For Choice in Education
Class Four
Class Four
In Class Four children are still very much in childhood though the signs of major change appear here and there. The forces of an autonomous inner life are beginning to emerge in individualised ways, manifesting as embodied emotional energy and the ability to imagine other worlds. This can be both disorientating and uplifting. Children begin to experience the need to regulate and shape their own relationships and follow their own interests. They respond with great interest to narrative accounts of a wide range of psychological types and the complexity of their relationships, for example in legends and myths.
Child development and leitmotif for this class |
| In Class four children are still very much in childhood though the signs of major change appear here and there. The forces of an autonomous inner life are beginning to emerge in individualised ways, manifesting as embodied emotional energy and the ability to imagine other worlds. This can be both disorientating and uplifting. Children begin to experience the need to regulate and shape their own relationships and follow their own interests. They respond with great interest to narrative accounts of a wide range of psychological types and the complexity of their relationships, for example in legends and myths. Friendship becomes more personal and exclusive. Their new-found depth of emotion needs and seeks a new relationship to the natural and cultural environment that involves their active participation, alone and with others in the fields of sport, music, nature, art and technology - especially digital technologies. The journey becomes a quest with companions. Key themes include relating the parts to the whole and dealing with the relationships between the parts (e.g. in fractions, in sentence structures, in the range of different animal types, singing in canon), exploring the locality, making and using maps. Puberty There is much evidence that the earlier onset of puberty leads to significant changes in the child’s relationship to self and body, self and others and self and world. Thus the developmental themes and tasks for classes 4, 5 and 6 have to be taken as an overlapping continuum. This means that children are in a transition from childhood to puberty, though this is very individual and girls tend to enter puberty before the boys. Physical puberty begins today for girls on average around the age of 12 and spans classes 5, 6 and 7. This process changes into adolescence. The physical processes of puberty have long since changed the young person’s relationship to their body, in particular in the growth of muscles and bones. The fact of this growth means that their bodies feel significantly heavier and sometimes clumsy. Their relationship to their body changes correspondingly and they become much more conscious of what power their body has both in terms of physical strength but also in terms of its psychological effect on self and others. Our culture places a strong emphasis on the body, its appearance, its fitness, how we use it to express our gender identities and social roles. This presents young people with a major set of challenges related to adapting their sense of self to their perceptions of their body, others’ bodies and how others see them. Thus they are often preoccupied with the identity work of adapting, being accepted, relating, which can manifest in a wide range of challenges from eating disorders, sexuality, lifestyle issues, etc |
Curriculum Themes |
Narrative Themes |
| Stories of heroes/heroines
Legends of heroes from different cultures |
Musical Themes |
Qualities:
Topics: Seasonal and local traditions. Songs of local history/geography. Songs of the earth. |
Artistic Themes |
| Illustration, pencil work,
Painting – developing an eye for composition, forms representing an inner impulse, Materials: wax sticks and blocks, coloured pencils, coloured chalks, watercolour paints, beeswax/organic plasticine/clay, Caran d’ache pencils |
Physical Themes |
| How to be in the body in ways that free up the mind to engage with new complexities and abstractions. body geography, throwing and catching, skipping, string games, coordinating hands and eyes. |
Library |
| Can I Touch Your Hair?: Poems of Race, Mistakes, and Friendship, Irene Latham and Charles Waters (Rock the Boat, 2019)
African Tales, A Barefoot Collection, Gcina Mhlophe (Barefoot Books, 2017) Chinese Myths and Legends, Shelley Fu (Tuttle Publishing, 2018) Beautiful Warrior: Legend of the Nun’s Kung Fu, Emily Arnold McCully (Scholastic, 2000) Her Stories: African American Folktales, Fairy Tales and True Tales, Virginia Hamilton (Blue Sky Press, 1995) Anisha, Accidental Detective (series), Serena Patel (Usborne, 2020) The Girl who Stole an Elephant, Nizrana Farook (Nosy Crow, 2020) The Owl Service, Alan Garner (Harper Collins, 2017) Calvin and Hobbs (various), Bill Watterson The Turtles of Oman, Naomi Shihab Nye (Greenwillow Books, 2014) The Borrowers, Mary Norton (Puffin) Fungus the Bogeyman, Raymond Briggs (Puffin) Flour Babies, Anne Fine (Puffin) Funky Chickens, Benjamin Zephaniah (Puffin) The 13-Storey Treehouse, Andy Griffiths (Macmillan) The Boy at the Back of the Class, Onjali Q Rauf (Orion) The Boy in the Tower, Polly Ho-Yen (Penguin Random House Children’s) The Family from One End Street, Eve Garnett (Puffin) Emil and the Detectives, Erich Kastner (Red Fox) Twitch, M G Leonard (Walker Books, 2021) Featherlight, Peter Bunzl (Barrington Stoke, 2021) Eating Things on Sticks, Anne Fine (Corgi) Edie and the Box of Flits, Kate Wilkinson (Piccadilly Press, 2021) The Boy Who Grew Dragons, Andy Shepherd (Piccadilly Press, 2018) Hetty Feather series, Jacqueline Wilson (Doubleday Childrens, 2009) James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl (Penguin) The Wizards of Once, Cressida Cowell (Hodder, 2017) The Girl of Ink and Stars, Kiran Millwood Hargrave (Chicken House, 2016) The Creakers, Tom Fletcher (Penguin Random House, 2018) |
Visual and Graphic Arts |
Indicative Content |
| Drawing
(see also Form Drawing themes, and Maths ARLOs for Shape, Space and Measure) Drawing in Class 4 will mostly be as illustrations in main lesson books. The children will require less guidance – often a suggestion of what to draw will be enough to get them started, although some children will need a sketch by the teacher to get them started. It is helpful, however, for the teacher to sometimes bring a drawing they have completed before the lesson, and more often, for the teacher to draw alongside the children, modelling quiet concentration. At this age the children are ready for coloured pencils, and will need to be taught how to create images through techniques suited to these, for example, diagonal shading and crosshatching. The children’s sense of perspective is developing slowly, which can be reflected in the increasing complexity of the composition of guided drawings. In geography the children can create maps which are rich in pictorial content, representing their sense of place. Painting By Class Four, a comfortable versatility in selecting and working with colour in order to create an expression of an atmosphere (drawn from lesson content) is becoming well established. Dexterity in the manipulation of the paintbrush is steadily refined through regular practice. The language of colour, in relation to moods and feelings, is familiar and understood. An eye for composition becomes ever more attuned via group discussions and teacher feedback. In keeping with the expanding engagement in the world around them (as reflected in Main Lesson themes, Zoology, Geography and Myth and Legends) the children will learn to mix a range of earthy tones and hues.The forms within the paintings are more defined than those in Class Three but continue to relate to the characters inner impulses (the lightness of a bird, the courage of a lion) than that of a realistic rendition. Painting linked to nature studies – trees, simple landscapes, simple generalised shapes of buildings (castle, church, farmhouse, barn). Paintings with figurative themes related to the narrative theme/content for the year – images from myths and stories, etc. Modelling Working not by adding bits and pieces, but by working with a given amount of material as a whole lump that can be changed and shaped. Simple solids such as a sphere or a pyramid, modelled with the hollow of the hands. Animal forms: develop a picture of what is to be modelled through verbal description. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| At this age the children feel quite competent in the media and have a strong wish to express themselves. They still live quite strongly in the imaginative pictures of the narrative, rather than drawing and painting from observation or copying from the blackboard. Even in modelling, children should model out of an inner feeling for the form and movement of the animal, rather than copying a picture. Therefore they need to have moved like the animal, to feel what it is like to be, for example, an eagle. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and songs should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Creative and Aesthetic |
Handwork: Precise stitching |
Indicative Content |
| The World is beautiful |
Activities:
Project:
|
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| There is a change in the child’s awareness. “Here I am” and “There is the world”. The child stands at the “X” in their development. A precise stitch, such as the cross stitch* helps the child move on from the circular movements (learned while looping their yarn around knitting needles or wrapping balls of wool) to one that allows for changing directions. Consider the new movement as a lemniscate: whilst stitching part of the cross stitch from one side, the stitcher has to change stitch direction and travel in another to finish the stitch. Each time the stitcher travels through the middle of the lemniscate’s two circular sides meet creating a midpoint or connection between the two circles.
*This specific cross stitch method finishes each stitch individually before moving to the next one with the top of each stitch crossing in the same direction. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Share stories and show sewn objects from different cultures to highlight and create an awareness of the diversity of people, their art, their culture and their life experiences.
Learn how different cultures interpret and use colour differently. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Creative and Aesthetic, Handwork |
Narrative and Reading Material |
Indicative Content |
Reading for pleasure:
Taught Reading Skills:
|
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Once children can read they should be encouraged to do extensive reading. The class library should have a range of fiction and non-fiction books suitable to the curriculum themes of the year, and to the local surroundings. Books should be accessible, i.e. written at an appropriate level, and in a range of formats and genres. Children should learn how to use books as a valuable source of information and learning. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Stories from around the world with a range of inclusive themes and characters. Stories that challenge gender and family stereotypes. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Literacy, Geography, Social Science, Science and Technology |
Origins, creation myths and the relationships between the Gods |
Indicative Content |
| Northern myths and Gods and heroes in Celtic myths.
Myths are complex narratives that frequently involve supernatural beings and often recount cultural understandings of origins of the world and human societies and usually show the relationship between spiritual powers such as Gods and other supernatural beings and between the gods and human societies. They are culturally embedded and often embody the world view of a given culture. Myths were often accompanied by ritual and religious practices. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| In contrast to the single God of Old Testament and Quran, the pantheism of Norse and Celtic myth offer a range of psychological types for identification at a time when children are emerging as distinctive personality types. These stories do not mediate moral messages but rather a phenomenology of psychological times, human wisdom and folly, as well as a sense of loss of intuitive connection to and embedding in the world. It becomes clear that human societies have to find their way back to meaning through their culture and by paying dues to the gods as personifications of natural forces. The Celts represent a warrior class with a deep connection to nature, who became ‘domesticated’ in Roman times. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Along with these myths comes insight into other pre-Christian ways of understanding the world, cosmopolitan cultures who left their original heartland and transformed themselves. Both people colonised and became native in new places.
Mythological traditions from elsewhere E.g. African, Chinese etc Songs, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Literacy, Social Science, Aesthetic and Creative |
Use of language: time, place and space |
Indicative Content |
| Using the main tenses to express the past, present and future. Modal and auxiliary verbs. Prepositions of space; adverbial phrases of time, place and manner. Use of the comma.
History of writing – making pen, ink and paper, usually as part of the outdoor curriculum. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Children are developing competence and accuracy in expression and the use of language. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Consider the importance of accepting vernacular and dialect (both regional and ethnic) English (contractions, idioms, slang, phrasal verbs etc). Promote an understanding that there are many Englishes, all equally valid in context, and that only written English has a standard form. Ensure example sentences feature a wide range of people and challenge stereotypes (e.g. conscious choice of gendered pronouns). |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Literacy |
Inter-relationships: plaiting and braiding |
Indicative Content |
| The new element of plaiting and braiding using strands and bands is introduced using both symmetric and asymmetric forms, and applied as ornamentation (e.g. Norse, Celtic, Longobardian, Arabic knotwork) or as labyrinths. Inspiration can be drawn from natural shapes and rhythms (e.g. spirals, vortices). Calligraphy and different scripts can be explored, including the history of writing. Fractions can be represented visually. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Linearity is an archetypal quality as old as humanity related to orality, expressing directional movement in space and time. Walking, talking (storylines, songlines) and drawing are all linear. Children need the opportunity for free linear drawing, rather than drawing from observation or imagination because the dynamic movements are embodied and not yet filled with mental content. Form drawing or dynamic drawing is an activity that transforms bodily movement in space into inner movement in ways that transposes the external orientation into inner orientation, weaving the three dimensions (up/down, right/left and behind /in front) into a dynamic relationship between point and periphery, centre and circumference. It is a creative process, free hand requiring control and sense of proportion that builds on archetypal forms, point, line, surface and volume. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Songs, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and songs should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Maths (Shape, Space and Measure), Visual and Graphic Art (form drawing) |
Numbers and their many parts |
Indicative Content |
| This main lesson block rests on children’s individual, detailed and fluent knowledge of their times tables and number bonds.
Experimentation with dividing wholes into parts, beginning with physical experience of dividing real things, including both objects and abstractions like musical time/notes, into halves, thirds, quarters, eighths etc. Children should develop a qualitative understanding of the basic principle that all fractional pieces should be equal. This skill (knowledgeable action with purpose) can then be applied to numbers, e.g. what is ⅔ of 12?, with the knowledge and understanding of numerator and denominator. At this point, the focus is on the division of larger numbers into smaller ones e.g. 12 is what part of 60?, rather than the division of 1. Once this skill is secure, children can move on to reducing and expanding fractions, exploring equivalent fractions and finding common denominators. This is then applied to calculating in adding and subtracting fractions. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Fractions are an ecological consciousness of how the parts and the whole relate. In Class 3 children began to understand the need to standardise the relationship of the body to the world in human communities by having standard units of measurement. In Class 4 this process becomes internalised into thinking, relating the parts to the whole in an abstract, conceptual way. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Fractions are about fairness and equality, and the morality of sharing equally.
Ensure that any pictures, stories and other representations are inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and songs should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Maths, Visual and Graphic Art (Drawing) |
Modern Foreign Languages - Structured orality, beginning literacy |
Indicative Content |
| Writing down what children know orally; writing known words in families, phrases and declensions. As literacy becomes established, children move on to reading texts they are unfamiliar with. Vocabulary linked to directions and maps. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Orality continues to make up at least half of the lessons. Children begin to write down the things they know orally from the first three classes, e.g. songs, rhymes, verses, phrases, dialogues etc. As the content is already known, children can read back their own writing easily. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Songs, stories, texts and pictures should represent a wide range of people, skin colours, hair types etc, and should not reinforce stereotypes. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Modern Foreign Languages |
Sustainable Living: Early literacy, local history |
Indicative Content |
| Mirroring children’s expanding consciousness, the home environment expands further into the local area, both physically and in terms of understanding local history and geography. Children discover old industries related to local crafts, investigating place names and meeting local artisans. Walking the local area and exploring local nature reserves allows them to experience the physical geography of an area and its impact on native flora and fauna. Navigation becomes important, learning to orient oneself using a compass and the position of the sun, reflecting the focus on mapmaking in the ‘Near to Me’ local geography main lesson. In the home base, children will need more physical challenge for their developing bodies. Both fine and gross motor skills can be worked on, for example through tool use and/or the construction of larger structures such as a climbing frame or ‘jungle gym’. Charcoal can be made, and a first experience of smithing provides links to northern myths. The history of writing is an important focus as children in the classroom make the transition from pencil and crayon to fountain pen. Children make paper, pen and ink from natural materials, applying the tool skills that they have previously developed. The historical technological development of the use of heat to process materials is explored through the construction of, for example, a kiln or oven. Care of the environment, including developing a sense of responsibility in caring for plants and animals in the wild, is important.
From Class 4, one or more additional crafts can be added to the curriculum. The craft chosen and the level at which it is engaged with will be dependent on the practical skills of the teacher, and the prior learning of the children. Some suggested themes might be basic blacksmithing, or ceramics. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| The change of consciousness of Class 3 opens the door to a whole new level of literacy and numeracy in Class 4, and what was formerly exploration in nature can be transformed into the developing capacity of imagination. Thus outdoor work focuses more on crafts and manual skills (pen, paper, ink). |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| If Vikings are a theme, shipbuilding and navigation techniques but also Viking trade connections with the Black Sea and Western Asia, and their use of currency. When doing local geography, trade and exchange between geographical regions is important to show intercultural exchange. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Science and Technology, Geography, Social Science, Careers |
Human and Animal |
Indicative Content |
| Descriptive accounts of a number of diverse individual creatures, their habitats and unique behavioural characteristics. Developing imaginative visualisation of contrasting animals in their habitats from a morphological and functional perspective.
Comparison of human and animal forms, in terms of locomotion (movement), manipulation, nutrition, reproduction and senses. The specialisms of the animals chosen are contrasted with the human production and use of tools as extensions of anatomy (claws, teeth vs knives etc). Attention is drawn to specific human characteristics such as emotion, language and tool use. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| The participatory nature of the children’s consciousness has ended and they need a new, direct, observational and fact-based relationship to animals amid an awakening appreciation of their own relationship to them, beyond being ‘pets’ or resting on sentimental feelings, yet retaining an emotional connection and a recognition of human responsibility for their welfare and survival. They are awakening to the sense that they each have a life task as a human being. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Emphasise a holistic ecological approach, an appreciation of the complexity, diversity and beauty of the natural world, and sense of human stewardship of nature. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Science and Technology |
Near To Me |
Indicative Content |
| Exploring the locality that can be reached on foot or bicycle, noticing and describing what is discovered, asking questions about it. Exploring the historical origins of the area, e.g. how the local physical geography, availability of materials, natural transport routes and trade have impacted the development of the settlement. Translating direct experience on foot into maps, from simple subjective perspective to more formal compass oriented representations with symbols and legend for the salient features. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| The Rubicon experience has a personal dimension (who am I?) in class 3 and a more objective dimension in class 4, the story of the place we are in. The story of the place combines movement (ideally by foot) through space, the historical stories associated with the places we encounter and the representation of both in text and map. This schools the mental mapping processes and establishes both physical orientation and spatial memory and temporal memory in narrative, thus developing cognitive skills at visualising space and ordering time. . |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Almost all places have been home to different peoples who came here or were always here. Most people are migrants and the history of a place is always the history of peoples and their relations in a place. Today the story of migration and integration is an essential message in the main lesson block.
Songs, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Geography, Social Science, Literacy, Visual and Graphic Art |
Puberty |
Indicative Content |
| Correct vocabulary for genital area, e.g. vulva, vagina, penis, testicles, breasts, clitoris, urethra.
Changes in puberty: pubic and underarm hair; spots, sweat and mood. Girls: growth of the breasts, onset of menstruation. Boys: voice breaking, growth of the penis/testicles, hair on the face, erections and ejaculation (including wet dreams). Menstrual literacy: managing periods, including leaking. Internal and external, disposable and reusable menstrual products. History and cultural context of periods; religious and cultural taboos; advertising. Please see resources for the ‘Period Positive’ scheme of work, which has detailed and age-appropriate content. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| This short main lesson, or series of subject lessons, where possible should be delivered by the class teacher, with whom the children have a trusting and trusted relationship. If this is not possible, then the class teacher should work alongside an appropriate expert or alternative adult. It is imperative that all children in the class feel safe to ask questions or ask for support from their class teacher around puberty and menstruation. Therefore the class teacher should be involved in this aspect of their education. The age of the onset of puberty in the UK is 8-12 for girls, and 9-14 for boys. An early start to this topic gives children embodied confidence, and a cultural literacy that enables them to recognise myths and taboo messages. The class teacher should judge when is the right time to bring this content, but the aim should always be to bring it before the first girl starts their period. These topics should be revisited regularly, to ensure that pupils’ level of understanding is appropriate, and that they have regular opportunities to ask questions and receive clarification. Children should be taught together, not segregated by sex/gender. This is particularly important for trans, non-binary and intersex children, but also as a way of encouraging boys to be understanding and supportive of girls’ menstruation, and to reduce teasing and bullying. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Use unbranded products or remove branding where possible. Include all genders and cultures. Use positive language. Be detailed and factual. Period poverty.
Images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| RSE, PSHE, Science |
Media Education |
Indicative Content |
| Children should be taught how to use books for research, navigating book collections and libraries. They should use this research in small projects, drawing on their growing literacy skills and showing their work in regular small presentations. Singing is still a regular and important part of the school day, and children are offered the opportunity to build on their recorder skills by taking up a more challenging instrument. The drawings required of the children become more detailed and exact, for example in the zoology main lesson, and different media forms such as flip books and shadow theatres may be introduced. Children experience making pens and inks from natural materials in the outdoor curriculum. Practical technological competence and understanding are further developed here, as children explore the historical industries of the local area in a practical way, e.g. making charcoal, digging clay etc. Through discussion of the characters in books and stories, children understand that people can disguise themselves, and trick others into believing things that are not true. Children are encouraged to talk about things that might make people (including themselves) feel sad, worried, uncomfortable or frightened. They are supported to understand what bullying is, and how to report it, and to explore the idea of peer pressure and how to respond to it. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Analogue processes help children understand things in the truest sense of the word. Once they are acquainted with analogue technologies and their potentials, the basis is created for them to be able to judge how and when digital techniques can be used sensibly, based on their own experience. Mastering the medium of writing forms the basis of all media competence. Reading is the basic and key qualification that develops and promotes media competence in general. The ability to present content in an effective and independent way requires the ability to research knowledge in analogue as well as digital formats. Understanding the construction of images and music, and how basic media carriers (e.g. paper, pens) are produced, provides children with a basis for later judgement(s) of media. Learning a challenging solo instrument helps children to develop the widest possible range of productive musical skills and benefit from practical experience. Alongside this practical competence is a focus on the development of dispositions and social and emotional skills which support children to later develop self control and regulate their use of media, and to treat people in the digital realm with respect and understanding. This can be followed through the PSHE/RSE curriculum, and the development of imagination and empathy as enhanced capacities through long term curriculum intent. In modern life, regardless of a school’s policy on media use at home, children will have direct and indirect exposure to media through family and friends. Potentially disturbing or dangerous content, or even seemingly harmless images leave an impression on the young child. Children need to be confident that they have safe spaces in which to discuss their feelings about whatever they may have seen or been exposed to. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Songs, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and songs should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Technology, RSE, PSHE |
Spiritual, religious, ethical and moral education |
Indicative Content |
| Norse myths are often shared, explored and acted out. Other texts and stories can be chosen that capture a growing multiplicity of characters and include irreverence and shifting loyalties. What happens when gods become subject to age and death?
Pagan festivals can be looked at throughout the year e.g. Lammas day, Samhain. Viking religion, culture, peoples and traditions are sometimes explored. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
| Children are building a new relationship with the world – ordering and structuring with strength and courage. Confidence is expressed in a quality of vigour and an eagerness to look at and learn about the world. Met in stories in which a multiplicity of personalities contribute to the social whole and in which darkness and evil become more concrete. Children begin to identify individual ‘badness’ in contrast to social or communal ‘goodness’. They form a sense of where they are in relation to their environment, in both a social and geographical sense. Post 9-year change, the children are in a different, more remote relationship with the world than before. The earlier harmony between inner and outer worlds is broken. |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Explore folk tales that represent the local area and those from around the world that fit the mood of multiplicity in character and building new worlds and / or are of Pagan association. Use stories that are diverse in their representation of people, gender, sex, sexuality, religion and ethnicity. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| SMSC |
Under development!
Physical Education |
Indicative Content |
| The class |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| All |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Physical |
Under development!
Music |
Indicative Content |
| In Class Four the children begin more formal music lessons with the music teacher, working in harmony with Rudolph Steiner’s guidelines of child development. There is still a seasonal context. Less imagery is needed at this age. The children extend their knowledge on how to read music, and a recorder ensemble is formed that starts in unison and progresses throughout the year to include two and three parts. Additional instruments are introduced to the ensemble gradually throughout the year, at the teacher’s discretion, if children are learning privately. There are frequent opportunities to share solos within the lessons. All children participate and remain equal, regardless of ability. In class 4 the children also join their first choir which is together with class 5, singing action songs, part songs, rounds, canons and quodlibets. Singing in parts strengthens the developing ego. |
Pedagogical Reasoning |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| All songs, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and music should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Creative and Aesthetic, Technology |
Under development!
Eurythmy |
Indicative Content |
| In Class 4, the children, mostly secure in their individuality, now begin to discover how they relate to others in the world. They feel themselves to be separating from the world, and as this process evolves, they start to experience their soul-life in a more deep and independent way. Through exploring spatial dimensions, the children’s feeling realm gets engaged. When the body complies with the movements of a spatial form, all aspects of their soul-life are involved. Movement in a centrally orientated circle is often exchanged for movement facing forwards, which gives a different sense of space. Through walking the ‘Polonaise’ form, the children experience the transformation of a circle into 4 rows facing frontal.
The geometric castle-wall form of stepping and transforming the ‘Walls of Åsgard’ (main lesson North Mythology), demanding exact individual timing, stepping and turning, is another example. The Pentagram form lets the children discover that they can move this form in space and metamorphose the movement in a myriad of ways, always conscious of the other 4 points of the star and their relationship to one another. In Speech Eurythmy the children are exploring grammatical elements of language, expressing nouns, verbs, adjectives and alliteration through spatial forms. In this way the children take in grammar not only through their understanding but also through feelings and movement. In Music Eurythmy the C-major scale is explored and the children experience ‘the human being as an instrument’ though this may be deferred to class 5.
|
Pedagogical Reasoning |
Considerations for Decolonisation/Contextualisation |
| Music, stories and images should be inclusive of a range of people, taking into consideration: gender and family stereotypes, skin and hair colour/type, disability and age. Stories and music should be taken from a range of cultures around the world. |
Suggested ARLOs |
| Physical Education, Creative and Aesthetic |
Based on Steiner Waldorf Schools Fellowship® Ltd indicative curriculum for Steiner Waldorf Schools, The Art of Teaching