What your child learns in Year 4 maths, English and science

In Year 4, your child will be learning to add and subtract numbers with up to four digits using column addition and subtraction. They will continue to learn their times tables, so that by the end of the year they are confident in all of them up to the 12 times table. This will then help them in moving onto multiplying three-digit numbers by a one-digit number.

Children will be increasing their familiarity with a wide range of genres of writing. They will be preparing poems and play scripts to read aloud and perform. They will be thinking about inference and making predictions about what is going to happen in a story. 

When it comes to writing, they should become much more confident this year with joining their handwriting and keeping it as neat and legible as possible. They will be thinking carefully about the setting, characters and plot in their stories and how to structure a text, including use of paragraphs. They will be using apostrophes to mark plural possession. They should also become more confident in including dialogue in their stories, including the correct use of speech marks.

Read about the Year 4 English curriculum in our guide for parents.

Have your child practice writing for purpose, sentence structure and reading comprehension with our range of free Year 4 English worksheets.

This year children will be learning about:

Living things and their habitats, including classifying living things and looking at changes to environments.

Animals including humans, focusing on eating: teeth, the digestive system and food chains.

States of matter, including grouping materials, changing state, evaporation and condensation.

Sound, looking at creation of sound through vibration and changes in pitch and volume.

Electricity, including constructing a circuit and understanding conductors and insulators.

With a number of terms to memorise and more processes to get to grips with, it helps to practise everything at home so your child is fully prepared for their science classes. Download and print off our free Year 4 science worksheets so your child can check how well they understand electricity, the parts of a plant and properties of materials and read a detailed guide to the Year 4 science curriculum.

It’s not time for Key Stage 2 SATs yet, but it never hurts to be prepared! Have a look at what your child will learn in Year 5 and Year 6 so you’ll be ready for the sorts of assignments they’ll bring home. Remind yourselves of what’s already been taught in Reception, Year 1, Year 2 and Year 3 with our handy guides.