Newsletter Issue 23
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Friday 8th March 2013
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Dear Parent/Carer,
We have had another fabulous week in school and I have really enjoyed teaching some fantastic groups of children. I relish the opportunities that I get to interact with children’s learning in class. It reminds me why I love the teaching profession so much and it keeps me well and truly on the pulse of what is happening in our brilliant school.
Our lunchtime staff
We would like to welcome back Mrs Turpin, who has returned this week after a prolonged period off. I would like to extend my thanks to Mrs Carter who stepped in and did a magnificent job supervising our children at lunchtime. We value all of our staff members at Robin Hood and the lunchtime staff work very hard to ensure that the lunchtimes run efficiently and smoothly.
Proposal to expand
You should have now received a letter outlining the proposal to expand a number of schools in the area. Robin Hood Primary School is one of the schools and we are currently in a period of early consultation. There will be a public consultation meeting next week on Tuesday 12th March at 6:30 pm and a further informal drop-in session on Wednesday 13th March between 8:30am- and 10:00am. These sessions will give you a chance to find out more about the proposal, have your say and to ask any questions that you have.
Speedmark
As well as our Comic Relief creative hair/wig day next Friday, all children will be taking part in a school wide competition organised by SpeedMark. The event will give all children the chance to test out their striking skills using special equipment which tracks the speed of the strike! On the day of the event, every child (and teachers!) take part (regardless of ability or whether the children have been sponsored or not). We have a firm belief that the Speedmark Challenge is for EVERY child! Whilst it is always great to raise money for the benefit of the children, we will also be promoting the enjoyment of physical activity using equipment that the children may not otherwise get the chance to use.
Parent Consultations
You should now have received your time slot for the forthcoming parent consultations. Parental engagement is very important to us and we understand the importance of informing you about the progress that has been made as well as your child’s current achievement. Each year, we provide two rounds of parent consultations as well as a thorough end of year report. This means that there is a termly opportunity for you to find out about your child’s progress and attainment level. We do of course have a very open and honest relationship with parents and maintain that if you have any queries regarding your child’s learning, that you do always approach the class teacher who will be more than happy to help.
Tute
We are always interested in ways in which we can extend our Spanish curriculum and this half term are exploring the use of Tute, an online learning platform in which social technology including an interactive whiteboard, microphone, webcam and chat are used to provide a tailored teaching programme. Lewis, Charlie, Videet, Lauren, Taylor and Amelia in Year 3/4 are taking part in a weekly online class with a fully qualified Spanish teacher through Tute, in which they are learning about the weather and clothing. We hope to incorporate Tute into our future Spanish provision following this trial period.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Mrs Dale
NEWS ROUND UP
The children have really enjoyed reading the story of the Gingerbread Man and they have had a wonderful time baking Gingerbread men. The baking has been a very rich and immersive learning experience for the children as it has allowed them to apply weighing skills and think about how we follow instructions. The children still impress us with their phonics skills and are becoming more confident at making different voice sounds.
THIS WEEK
We have had a fabulous time retelling the story of the gingerbread man in literacy this week. The children were amazing at acting out the story using the masks and the finger puppets and they drew some wonderful pictures of what happened in the story. The children now know the story really well and are very confident in repeating the verse “run run as fast as you can you can’t catch me I’m the Gingerbread Man”. In phonics we played the chain game and Metal Mike which the children really enjoyed. In Mathematics the children really impressed us with how well they could match the quantities 6-10 to the numbers and our counting to 20 is going really well so please help consolidate this by doing it as much as you can at home.
NEXT WEEK
Next week our story of the week is Oliver’s Vegetables so we will be reading and acting it out during our literacy sessions. We have lots of exciting activities planned for topic including; observational drawings of vegetables, planting our very own vegetables and making our very own healthy vegetable pizzas. The children will also be creating their own mini allotments with lots of different vegetables in from Fimo. In Mathematics we will be thinking about halves and quarters. We will be sharing pizzas and cakes between us.
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 drop in and change their books when you pick them up.
· Please practice counting to 20 and beyond with your child at any opportunity. Please also practise writing and recognising the numbers 1-10 with them. If your child can do both of these, then please help them go even further.
· Please practise writing the first letter of your child’s name and if they can do this try going even further with them.
Have a fantastic weekend.
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin & Miss Fox
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
The children have really enjoyed reading the story of the Gingerbread Man and they have had a wonderful time baking Gingerbread men. The baking has been a very rich and immersive learning experience for the children as it has allowed them to apply the weighing skills they have learnt in mathematics this week. The children are still impressing us with their phonics skills and becoming much more confident at applying their sound knowledge in their reading and their writing.
THIS WEEK
We have had a fabulous time retelling the story of the gingerbread man in literacy this week. The children were amazing at acting out the story using the masks and the finger puppets. Following the wonderful home learning the children completed, they wrote their own speech bubbles for the Gingerbread Man that the children have made. You could really tell they had had a go at home with you as they were really confident. In mathematics our main focus was weighing and the children were really focussing on the use of the vocabulary lightest and heaviest. Our counting to 100 is going really well so please help consolidate this by doing it as much as you can at home. In phonics we revisited the sounds; oo (moon), oo (book), ar and or and we learnt to read the tricky words; house, about, your, day, made and came.
NEXT HALF TERM
Next week our story of the week is Oliver’s Vegetables so we will be reading and acting it out during our literacy sessions. Our main focus in literacy will be on the use of adjectives (a word to describe the noun e.g. a green pea) to describe the vegetables that Oliver eats. We have lots of exciting activities planned for topic including; observational drawings of vegetables, planting our very own vegetables and making our very own healthy vegetable pizzas. The children will also be creating their own mini allotments with lots of different vegetables in from Fimo. In Mathematics we will be thinking about halves and quarters. We will be sharing pizzas and cakes between us. In phonics we will be revisiting the sounds ur
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please read with your child as often as possible and comment in their reading record to let us know how they are doing at home.
· Please make sure all children have their book bag every day so if we have spare time we can read with them.
· Please support your child in accessing the ‘Bugclub’ website. We will be putting yellow books onto ‘Bugclub’ for the children to access as these consolidate all the sounds we have learnt so far.
· Please support your child in learning how to fasten up their coat. We have been really impressed at the number of children who can now do this so well done to those children!
· Please support your child in writing their surname in their name writing books. Please let us know if your child needs a new name writing book.
Have a lovely weekend.
Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception Team
Home Learning:
This half term we are learning all about persuasive language by writing some invitations. The children have blown us away with their powerful persuasive skills! In order to help embed all the tools and techniques they have acquired we would like them to write an invitation to someone asking them to come to their dream party. They can write to anyone they want – their family, friends, their favourite celebrity even! Encourage the children to use language that will appeal to the reader to get them really excited about the party. The more creative the better!
Examples that you can use:
Start your letter correctly: Dear
Key words that you can use: Please, come, party, because, love, from
Adjectives (to describe) super, fantastic, amazing, wonderful
Verbs (what they will do) You have to, You will, You really should, You can eat, You can play….
Conjunctions (connectives) There will be lots of scrumptious food to eat and loads of games to play!
Punctuation (Capital Letters, Full Stops and Finger Spaces)
Superlatives (Words ending in ‘est’ – like greatest or biggest)
You can decorate it if you so wish!
We look forward to hearing about your fantastic parties!
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News:
Speed marks challenge:
On Friday 15th of March, in line with Comic Relief and Sports Relief, the children will go into the hall for a 20 minute slot to take part in the Speedmarks Challenge! This is a football focussed activity in which the children will use an inflatable goal and football to take a penalty shoot-out. The goal comes equipped with a speed radar which measures and records how fast the ball is going. At the end of the day all the children will receive a certificate with their score on and one talented football prodigy will be crowned fastest foot in their class and get another certificate stamping their success for life! (There is even the opportunity for a third certificate if they beat their teacher…won’t happen!) You will have noticed the children have brought home a sponsorship form which needs to be completed before the event. There are loads of incentives to raise as much money as possible, including winning sport bags and footballs. Please reiterate to your child NOT to ask strangers for sponsorship!
A trip up the road…
On Monday 11th March KS1 will be walking up to Lofthouse Church
Dates for your diary
Parents evening – Monday 25th and Tuesday 26th March
Please return your form as soon as possible so Mrs Holland can finalise all the time slots.
Easter Concert – Thursday 28th March
KS1 will be hosting the Easter Concert this year. It will take place in the school hall at 10am. Please feel free to come along and join in with our celebrations.
Roman exhibition:
We will be hosting an exhibition to share all the children’s fantastic Roman artefacts – you don’t want to miss it! It will be taking place in the hall on Wednesday 27th March between 2.15pm – 3.00pm. We have started creating our artefacts this week and it feels like a museum already in KS1! We hope to see you there!
Literacy:
The first week of our literacy unit has been a huge success – watch out because the children are becoming extremely good at persuading! This week we are working towards our star write challenge and we are on track to produce some fantastic invitations to our relevant story book characters. In addition to extending their ideas with conjunctions and time connectives, the children are beginning to grasp some really high level concepts to give their writing more sophistication. They hook their reader in with rhetorical questions, bring their writing to life with adjectives and give their writing ‘oomph’ with superlatives and comparatives. Learning these skills now will stand them in good stead to make great progress when they move further up the school. We will continue to build on this week when the children work towards an invitation to someone special. Watch this space…!
Numeracy:
This week we have consolidated our learning around division. We have explored a range of different word problems and worked through strategies for tackling them. We’ve focussed heavily on what the word problem is actually asking the children to do – do they need to ‘group’ items or ‘share’ them? The children have developed their knowledge of sharing by partitioning larger numbers into tens and units (and even hundreds). In addition to this we have worked extremely hard on our mental maths skills. Hearing a question, assimilating what it is asking you and working out the answer in 20 seconds is no easy task! We are extremely proud of how the children persevered with this in order to increase their scores through the week. They are growing in confidence in their mental arithmetic. Rote counting in 2s, 5s, 10s and even 3s and 4s will help them to become even more confident with fast mental maths questions. It helps them become more confident with the relationships between numbers so they can work out problems quickly off the top of their heads.
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had such a great week in LKS2 because of the children’s mature and enthusiastic attitude towards their learning. It is great to see so many children consistently reading at home and practising their spellings.
Home Learning
This week, we would like the children to practice their timetables, all the way up to 12 times 12, in order to support their learning in numeracy. We have sent every child home with a list of multiplication questions for them to answer as quickly as they can mentally. In addition to this, we have also sent home some multiplication questions which the children can solve using the written strategy of grid method or arrays, that we have been learning across the week. We thank you in advance for supporting your children with these tasks.
Literacy
This week in Literacy the children have been learning how to write recounts using time connectives such as: later, since, initially, meanwhile, finally and whilst. The children have taken on the role of an embalmer (mummy-maker) and recounted the process of mummification, extending their ideas into both compound and complex sentences. We have been teaching the children to group their ideas into detailed paragraphs and to always begin their recounts with an introduction that includes the 5 W’s (who, what, where, when and why). This is then followed by 2 developed paragraphs and finished with a conclusion that links back through the whole recount. The children have tried very hard to follow this structure and we are looking forward to further developing their confidence around it next week. We were blown away by the children’s consistent use of powerful verbs, adjectives and adverbs.
Numeracy
In numeracy, the children have been learning how to solve multiplications using two formal written methods; arrays and the grid method. The children have been solving U x U all the way up to HTU x HTU. The children have had to work very carefully in order to ensure that when using the grid method they have successfully set it and partitioned the numbers correctly. Looking ahead into next week, the children will be taught how to use a variety of formal written methods to solve division.
Topic
This week in topic the children have been learning about the process of mummification. The children have been gathering notes from different sources such as videos, songs and book, in order to gain a thorough understanding of how people where mummified, why they went through this process, and whose job it was to mummy people! Using this knowledge, the children teamed up and devised a short play/song/rap which detailed the main steps of mummification. We all found it very amusing to watch each other being mummified using toilet paper!
Spellings to be tested on Monday 18th March (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Group One
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Group Two
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many
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loose
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very
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loosen
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house
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simply
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three
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simplify
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tree
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pure
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sister
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purify
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brother
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class
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another
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classify
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please
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solid
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come
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solidify
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Reminders
· Can we remind you that children need a full PE kit in school, clearly labelled, from Monday-Friday. Please ensure this consists of a plain white t-shirt as well as shorts or jogging bottoms.
Have a lovely weekend!
UKS2 News Roundup:
· Our achiever of the week goes to Danika and Shiksha. These girls could not be separated in terms of their fantastic attitude and dedication to their learning. Both the girls give their absolute best in every aspect of school learning and are kind and respectful to others in school. It’s great to have such fantastic role models in our school. Well done girls!
· Thank you to parents and carers for your support with the carbon emissions questionnaire. We really appreciate your time to support us with gathering this information.
· Over the next few weeks, each class will be visiting the Sinai Synagogue in Leeds .
Wednesday 13th March- 5/6B
Wednesday 20th March- 5/6M
Wednesday 27th March- 5/6G
The visit is to support recent learning in RE about diversity in our community as well as symbolism in religion. Each class will leave promptly at 9am from school to travel to the synagogue on the public bus and return after lunch therefore a packed lunch will be required for every child.
Numeracy:
· This week, the children have been learning about reflection, rotation, translation and properties of 2D and 3D shapes, including nets. We have been using tracing paper to support us with our accuracy and have been using lots and lots of technical mathematical vocabulary to support explanations.
· Next week, we will be learning about length, mass, capacity, area and perimeter. We will be learning how to read scales and plot various readings and we will be finding out perimeters and areas of Mario Kart’s racing tracks. For a step ahead, why not visit www.mathszone.co.uk and click on the ‘Measuring’ tab to try a selection of games to support you with next week’s learning.
· In mental maths, we have again been focusing on our 7 times tables. We really would like all of the children to try as hard as they possibly can to get super-fast and accurate with all of their times tables as this is a fundamental skill in Numeracy and really will help to improve the accuracy of their mental maths skills. If you would like any further practise, visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ and click on Numeracy. There is a link to Hit the Button which is being used to practise all times tables. There are also lots of free iPad apps to help with times tables – Multiple Wipeout is a particular favourite of ours.
Literacy:
· This week, the children have been writing their own news reports about a sunny Christmas in the UK
· Next week we will be turning our attentions to story writing, looking at adventure stories. We will be applying our knowledge of speech marks to mark direct speech and will also look at how to add adverbial clauses.
· SPELLINGS: Plurals of words ending in vowels other than e: potato – potatoes, volcano – volcanoes, hero – heroes, safari – safaris, taxi – taxis, gorilla – gorillas, piano – pianos, replica – replicas, panda – pandas, umbrella – umbrellas.
Other areas of the curriculum:
· In ICT, the children have planned out their climate change animations. They now have a really clear indication as to how they want their animation to look, the message they wish to convey and the software they want to use in order to convey their message. The children have some innovative ideas and are looking forward to using Morfo and Puppet Pals on the iPad to animate their presentation.
· This week in Spanish, we have continued our focus on the 4 seasons and have begun to look at how to describe the weather.
· In PE this week we have been continuing our outdoor and adventure activities unit. We have focused on communication skills this week. Pupils have learnt the importance of effective communication skills and demonstrated the different ways that this can be achieved in a range of problem solving activities.
· In our Topic session this week, we have been looking at the cause and effect of the greenhouse effect and the effect carbon emissions created by humans is having on our environment. The children have created some super informative posters to illustrate this information. We have also inputted the information from the questionnaire carried out at home, in order to find out our carbon footprint and have developed ideas in which we can attempt to reduce our carbon emissions in order to do ‘our bit’ towards improving climate change.
· In Music, 5/6G have been learning how to play Yellow Submarine on the recorder. The children needed to identify the notes on the music sheet and the value of each note before playing the tune. We will be continuing to learn another section of the song next week. 5/6B have continued their new unit looking at playing tuned instruments including glockenspiels and xylophones. 5/6 M has continued to experiment with garage band on the apple mac computers to compose a soundtrack for a silent action movie. Pupils have been focusing on how the emotions and feelings of a film might be reflected in the music composition.
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