Year 4 articles

We may be a United Kingdom, but schooling varies between each of our four countries. Our guide gives you an overview of the differences in primary school education in England, Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland.

From pictograms to line graphs, children learn a lot about collecting, organising and presenting data in primary school maths. We explain how data handling is taught in KS1 and KS2 and how you can help your child get to grips with basic statistics at home.

By the end of KS2 children are expected to be able to identify the parts of a circle (circumference, radius and diameter) and begin to use formulae to calculate a circle's perimeter and area. We explain what parents need to know about this aspect of primary-school geometry.

Children in KS2 are expected to read and write Roman numerals as part of the primary curriculum. We explain how Roman numerals are introduced in the classroom and how you can help your child practise reading Roman numerals at home.

Traditional tales like Cinderella, Little Red Riding Hood and Goldilocks play an important part in early literacy. We explain how these well-known stories are used to help develop reading comprehension and early writing skills, and explain how you can help your child's learning with fairy tales at home.

Turn screen time into a super-powered learning experience with a new generation of coding toys. Your child will learn programming skills as they play, as well as the basics of computational thinking (and hopefully how to fix your IT problems, too!). We asked programmer, tech-expert and mum, Claire Wardle, as well as other parents, to put the toys to the test and share their findings.

Learning how circuits work is an important part of Key Stage 2 science. Make the learning light up, buzz, ring and whizz up into the air with these brilliant electronics sets for children, designed to make exploring electricity creative and captivating. From sturdy sets suitable for small fingers to circuit-diagram projects, these sets offer a fantastic hands-on electrical education.

Your child's KS2 poetry classes might include analysis of kennings, two-word phrases characteristic of Anglo-Saxon poetry. We explain what this literary device is and how your child might read and write kennings in the primary-school classroom.

Understand and use embedded clauses with confidence with our plain-English parents' guide, including examples and details of how this aspect of sentence construction is taught in Key Stage 2 grammar.

Reception and KS1 children all learn cardinal and ordinal numbers. We explain how your child will be taught to count and sequence numbers correctly and suggest practical, fun activities you can try at home to support your child's early mathematical learning.

Can you tell your hexagons from your heptagons? Your octagons from your decagons? With the help of educational experts, we explain how polygons are taught in primary school, with examples of regular and irregular versions of each multi-sided shape.

Want to encourage your child with foreign language learning? We speak to experts who suggest ways to help your child with languages at home, even if you don’t speak them yourself. By Dawn Francis-Pester

You'll be spoilt for choice choosing new books for 4-11 year olds this Christmas. As well as the blockbusters in every bookshop window (welcome back Wimpy Kid, Percy Jackson and Ruby Redfort!), we've fallen for this bumper crop of great reads, from picture books to read out loud to scare stories to shiver under the covers with. Whatever your child's reading ability, these stories are unmissable. Happy reading!

Make the most of family outings by choosing one of our parent-recommended museums. For fun, story-telling, literary inspiration and creative opportunities visit the Roald Dahl Museum and Story Centre.

Does your child struggle to hold their pencil correctly? Handwriting tutor Michelle van Rooyen explains how a pencil grip could help with their handwriting.

Want to directly influence your child's school experience? Jackie Cutchey explains why becoming a parent governor benefits you, your child and their school.

Your child will be taught how to form the different letters of the alphabet differently, according to the ‘movement groups’ they fit into. Our explanatory video shows you how to form all letters (Long ladder, Curly caterpillar, One-armed robot and Z for Zig-zag monster) correctly, stroke by stroke.

Help your child form each letter of the alphabet correctly with our step-by-step and stroke-by-stroke videos, with experts from the National Handwriting Association. In this video we look at the One-armed robot letter family: r, n, m, h, b, k and p.

Help your child form each letter of the alphabet correctly with our stroke-by-stroke videos, with experts from the National Handwriting Association. In this video we look at the Long ladder letter family: l, i, u, t and y.