Year 4 Rationale.

Autumn Term

Like Year 3, children in Year 4 will get the support from a Junior Jam Computing specialist. This time, Year 4 children will be on Level 2. 

Year 4 will start the autumn term with a module called iJam. Pupils will begin listening to a variety of popular dance music styles and analysing key elements that distinguish one genre from another. These findings will then be applied
when pupils create a short composition in their chosen genre. Elements such as
dynamics and pitch will be explored and applied to the compositions. The concept of the ‘Audio Spectrum’ will be introduced and participants will begin to use stereopanning and level controls to improve their music’s balance and texture.

Later on in the term, Year 4 will move onto iProgram which is using a more advanced version of iFunction unlike in Year 3. Advanced iFunction looks at creating programs to solve real-world problems. Building upon their knowledge of ‘Blockly’ from Level 1 pupils will apply logical reasoning and computational thinking to create games, control solutions and solve other problems, mimicking the real-world application of programming. Pupils will also be introduced to written programming languages and learn basic syntax.

Spring Term

Year 4 will begin the spring term with the module called Office. In this module they will use Word. 

Pupils will be presented with a hypothetical scenario where all social media platforms have been removed from the internet. They will then be tasked with designing and creating their own social media platform to fill the gap in the market. Throughout the half term, pupils will use more advanced functions in Word to plan their ideas before finally collating them into a Keynote ready to be presented to their peers.

After this Year 4 will be onto the module called iCreate which will allow them to use an editing program. During this module pupils will learn basic and advanced editing techniques and video effects to produce a music video. Pupils will edit, cut and splice footage supplied to them in order to create their final video. Pupils will utilise search functions within the app iMovie to sift through stock videos and choose appropriate clips to match the audio.

Summer Term

In the last term of Year 4, the children will start the summer looking at photography. 

Pupils will learn the fundamentals of photography and editing before moving on to
the uses for their photography. They will design and produce a magazine around a
theme chosen by the pupils. To finish off the half term pupils will look at different
ways of publishing their magazine in our digital age.

Finally, in their last module Pupils will research, plan and present a mission to Mars. Using research, design and simulation apps, the pupils must decide what their mission will be and see if it would be successful. Will they perform scientific experiments on the planet or bring samples back home to test? Pupils will explore areas of physics such as forces and space as well as utilising apps to research information and present data.