Year 4 is a pivotal year in primary mathematics. It is the year children are expected to master their times tables, work with larger numbers, and begin to develop a more formal understanding of fractions and measurement. If your child is in Year 4 – or about to enter it - here is what the national curriculum says they should know by the end of the year.
Place Value: Numbers up to 10,000
By the end of Year 4, children should be able to recognise the place value of each digit in a four-digit number (thousands, hundreds, tens, and ones). They should be able to order and compare numbers beyond 1,000 and round any number to the nearest 10, 100, or 1,000. This builds on the three-digit work from Year 3 and lays the groundwork for working with numbers up to 1,000,000 in Year 5.
Practically, this means your child should be comfortable reading and writing numbers like 4,752 and understanding that the 4 represents four thousand. They should be able to count in multiples of 6, 7, 9, 25, and 1,000, and find 1,000 more or less than a given number.
Addition and Subtraction with 4 Digits
The national curriculum requires Year 4 children to add and subtract numbers with up to four digits using the formal written methods of columnar addition and subtraction. They should be able to estimate and use inverse operations to check their answers. Word problems become more complex at this stage, often involving two steps – for example, finding a total and then calculating the difference.
Our Maths Challenge game is particularly useful here, as it presents multi-step problems under gentle time pressure, helping children build both accuracy and confidence with larger numbers.
Times Tables up to 12 x 12
This is the big one. By the end of Year 4, children are expected to recall multiplication and division facts for all times tables up to 12 x 12. The government introduced the Multiplication Tables Check (MTC) specifically for Year 4 pupils, reflecting how important fluency at this stage is considered to be.
Fluency means more than being able to work it out – it means instant recall. When asked "what is 7 x 8?", the answer should come without hesitation. This fluency underpins almost everything that follows in maths: fractions, division, algebra, and beyond.
Bell.Study's Times Tables game is designed specifically for this, with adaptive difficulty that focuses on the facts your child finds hardest. Regular short sessions – even five minutes a day – make a significant difference.
Times tables fluency is not about rote learning for its own sake. It is the foundation that allows children to access more complex mathematics with confidence.
Fractions: Tenths and Hundredths
Year 4 introduces a much more formal approach to fractions. Children should recognise and show, using diagrams, families of common equivalent fractions. They need to count up and down in hundredths and understand that hundredths arise from dividing an object into 100 equal parts or by dividing tenths by 10.
They should also be able to add and subtract fractions with the same denominator, and recognise the connection between tenths, hundredths, and decimal notation. The Fraction Pizza game on Bell.Study helps make this visual and intuitive, letting children build fractions by slicing pizzas into equal parts.
Measurement: Perimeter and Area
Year 4 is when children first encounter the concept of area. They should be able to find the area of rectilinear shapes by counting squares, and measure and calculate the perimeter of a rectilinear figure (including squares) in centimetres and metres. They also continue to convert between different units of measure – for example, kilometres to metres, or hours to minutes.
Understanding the difference between perimeter (the distance around a shape) and area (the space inside it) is a common stumbling block. Practical activities – measuring rooms, drawing shapes on squared paper – help enormously.
Telling Time and 2D Shape Properties
By Year 4, children should be able to read, write, and convert time between analogue and digital 12-hour and 24-hour clocks. They should solve problems involving converting from hours to minutes, minutes to seconds, years to months, and weeks to days. Telling time to the nearest minute should be secure by this point.
In geometry, children compare and classify geometric shapes, including quadrilaterals and triangles, based on their properties and sizes. They should identify acute and obtuse angles and compare and order angles up to two right angles by size. They also learn to identify lines of symmetry in 2D shapes presented in different orientations.
How to Support Your Child
The national curriculum sets out what children should learn, but every child progresses at their own pace. If your child is confident with most of these areas, that is excellent. If they are finding some topics challenging, that is completely normal – Year 4 covers a lot of ground.
Short, regular practice is far more effective than long cramming sessions. Five minutes of times tables practice daily will do more than an hour at the weekend. Games like those on Bell.Study can turn that practice into something your child actually wants to do. And if you want to see exactly what the curriculum expects, our Curriculum Browser lets you explore every objective for every year group, completely free.