Newsletter Issue 17
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Friday 17th January 2014
|
Dear Parent/Carer,
Every phase in school has now
delivered their first phase assembly, including Nursery this week. It has been
a joy to be part of these lovely showcases and to feel as though the children
are more involved. The feedback has been wonderful and I look forward to the
next round. For the remainder of this half term, the assemblies will be as follows:
Friday
24th January- Key Stage 1, Friday 31st January- Year 3/
4, Friday 7th February- Year 5/ 6, Friday 14th February-
Reception.
Assembly
dates for Spring 2
Friday 28th February-
Key Stage 1, Friday 7th March- Year 3/ 4, Friday 14th March- Training day, Friday 21st
March- Year 5/ 6, Friday 28th March- Reception, Weds 2nd
and Friday 4th April- Nursery. Dates are on the website, for your
reference.
E-Safety
Thank you to our Parent
Governor, Mr Reid for sharing some very useful web links which may be of
valuable use to parents. They have been provided by the West Yorkshire police
to raise awareness about E-Safety. We teach the children about E-Safety in
school and from September the new Computing Curriculum will be requiring that this
topic is covered across all key stages. For further information about how to
teach your child to be safe whilst using the internet at home, you can visit http://www.thinkuknow.co.uk
and http://snapguide.com/guides/keep-your-kids-safe-online-a-parents-guide.
Voices Foundation
Singing specialist, Jane
Leadbeater has been working with teachers this week to help them to improve
their singing skills so that we can teach the children how to be more effective
singers. She has visited classes and supported teachers to deliver fantastic
and highly focused singing lessons. As always, our brilliant teachers have been
keen to learn and this has influenced the children’s enjoyment. We look forward
to showing you some of the wonderful results.
Young Voices tickets up for grabs!
Whilst on the subject of
singing, we have 2 tickets spare for the Young Voices event at Sheffield Arena
next Wednesday (22nd). A choir of our children are attending to be
part of a huge singing event with many other schools in the area. If you would
like to watch this incredible show, please see Mrs Holland in the office. Price
£18 each.Dogs
Please be reminded dogs are not permitted on site. You will be asked to leave. Please think about the Health and Safety of our children. Thanks.
Website development
We are constantly looking
at ways to update and improve our website. I would like to include positive
quotes from parents and children to flash up on the homepage. If you have a
short, positive point about the school which you wouldn’t mind sharing, please
pop it in an email to me. It can be to do with any aspect of school life.
Thanks.
PTA News
Happy New
Year to all and hope your Christmas was a fantastic one, it seems so long ago
now.... On Wednesday 12 February we will be holding our Valentines Disco,
which is promising to be the best ever yet. We intend to have the usual
games, food, dancing and glo sticks, etc. Obviously to ensure that this
disco is as brilliant as the last, we do need the help of parents, grandparents
and carers. If you are able to help out at all on this evening please
would you contact us on robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com and advise whether you
could help out at the first disco, 3:45 until 5:00, the second disco 5:15 until
6:45 or even both. We look forward to hearing from you with your very
kind offers of help as always.
Have
a lovely weekend everyone.
Don’t forget!
Our next parents coffee morning will be on Monday
10th February 2014 between 9 am and 10 am with Miss Thackeray in
Friendly Faces. You are invited to come along with positive suggestions which
are relevant to the agendas that we set. Any other issues can come directly to
me. It is important that we use the limited time that we have together to best
effect. The agendas for next time will be:
· Home learning-
Do you think the children get too much/too little? Is it purposeful? Any ideas
for improvement.
· Holiday
projects- what do you and your child think of them?
· Just a question
for discussion- what would we think of a shorter summer holiday but longer half
terms?
If you cannot make it, we
value your views so you can email me at gaynor.dale@robinhood.leeds.sch.uk
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Thank you to all our
fabulous parents and carers for your support with home learning, reading at
home and name writing! Five minutes every day really does make a difference and
it is so lovely to see the children confidently speaking out in front of their friends.
We would also like to let you know that our fund raising initiative before
Christmas raised a whopping £195, which we will be able to use towards a visit
from a company who will bring in some zoo animals!
THIS WEEK
We have been learning about
Farms and finding out more about the types of animals we might find on a farm.
We have been exploring the small world farm and talking about where on the farm
each animal lives; for example Lara told me that the horse lives in the stable
and Jacob said that the pigs live in the mud! Thank you too for taking the time
to attend our Celebration assemblies this week – the children were really
excited about showing off their knowledge.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will continue
to learn about farm animals, focusing on the story of The Little Red Hen. We
will be using a technique called Pie Corbett to retell the story; during the
sessions we will be teaching the children actions to accompany the text and
they use these actions to retell the story back to their friends. Prepare to be
entertained! We will also be thinking about where food comes from – so for home learning please can you spend
some time with your child thinking about the food journey and discussing, for
example, what raw materials go into bread? There is a super on line game
which you might like to look at together - http://www.foodafactoflife.org.uk/Activity.aspx?contentId=174§ionId=63&siteId=14 In Numeracy we will be switching our focus to
number recognition. The children will be playing lots of games to help support
their recognition of numbers up to 10.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
·
Please continue to read every day with your
child and bring in book bags Mondays and Wednesdays so we can change their
books.
·
Keep practising writing the first letter in
your child’s name and beyond as soon as they are ready (all children were given
a name book just before the Christmas break)
·
Please complete the home learning task with your child (see above) to give them a head
start for our new learning next week
·
Please practice spotting numbers 1-5 and once
your child can do this confidently 1-10 and beyond.
Thank you for your support. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin, Miss Fox and Mrs Beckwith
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Yet again we have had
another exciting week in Reception. Today Abbey House Vets surgery visited us
and brought in some animals that were not very well. The children were all very
sympathetic and offered some excellent suggestions about how the vet could make
the animals better.
THIS WEEK
The children came into the
classroom all very excited about the home learning they had been doing and some
of their wonderful books have been published in our school library so that all
the children in the school can see how clever the Reception children are. In
literacy we have been learning all about the story The Little Red Hen. They
acted the story out fantastically with actions and drew a fabulous story map of
what had happened in the story. Finally they wrote their very own version of
The Little Red Hen and the children are now real authors! The children’s
writing is really improving but it is the area the children often find the
hardest, so please try and do as much writing at home as possible. In topic the
children pretended they were The Little Red Hen and baked some delicious bread
which they really enjoyed eating, but they were only allowed to eat the bread
because they had been good friends and helped their friends bake it. The
children have been doing lots of practical maths this week about capacity. They
have been milking the cows on the farm and have been comparing which cow
produced the fullest container and which produced the empty container. This
week learnt to read and write the Phase 3 sounds ng, ai, ee and igh and
learnt to read the tricky words; so, do,
come, some, have and like.
NEXT WEEK
Next week our literacy and
topic focus is British Wildlife. We will begin the week by reading the story
Percy the Park Keeper and will discuss the different habitats the animals live
in. Each day we are going to be nature explorers and we will be learning facts
about a different animal. We will sneak into the playground with our clipboards
and magnifying glasses and see if we can spot any signs of the animals. Our
literacy time will be spent publishing our very own fact files about British
Wildlife. In topic we will start the week with a science focus and we will
learn all about food chains. The children will act the food chains out and they
will put the animals in the correct order. In numeracy we will be learning
about doubling numbers. In phonics we will be learning the phase 3 sounds oa, oo (book), oo (hoop) and ar (car) and reading Phase 4 key words were, there, little, one, when, out and what.
Have a great weekend!
Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception team.
Key Stage 1
Home learning
Our
focus this half term in Literacy is around the accurate use of capital letters,
full stops and conjunctions (so, if, but, because, when) to develop ideas. Some
children have also been learning about the effective use of questions as a
persuasive device. We have provided a sheet containing exercises which will
help your child with grammar. Please discuss the importance of one idea being
contained within one sentence that is punctuated with a full stop. The sheet provided is a guide. Feel free to
deviate, add to or amend it as appropriate.
Assembly next Friday
Our
second KS1 assembly will take place next Friday 24th January in the
hall and we very much hope to see you there. You can arrive from 2:15pm and the
assembly will start at 2:30pm. It will be a wonderful opportunity for you to
see the children’s learning first hand. Once again we will showcase learning
from Literacy, Numeracy and Topic. Audience participation will be minimal we
promise!
Numeracy
The
children consolidated their knowledge of 2D shapes this week by drawing a
variety of regular and irregular shapes. Thank you very much for completing the
numeracy home learning last week. This has clearly strengthened the children’s
understanding of shape. As a progression from 2D we moved onto 3D shapes this
week. The children have been learning how to count faces, edges and vertices on
lots of common 3D shapes. Perhaps you could have a look at some of the 3D
shapes around your home? Which shapes can you see? Can your child identify and
describe the features? Next week we will be moving onto direction and position.
This will involve learning about right and left in different contexts, symmetry
and what happens when shapes are rotated.
Literacy
This
week we have built on our knowledge of persuasive language in order to write an
enticing invitation to one of the Mister Men. The children have tried so hard
to learn and apply a whole host of persuasive features ranging from simple
adjectives to humour, rhetorical questions, exaggeration and similes. We are
encouraging the children to think carefully about their word choices in order
to ensure they are fit for purpose and powerful. Once again our main focus is
sentence structure, development and accurate punctuation. Next week the
children will be applying all the skills they have practised over the past two
weeks by writing their final invitations. Time will then be dedicated to
reviewing and improving what they have written so the children can learn how to
up-level their own writing.
Topic
For
the first time this week the children tried their hand at some Philosophy! We
had lots of fascinating discussions about the rainforest, considering the
similarities and differences and deciding where we would rather live. The
children were very receptive to the deep questions and concepts we discussed
with them. Their fantastic learning culminated in some beautiful classroom
displays. Next week we will build on this further by learning about
deforestation.
Singing
There
is currently a school wide focus on singing and threading this through our
days. The children have been immersed in song this week. Perhaps they might
perform for you some of the little ditties they have learnt. Singing is proving
to be a great way to inject energy into our days, refocus the children’s
attention and of course it’s great fun. It is National Happiness Week after
all!
Have
a lovely weekend.
The
KS1 Team
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We
have had a fun filled week of exciting learning in 3/4! The children have once
again shown their fantastic attitudes towards their learning and are all very
enthusiastic about our WW2 topic which is lovely to see! To ensure that we can
reward children for their amazing reading efforts at home, please make sure the
children’s reading records are signed and brought into school every Monday
morning.
Just
to remind you that we have started the New Year with a new timetable. Due to
the changes in our PE curriculum, we now have 2 hours of PE every week. Our
indoor sessions take place on a Thursday in the school hall and this half term
we will be looking at the basics of football skills. Our outdoor sessions take
place on a Wednesday afternoon and we are looking at developing our ABCS multi-skills
– Agility, Balance, Co-ordination and Speed. Please can we remind you that your
child needs the required kit for each session.
Home Learning
As
well as the children reading daily and practicing their weekly spellings, we
would like everyone to be learning their Times
Tables. We will now be testing the children weekly on a different times
table as this will help us all greatly when solving multiplication and division
problems. Links to any on line games to support your child with this will be on
our phase blog. The times table we will be testing next week is the 4 Times Table. Keep an eye on the phase
blog for the Times Table Wall of Fame. We would also like to say Thank You to
all parents for supporting the children with their weekly home learning.
Numeracy
This
week in numeracy the children have been looking at measures of length,
estimating and measuring lines and objects around the school. The children then
used their super addition and subtraction skills to solve some word problems
involving length. On top of all of this, the children have been using the
multiplication grid method to find the area of different shapes! Next week we
will be looking at the units and vocabulary related to weight and have lots of
fun activities weighing different items!
Literacy
This week in literacy the
children have continued writing their very own diary from the perspective of an
evacuated child during World War 2. This week’s entry is the next stage of
their evacuation – the journey. The children have been doing drama, making
freeze-frames of different parts of their journey to make it a little easier to
empathise with WW2 children. We focussed on verbs this week and we looked at
different action verbs and speech verbs that we can use instead of ‘said’. Next
week, we will be continuing to write our diary entries detailing many of the
events encountered during the evacuation. The completed diaries will be on
display at the end of the half term.
Topic
In
our topic sessions this week we have been looking at what happened during the
evacuations when hundreds of thousands of children were removed from the inner
cities and sent to live in the countryside. We have empathised with WW2 children,
thinking about how they felt and what they would have taken in their suitcases
when they left on their journey. We thought about what life was like for the
children when they arrived at their ‘billet’ (new home) and have written
postcards to family back at home in the city, telling them about our host
families and all of the new experiences we have had in the countryside.
Spellings
These
Spellings will be tested on Monday 20th
January.
Group 1: rain,
tail, chain, again, captain, high, light, night, might, right
Group 2: string,
stripe, strip, strong, stride, stringent, strangle, strict, strap, strike
Reminders
· Please ensure your child has an art shirt in
school at all times.
· The current weather is very changeable and so
we ask that your child brings a suitable coat to school every day.
· Just a gentle reminder to ensure all of your
child’s belongings (especially PE kits, hats and gloves and school jumpers) are
clearly labelled with your child’s full name.
· Children will be required to bring an outdoor
PE kit (t-shirt, jumper, jogging bottoms, outdoor trainers) every Wednesday and
an indoor PE kit (shorts and t-shirt) every Thursday.
· Swimming for our Year 4’s has started again,
so please make sure they have swimming kit every Friday.
· Our next phase assembly will take place on
Friday 31st January. We look forward to seeing you there.
Don’t forget to check out
our blog where you will find lots more information about this week’s learning
as well as important reminders and dates for forthcoming event. http://year34rhps.blogspot.co.uk/
Have a superb weekend!
Team 3/4
UKS2 Newsletter
News Roundup:
Friday Celebration Assemblies:
A huge ‘well done’ to all the children in Year
5/6 for learning the assembly song ‘Eye of the Tiger’ without needing the
words! Thank you to all the parents/carers who attended our
first phase assembly last Friday, it was great to see you there. The assembly was action packed, showcasing
the learning from Autumn 2 with a live violin performance from 5/6G. Thank you to Mr Brown for attending the
assembly and supporting the children in their performance. Our next phase assembly will be on Friday 8th February. We look forward to seeing even more of
you there!
Core
Subjects:
Numeracy:
This week in Numeracy the children have been
learning about fractions, using the correct terminology: numerator and
denominator. If you are unsure which
word relates to which number within a fraction, ask an expert…your child. After a fun week on fractions, they will
know! The children have also been
reducing a fraction to its simplest form by cancelling common factors in the
numerator and denominator.
Next
week in Numeracy the children will be learning how to increase and decrease
amounts by various percentages to find new prices of the toys from the Toy
Story film.
Literacy:
This week in Literacy the children have continued to
write their own fables with a moral. On
Monday the children planned out their story using the story mountain (opening, build-up,
problem, resolution and ending). The children
then wrote their story using the following criteria: ly/ing opening (starting a
paragraph with a word containing a ‘ly’ or ‘ing’ word), high level punctuation
(brackets, exclamation marks, and ellipsis), a variety of sentence types (long
and short, one word sentences), adjectives/adverbs, conjunctions and lots of
description! Please check out the 5/6
blog next week for some pictures and audio clips of the stories.
Next week the children will be writing a book
review of a book of their choice.
The children have been told this was an upcoming unit in Literacy and
therefore need to be reading a book to write about. The children will be thinking about the
following questions to help them structure their review:
1)
What
is the book about? Give an overview of the storyline.
2) Who was your favourite character and
why?
3) What was your favourite part of the
book, and why?
4) What three things did you like about the book? Explain why? If you
didn’t like 3 things, explain why not.
5) What three things didn’t you like about this book? Explain why. If you didn’t dislike anything,
how can the author make this book even
better?
6) Summary- Recap on how much you enjoyed
the book. Who should read this book? (Don’t just say boys/ girls or everyone.)
Was there a message hidden in the story? If so, what was it?
SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are: additional,
individual, digital, fictional, traditional, apologetically, actually,
physically, accidentally, gradually
Other
areas of the curriculum:
PE: This term pupils are developing their rugby
skills. This week pupils have been learning how to hold and receive the ball
and have applied these skills into small sided game scenarios.
Spanish: This half term the children will be
learning about Spanish culture and Spanish festivals. This week the children were researching about
the La Tomatina, the tomato throwing festival which takes place on the last Wednesday
in August.
Science:
This half term the
children are learning about materials and their properties. This week the
children looked at irreversible and reversible changes; particularly heating
and cooling. They then had to use scientific vocabulary to describe the changes
which occurred.
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