Newsletter Issue 3
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Friday 21st September 2012
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Dear Parent/Carer,
It’s been another fabulous week and thankfully my sticker supply has been replenished! A record amount has been given out this week and the children are loving the competition of receiving points for their team.
New PTA
Last week, we held an AGM meeting to establish a new PTA for the school. It is my delight to announce that we now have a newly appointed Chair, Vice Chair, Secretary and Treasurer. Chair- Clare Perry, Vice Chair-Rebecca Elsworth, Secretary- Stephanie Findlay, Treasurer- Jane Wardell. Discussions are already underway regarding some exciting events, which I will keep you informed about as and when they are finalised. My absolute thanks to everyone who has so far volunteered to help and show a commitment to developing what will be a fabulous team, I’m sure.
Help us rename our PTA
We would like to re-brand our PTA, by giving it a more inclusive name. It is my aim to include as many members of the community as possible in the organisation and participation of our events. I would like to invite children to give suggestions for a suitable name which we could use. Of course, a part of being involved in the PTA is about raising money for school funds or charities of our choice so we ask that you donate £1 per suggestion and hand your suggestion in to either myself or Mrs Mistry. The PTA will then make a decision on which suggestion to use. What an honour it would be to have your child’s suggestion chosen!
The Big Draw is back!
Every year, during the month of October, a national event organised by the Campaign for Drawing, The Big Draw takes place. Our school Big Draw event will take place in school on Monday 8th October when the children will engage in a wealth of purposeful drawing activities. On Tuesday 9th October, parents, carers and members of the wider community will be invited to come and view the outcomes in the hall, which will be transformed into an interactive gallery space. All we ask is that your child brings in an old shirt to wear over their uniform on the 8th October.
Naace Risk-it event
We will shortly be taking part in a national event, organised by Naace. Our “Risk-it” events will take place in October, where each class will take part in a day of exploring some new and innovative ICT software. Children will be allowed to take the lead and discover the possible ways that the software could be used in class in order to impact on the quality of outcomes and standards in specific topics.
Dental appointments
I would like to take this opportunity to remind parents that dental appointments should wherever possible be arranged outside of school hours to minimise disruption to any learning. For any dental/hospital appointments that cannot be made outside school time please bring your child’s appointment card/letter to the office. Thank you.
Our wonderful parents
I regularly marvel at the support we get from parents and this week has shown once again how lucky we are to have parents who can really add value to classroom topics. The Foundation Stage team and I would like to extend our sincere thanks to Mr and Mrs Butterworth and Mr Reid, all of whom gave up their time to come and talk about subjects which enhanced the topic learning in Nursery and Reception, this week.
Have a wonderful weekend!
Mrs Dale
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had a very exciting week in Nursery this week learning all about our amazing bodies. On Tuesday we had a very exciting day as we had a visit from our very supportive parent Mrs Butterworth who is a nurse and on Friday we had a visit from Mr Reid the dentist too. They talked to us about how we can look after our teeth and bodies and stay healthy. So we would like to say a very big thank you to both of them from all the team and children.
THIS WEEK
In our phonics sessions this week we have been playing some sound games and in guided reading we have been sharing books together and discussing what is happening in the pictures. The children really enjoy looking at the books and talking about the pictures so please support this at home. This weeks home learning was a brilliant start to our literacy topic ‘my amazing body’ and it was clear the amount of effort you had all put in so thank you. We have been learning about our bodies through the use of songs and the children are absolutely amazing at the Tweenie copy me song. In numeracy this week we have been practising counting and recognising numbers up to 10 and the children have impressed us with their amazing data handling skills. They have produced a tally chart of eye colour in Nursery.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will be learning all about our wonderful families and the children will have the opportunity to design their own family puppets. In numeracy we will be learning about shapes. They will be learning to sort, name and recognise shapes. In phonics next week we will be listening to environmental sounds, we will also be practising distinguishing between sounds so that the children can recognise what sounds match which objects.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please listen to your child’s fabulous reading once a day and comment in their reading record.
· Please feel free to change reading books whenever your child is in Nursery. We will be setting up a basket for you to drop off books and reading records in a morning and collect them at the end of the day, allowing us to look at all the wonderful reading you have been doing together. We will be reading with every child during the week.
· Please practice counting to 10 with your child and ask them about what noises different things in the environment make.
· 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 I hope that you have a lovely weekend.
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had a very exciting week in Reception this week learning all about our amazing bodies. Yesterday and today has been fun as we have had visits from our very supportive parents Mr Butterworth the paramedic, Mrs Butterworth the nurse and Mr Reid the dentist. They talked to us about how we can look after our bodies and stay healthy. We would like to say a very big thank you to them from the team and all the children. We would also like to say an enormous well done to our 8 achievers of the week last week who managed to learn all their sounds AND words of the week! Amazing!
THIS WEEK
In phonics this week we have been practising saying and writing the sounds; i, n, m and d and reading our key words of the week which were off, on, of, can, it and is. This week’s home learning was a brilliant start to our literacy topic ‘my amazing body’ and it was clear the amount of effort you had all put in so thank you. We have been learning through the use of songs and the children are absolutely amazing at the Tweenies ‘Copy me do’ song. In numeracy this week we have been practising counting and recognising numbers up to 20 and the children have impressed us with their amazing data handling skills. They have produced a tally chart and then from this have created a bar chart and a pictogram, wow!
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will be learning all about our wonderful families and the children will have the opportunity to design their own family puppets. In numeracy we will be learning about shapes, positions and patterns. They will be creating their own imaginative shape mansion, describing where they have buried their treasure and they will become mini fashion designers. Next week’s sounds are; g, o, c, k and our words of the week are; dad, back, had, and, get and big. Please help your child to practice saying the sounds of the letters, writing the letters with fabulous formation and reading the words so that we can hand lots of certificates out!
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
We have really noticed and been impressed this week because the children becoming really enthusiastic about their learning particularly their writing. So let’s please take advantage of this and encourage your child to practise and show you their fabulous learning at home.
· 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 please practice writing their full name with them.
Thank you for your continued support and I hope that you have a lovely weekend.
Key Stage 1
Home Learning
This week we would like the children to write about their weekend. This can be something they have done or maybe a recount of their day from getting up to going to bed. Please use the key words in the Information Pack you have received to support your child in spelling the key words correctly.
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News
The Information Pack you received is designed to help you support your child at home. The Pack consists of your child’s writing from the ‘Star Write Challenge’ poster which they wrote about themselves last week and has been marked and levelled by their class teacher. Information is included on how your child has achieved this level and what they need to do to progress to the next level.
The pack includes a copy of Reception Key Words which each child, within Key Stage 1, should be able to spell and apply within their writing, along with the Key Words for Year 1. We hope you are able to continue to support your child in learning these words (we suggest learning approx ten words at a time) and applying them into silly sentences.
Also included is a copy of the phonic teams (Mr A as in rain, Mr E as in meet, Mr I as in light, Mr O as in road and Mr U as in room). The phonic mat is designed to support recognition of the different sounds for spelling and writing. If you are not sure of the sounds please ask a member of staff.
Literacy
This week the children have been busy reflecting on the process they went through when they made their robot models. They discussed the process using time connectives (e.g., first, then next, after, that, finally, etc) and then ordered the pictures which were taken. The children then started to write the process down as a set of instructions using the above time connectives. They looked at how to set the instructions out and where to include the opening paragraph saying what the instructions were for, along with a resources list using bullet points. The finished article was fantastic and the children should be very proud of the effort they put into completing the task.
Over the next two weeks the children will create a Robot booklet and will learn the definition of a Robot and how they work. This will include the uses of a Robot, in particular, looking at Robots in space and Robots in the Army. Please support your child by researching Robots before next week’s session and let them bring into class the information they find out.
Numeracy
This week in the children have been learning about odd and even numbers and explaining how they know a number is odd or even.
The children read two digit numbers and used the song to help them decide if the number wor even by looking at the unit, e.g. 67 is odd because the unit number (7) is an odd number – 24 is even because the unit number (4) is an even number. The children then used this knowledge to decide whether three digit, four digit and even six digit numbers were odd or even. Please support your child in reading two, three and four digit numbers and explaining if they are odd or even.
Next week the children will begin to look at place value and learn about what the numbers represent and what column they are in (Th = Thousand column, H = Hundred column, T = Ten Column and U = Unit column).
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had another fantastic week in lower key stage two and the children have not only impressed us with their fantastic attitudes towards their learning but also their amazing manners and the kindness they are showing to one another in the playground.
Home Learning
This week’s home learning is for the children to practice their spellings ahead of our weekly test on Monday morning. We would also like the children to continue reading as often as possible at home. Please ensure you are noting in the children’s reading records when they are reading at home- if we can see they have read every day they will earn five house points for their team. We were extremely pleased by how many signed reading records we received on Monday – thank you!
In Literacy this week we have been finding out all about Victorian housing, food and the underworld. The children have been reading books, researching websites and watching videos to gather information during our topic sessions and developing their note taking skills to add this information to their planners. We have then used our notes to form compound sentences using a wide variety of connectives such as: and, so, but, because, however, whilst, despite, also, as well as, meanwhile. We have been using all our amazing sentences to form a developed paragraph with lots of fantastic audience engaging features, such as questions to the reader, alliteration, brackets, repetition, adjectives and a quote, to make our writing even more interesting.
Numeracy
This week, we have been looking at place value and partitioning of 2, 3, 4 and 5 digit numbers. The children have used the malteser system to understand the value of each digit. The children really impressed us when partitioning numbers including decimals. We have also been writing not only our whole numbers in digits but also in figures as well.
Topic
The children are really enjoying our Victorian topic and have found out all about Victorian housing, food and the underworld this week, to give them more information to write about during our literacy sessions. The children had great fun creating adverts about the risks of pesky pick pocketers and have created a meal for both a middle class and working class families.
Spellings to be tested on 1st October (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Group One
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Group Two
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hay
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familiar
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clay
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choose
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tray
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forward
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play
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forget
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pray
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explain
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say
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captain
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hooray
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elbow
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runway
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empty
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crayons
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sugar
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holiday
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pattern
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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.
UKS2 News Roundup
· This week’s achiever of the week is Jenny Hepworth for her amazing effort with her home learning all about the Tudors. She presented her learning in a very inspirational way, which was through an iBook, where she created an interactive and informative book – well done!
· Year 5/6 are taking part in the Global Children’s Challenge which is an exciting health initiative designed to increase physical activity amongst children. We have a pedometer and a Step by Step Booklet to record our daily activity over 50 days and will work collectively as a class to be as physically active as possible. The more active we are in the ‘real world’, the further we will travel on an amazing ‘virtual’ journey around the world. Using the Global Children’s Challenge website, we will explore different cultures, learn about the history and geography of global locations, all whilst increasing physical activity and improving our health. We will also be using the step data in our ICT lessons as our focus this half term is using Microsoft Excel to effectively handle data. Remember to make sure that booklets are in school for your ICT lesson (5/6M and 5/6B Monday; 5/6G Tuesday)
· Year 5/6 has a new blog! Visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ to find out what we’ve been up to.
Numeracy:
- This week, the children have been ordering and comparing numbers, including decimals and negative numbers. They’ve also been reading and writing co-ordinates to apply their knowledge and understanding of positive and negative numbers with a Monster’s Inc theme!
- Next week, we will be rounding and estimating numbers, including numbers up to 10,000 and decimals.
- A link to some games which are being used in class is available on Miss Gascoigne’s blog http://robinhood56g.blogspot.co.uk/p/mental-maths-2012-13.html
Literacy:
- The children have been finding out about the voyage of Sir Francis Drake and are preparing to write a recount of this. They’ve been focusing on ensuring that capital letters and full stops are 100% accurate in writing and that a range of connectives are being used to help develop ideas.
- Spellings for this week, which will be tested on Friday are: abandoned, boundary, difference, library, family, vegetable, fattening, original, business, different
Please make sure you try hard to learn all of your spellings each week as they are a fundamental Literacy skill.
- In Topic, the children have organised themselves into teams and have chosen a particular aspect of Tudor history to research and present. The children have come up with some very interesting and creative ideas – we are looking forward to seeing the end result!
- In PE this week, we have been looking at shape and formation in football.
- In Spanish this week, the children have been learning how to express their likes and dislikes around food. We have also looked at how to explain what we have eaten for our lunch.
- In Music, 5/6B have been using percussion instruments to play samba music! 5/6G have been learning about time signature when reading music and have been learning how to play crochets, quavers and ostinato with the notes B, A and G on the recorder. The children have played some complex pieces, including duets and rounds. 5/6M have been using the iPad to develop their compositions on Garageband, including tempo and pitch.
- In ICT, the children have been exploring Excel and how this software can be used to sort and graph data. We’ve been looking at how a formula can be used to quickly add up data and how to filter results.
Reminders:
Please can all the children ensure that they are coming into school with the correct PE kit on a Monday (5/6G & 5/6B) and a Tuesday (5/6M). PE kit should be a plain white T-shirt, black or blue shorts and outdoor trainers (weather permitting). No jewellery should be worn.
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!
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