Newsletter Issue 4
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Friday 28th September 2012
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Dear Parent/Carer,
Well, thank goodness the weather has improved! I must say, I have felt rather fortunate to be residing in the West rather than the North of Yorkshire, where schools a-plenty have been closed because of the flooding this week. Our spirits have not been dampened and despite a few wet plays, the children have shown continuing fabulous attitudes to learning.
PTA name
I mentioned last week that we are re-branding our PTA by inviting the children to come up with another name for the PTA title. In a bid to raise some initial funds, we are asking that the children pay £1 for their idea and put their idea in a named envelope for the attention of Mrs Mistry by 5th October. The winner will win 20 points for their “house” and remember, house points could mean a fabulous end of term treat!
James Driver
At the last count, James along with his family and friends had managed to raise over £35,000 for his life changing operation. This is an incredible achievement in itself.
We are blessed to be part of such a caring community as the fund raising efforts continue to take place. I would like to mention and say thanks to Daz Mitchell. Daz is the father of Lily in Year 1 and Robert in Year 5 and he has entered The Bupa Great Birmingham Run taking place on Sunday 21 October 2012. This started out as a personal challenge but having already run a half marathon for personal gain, he subsequently decided to raise a few funds for James. You can sponsor Daz by visiting:
Thanks Daz- you are a star!
Holidays in term time
Recently, I have had a lot of holiday requests to be taken in term time. Can I please take this opportunity to reiterate the impact that this could have on your child’s education. Our lessons are delivered at incredible pace and even just a few days can leave gaps in your child’s learning, which has a knock on effect for subsequent lessons. It is absolutely vital that, for the learning to be as effective and coherent as possible, the children have a seamless series of lessons. I am a huge advocate for family holidays and understand the importance of quality time together in these times of being overworked and underpaid (!!) but I highly recommend that you take your holidays during the school holidays.
Year 6 Sats week
Year 6 will take their Sats tests during the week beginning 13th May 2013. We are giving you as much notice as possible so that you can ensure that no holidays or days out are taken during this time. Thank you.
Learning Walk
Miss Hinton and I had the pleasure of carrying out a “Learning Walk” across school earlier this week. It was a joy to see the learning that was taking place in each classroom across school. There was real purpose to the lessons and the children were extremely engaged in the sessions. We are overjoyed at how confident the youngest children are and what a mature approach to learning the older children display. Robin Hood is an incredible place to learn and visits to the classrooms highlight this for us more than ever.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Dale
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had another productive week in Nursery this week and the children continue to impress us with their enthusiasm for learning. This week we have been learning all about our special families. With Miss Fox the children have made some brilliant family portraits and they have amazed us with their creativity!
THIS WEEK
In phonics this week the children have had lots of fun listening carefully and trying to guess what Miss Fox had in her box. We also listened to different environmental sounds and the children were brilliant at being able to tell what the sounds were. It was lovely to see what lovely families all the children have from the home learning this week and in our first literacy session the children were all very excited to tell us how wonderful their families are. Also in literacy this week the children have completed a picture caption of their lovely families and they will add to them next week when we add Grandparents. In numeracy this week we have been learning about shapes and positions. We have been very impressed by their knowledge of shapes so please keep pointing out different shapes in the environment.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will be learning all about our grandparents. In numeracy we will be focusing on one to one correspondence counting and matching numbers of objects to the correct number. We will be going on a counting bear hunt around the school grounds counting the number of bears that have escaped. In phonics next week we will be moving onto phase 2 and making farm animal and zoo animal noises, I expect to see some fantastic elephants and monkeys.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record. Remember you are more than welcome to come in and change your child’s reading books.
· Please ensure your child has their reading book on their designated day.
· Please practice counting to 10 with your child at any opportunity e.g. counting apples in the supermarket etc. and practising recognising numbers.
· Please can you support your child to go to the toilet independently and make sure they know how to wash their hands thoroughly afterwards.
Thank you for your continued support and the effort you are putting into the home learning. Have a fantastic weekend!
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had another productive week in Reception this week and the children continue to impress us with their enthusiasm for learning. This week we have been learning all about our special families. With Miss Friar the children have made some brilliant finger puppets of their mums and dads and they have amazed us with their creativity! I imagine that we are going to be watching a lot of exciting puppet shows in Reception over the next week. We would like to take this opportunity to say a big congratulations to our 13 children who managed to learn all of the sounds AND words of the week! This is a big improvement from the week before when 8 children got 100%. With your support we will be able to increase this number even further in the coming weeks.
THIS WEEK
In phonics this week we have been practising saying and writing the sounds; g, o, c, and k and reading our key words of the week which were dad, had, back, and, get and big. It was lovely to see what lovely families all the children have from the home learning this week and in our first literacy session the children were all very excited to tell us how wonderful their families are. Also in literacy this week the children have made some zigzag books about their families, they are starting to look fabulous and will be finished off next week when we add their Grandparents. In numeracy this week we have been learning about shapes, positions and repeating patterns. We definitely have some up and coming fashion designers as the jumpers and handbags they designed for you were beautiful.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will be learning all about our grandparents. In numeracy we will be focusing on one to one correspondence counting and matching numbers of objects to the correct number. We will be going on a counting bear hunt around the school grounds counting the number of bears that have escaped. Next week’s sounds are; ck, e, u and our words of the week are; him, his, not, got, up and mum. Please help your child to practice saying the sounds of the letters, writing the letters with fabulous formation and reading the words so that your child can receive their certificate!
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record. Please concentrate on asking your child to say what the sounds are in a word and then blending them to read the word.
· Please ensure your child has their reading book on their designated day.
· Please practice counting to 10 and 20 with your child at any opportunity e.g. counting apples in the supermarket etc. and practising recognising numbers.
· Please look at your child’s name book to see what they need to do next to make their name writing even better. We will mark their name book when we listen to them read so please ensure it is in their book bag on their designated day.
Thank you for your continued support and the effort you are putting into the home learning. Have a fantastic weekend!
Key Stage 1 Newsletter
Home Learning
This week, in Numeracy, the children have been looking at place value and what each number represents. Please support your child by giving them two, three or four digit numbers to partition. The year 1’s can use Maltesers as an aid to partition the numbers while the year 2’s progress onto using numbers.
News
Sock
Mrs Wathen has asked Miss McSorley’s class bring in an old, preferably clean, sock for Tuesday as they will be making a sock puppet.
Stomp
KS1 are going to be re-creating STOMP! in music. We'd really appreciate your help in gathering some 'instruments'. We're after any everyday household objects/waste items that make an interesting noise. Such as: milk cartons, bubble wrap, tubs/containers, old pans (only ones you don't want any more!) We hope you can help…
Literacy
This week, in Literacy, the children have continued to look at Robots and their functions in order for them to write a booklet. They have looked at what constitutes a Robot, reasons Robots are used and the use of Robots in Space. The children have watched a number of videos on Space which showed spaceships that are controlled from earth, landing on different planets to explore them. They have read information from a variety of sources and looked at how they can ‘steal’ information from books and use it within their writing. The children have continued to embed the use of capital letters and full stops while developing their ideas using: so, if, but, because, and, when.
Next week the children will continue to write their booklet on Robots highlighting the use of Robots in the Army. They will be reading about why Robots are used in the Army and will also watch videos showing them in action. The children will conclude the week by taking part in a Star Write challenge and applying their own individual target.
Please continue to read on a regular basis with your child, asking your child questions about what they have read in order to develop their understanding. Please hand in their Reading Record on a Monday morning so we can continue to encourage reading at home. Parents/Carers are welcome to come into school at home time to help pick a reading book with their child.
Numeracy
This week, in Numeracy, the children have been reading two, three and four digit numbers (24/568/8423), please continue to support your child at home by writing down numbers and asking them to read them. Harry from Year 1/2 impressed Miss Hinton and Miss Pensom last week by reading a six digit number.
The children have begun to look at place value and how to label the columns of a number (Th = thousand column, H = hundred column, T = tens column, U = units column). They have also looked at what value each number represents, i.e. 74 is made up of 7 tens and 4 units. The children have continued to develop their knowledge of numbers, and the numbers system, by looking at what each number represents in 3 and 4 digit numbers. Please support your child to complete this week’s home learning task putting the numbers in order from largest to smallest or smallest to largest and explaining how they know which numbers are the largest/smallest.
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had a super time in lower key stage 2 this week! The children have blown us away with their sensible behaviour and their outstanding learning.
Home Learning
This week for home learning, we have asked the children to continue learning their spellings which can be found in their reading records. We were really pleased with this week’s spelling test with all the high scores the children received. Some of the children in 3/4 have been issued with a purple learning pack. Please support us in supporting your child’s learning, by encouraging them to practice their key word spellings on a regular basis. Please also continue to encourage your child to read regularly at home and sign their reading record as evidence.
Literacy
In Literacy this week we have been finding out all about Victorian Schools. The children have been watching different film clips and reading a variety of books in order to learn interesting facts to include in their writing. We have been further developing our understanding of compound sentences by using sophisticated connects, for example: despite, although, as well as. We have also been encouraging children to write paragraphs with audience engaging features, such as questions to the reader, alliteration, and brackets for further information. We are really proud of the children’s independence in using a thesaurus to find different word choices for their writing.
Numeracy
In Numeracy this week the children have been using the more than and less than symbols to determine the value of a given number. The children have really impressed us by using decimal notation and negative numbers. Next week we will be joining Woody and his round up gang learning how to round 10’s, 100’s and 1000’s!
Topic
This week in Topic, children have been watching a variety of film clips, including Oliver, and using information books in order to make relevant notes about Victorian Schools. We have been learning all about how terrible the teachers were and have had great discussions about the punishments that were dished out! Next week we will be learning about Victorian leisure and play activities.
Spellings to be tested on 8th October (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Group One
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Group Two
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Bee
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Worry
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Feet
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Absorbent
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Knew
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Sorry
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Tree
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Several
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Sheep
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Coffee
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Queen
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Yesterday
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Teeth
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Thousand
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Cheese
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Character
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Wheel
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Understand
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Similar
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Reminders
· Please ensure your child has an art shirt, which stays in their locker throughout the year.
· PE kits need to come in on a Monday and be taken home on a Friday. Miss Thackeray’s and
Mrs Moore’s class will now have PE on Tuesdays. Miss Snowden’s will have PE on Thursday.
· Please ensure you bring in your signed reading record on Monday morning.
UKS2 News Roundup
· Congratulations to our achievers of the week who are Laura Paul and Millie Booth for their amazing home learning. Both girls pulled out all the stops with their Tudor home learning, producing very realistic and highly detailed models of a Tudor house and of the stocks! Well done girls!
· Children in Year 6 have this week been given information about the Leeds Children’s Mayor 2012. This is an exciting project in which Robin Hood can nominate one candidate to stand for the position of Leeds Children’s Mayor. From the entries, candidates are then shortlisted and a vote is held for the three favourite entries. All candidates who are shortlisted are invited along with their families to a special evening reception at the Civic Hall at which the new Children’s Mayor of Leeds is announced. The winning candidate will accompany the Lord Mayor on stage at the Leeds Christmas lights switch-on to “flick the switch” in front of 20,000 people and meet the celebrities! How exciting! The Children’s Mayor will be in position until the end of the summer term, 2013. Year 6 children who are interested have been asked to prepare a manifesto of no more than 400 words, think of a short and catchy slogan and design a poster to support their idea. There are further details on the information sheets sent home earlier this week. Please have manifestos ready by Monday 1st October.
· Year 5/6 has a new blog! Please visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ to find out what we’ve been up to.
Reminders:
· PE kit should be a plain white T-shirt, black or blue shorts and outdoor trainers (weather permitting). No jewellery should be worn. Please can all the children ensure that they are come into school with the correct PE kit on Monday (5/6G & 5/6B) and Tuesday (5/6M).
· Don’t forget to bring in your planners every day, especially on a Monday when they will be stamped and signed – try to aim for at least 4 entries per week of reading and remember, stickers are up for grabs!
· Please ensure that step booklets for the Global Children’s Challenge are in school for our ICT lessons (5/6M and 5/6B Monday; 5/6G Tuesday)
Numeracy:
- This week, the children have been rounding and estimating large numbers and decimal numbers.
- Next week, we will be applying addition and subtraction skills to multi-step problems and investigations – we will even be film producers for the day, where we will need to budget for a new film!
- Try some of the addition and subtraction games on the Maths Zone website ahead of our sessions next week. Alternatively, visit 5/6G’s blog via our school website to access some mental maths games.
Literacy:
- This week, the children have been using time connectives when writing about the voyage of Sir Francis Drake as well as identifying when alternative, more impressive word choices can be made. A focus continues on ensuring that capital letters and full stops are 100% accurate in writing and that a range of connectives and clauses are being used to develop ideas. Next week we will be looking at how to write a formal letter ensuring we include all of our key features from the term so far.
- Spellings for this week, which will be tested on Friday, are all words containing unstressed vowels: marvellous, primary, doctor, January, familiar, stationary, deafening, miserable, frightening, geography.
Please make sure you try hard to learn all of your spellings each week as they are a fundamental Literacy skill.
Other areas of the curriculum:
- In Topic, pupils have been continuing their independent learning which relates to a Tudor topic of their choice. Children have also been introduced to the concept of a coat of arms. They have been designing and producing their own coat of arms which represents who they are, using a variety of symbols and mottos. We will be transferring our ideas onto acetate next week.
- In PE this week, pupils have been learning the key points to performing the stop turn in football and applying this into small sided game scenarios.
- In Spanish this week, the children have been applying their knowledge of basic foods and how to express their likes and dislikes in a conversation using tengo (I have) and Te gustan (Do you like). We will be using these phrases in some role play over the forthcoming weeks.
- In Music, 5/6B have been continuing to learn about crotchets, quavers and dynamics. They have been using percussion instruments to play samba music in three parts. 5/6M have been reading musical notes and applying this to perform well known musical songs and rhymes using the grand piano on the garage band iPad application. 56G have been learning about minims and rests and have been reading music to play songs in rounds.
- In ICT, the children have been adding their step data to an Excel spreadsheet and then using a formula to calculate the class’ total steps for each day of the challenge. We can then add this information to the Global Children’s Challenge to travel around the world.
