 3 is covered by y6,6,7 and even into y8.