Year 4

If this academic year was a D.V.D, it would be a best seller that we’d watch over and over again. It has been an absolute pleasure to have the boys back in school and making the most of their learning opportunities. The boys should feel proud of their efforts this year and they approached each challenge with unbridled enthusiasm.

Miss Oakley, Miss Valentino and I have had an absolute blast teaching this incredibly engaging group of boys as they have developed their independence, both socially and academically.

In Maths, they became more adept at flexible problem-solving and took part in a variety of Rockstar’s competitions; in English, they threw themselves once again into the Accelerated Reader programme (reading is a particular strength and passion of this group) and as a result built up their confidence at writing creatively and at length. The boys were immersed in learning new Alan Peat writing structures and proved themselves as exceptionally good writers too. In Topic, they enjoyed discovering about Romans, Anglo Saxons and Vikings, Mountains, Rivers and Coasts; in Science, they furthered their knowledge of plants, animals (especially humans), light, sound and electricity. This learning was all brought to life with the help of several trips and events, including Pizza making, Whipsnade Zoo and a variety of author talks. And who could forget the amazing celebratory trip to Bushcraft!

Many Year 4 boys featured prominently in the musical and dramatic life of the School this year, including in the school’s fantastic Mini Musical, performed by the choir. The boys have dived head-first into a range of dramatic opportunities, with many taking on extra Speech and Drama lessons and achieved great things at the Bedfordshire speech and drama festival. They took part in the Shakespeare monologue competition and showed passion and determination as they learned long speeches off by heart, from Julius Caesar to As you Like it. They had an amazing Drama morning with the Royal Shakespeare company, practising different techniques and scenes. The Performance poetry recital competition was again, an absolutely fantastic event where all the boys showed their confidence. The House Drama, play in a day, was an incredible event that gave the boys opportunities to perform, understand marketing and work across different year groups. It was a pleasure to watch, not only the actors mixing in with the older year groups, but the work behind the scenes too. It was wonderful as well to see such commitment to music from Year 4 boys in the various musical concerts across the year, including the Starter Class Concert towards the end of the Summer term in which every single boy performed.

It was a pleasure taking the boys on fixtures again and in each sport, every boy in the year group experienced these. Some amazing performances across the board and some delicious match teas. The boys showed leadership, respect and a good understanding of healthy competition at every level.

We kept up our brilliant connection with Bedford Girls school in a range of activity days, hosted both here and there. These included a brilliant Panto performance, dance workshops and an incredible Summer sports afternoon.

In June, every boy in the year group headed to their first residential trip since joining Bedford Prep and indeed, the first ever Year 4 Bushcraft experience. The boys dived into their learning in the wilderness and showed fantastic behaviour, manners and respect to the guides. They learned shelter building, fire making (where they cooked their own lunch) and variety of outdoor camouflage and concealment games. A brilliant time had by all as they developed their Future skills outside of the classroom context.

It has been an unbelievably busy, but thoroughly enjoyable year and we have loved working with this group of boys. I hope they look back on their year, full of achievements, with pride. We wish them all the very best of luck for Year 5 as they continue their learning journey through Bedford Prep.

WORDS BY Mr Sam Powell , Head of Year 4 YEAR 4 REPORT