Newsletter Issue 25
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Friday 22nd March 2013
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Dear Parent/Carer,
Thank you to all for braving this diabolical weather yet again, this morning. Let’s pray for better weather for the Easter holidays.
Clubs
We have offered an amazing range of extra-curricular activities so far this year and I am proud to say that every member of the teaching staff and many of our support staff have given their time generously to ensure that the children can have the very best quality opportunities to realise their passions. My thanks to all of the staff who willingly volunteer to run the lunchtime and after school clubs. Next term, there will be three new clubs on offer starting from Thursday 25th April. Art Club will be available to KS2, Card Making club will be on offer to KS1 and KS2 and Kwik Cricket will be available to Years 5 and 6. If your child is interested in any of these activities, please pick up a form from Mrs Holland in the office. The clubs will run as usual, from 3:15 pm – 4:15 pm for the full term except for the very last week of the school year.
Mad Science
The Science experts from “Mad Science” are returning and offering to give fantastic opportunities to carry out Science experiments as an after school club. The club is open to children in KS2 and will be focussed on the science of space. Providing there is enough interest, the club will run for 6 weeks on a Thursday after school from 3:15 to 4:15pm and will cost £48 per pupil. Children will get something to take home each week as well as a certificate at the end of the course. If you are interested in your child taking part, please see Mrs Holland in the office as soon as possible.
Coffee Morning
You will have received an invitation from Miss Thackeray this week, inviting anybody who can or is interested to come into school and have a cup of coffee and an informal chat about ways we can work together positively and move forward as a community. We value suggestions from the parents and recognise that the best way to reach out to you is to invite you in to talk face to face. The first of what will hopefully become regular meetings will be on Friday 19th April at 9:00 am. It would be lovely to see you there.
Reading Focus Day
Miss Hinton and Miss Lambert have been busy again, organising another brilliant Reading Day. Next Thursday, the children are invited to dress up as a book character for a day of celebrating reading and stories. The last Reading Focus Day was such a wonderful success that we didn’t want to wait another year to have another one. The children see this as a real highlight in their learning and we welcome you all to come along and join us for the Reading Breakfast to join in the joy of reading with your child. The children can wear the same character outfit as last time or indeed can come in their normal clothes. Miss Hinton and Miss Lambert’s commitment to raising the profile of reading is really evident in school. There is a real sense of excitement around sharing new books and reading for fun.
Speedmark
Thanks to all parents who helped their children collect sponsor money for the Speedmark event. You helped the school raise an incredible £825. My sincerest thanks to everyone involved.
Outstanding monies
If you have any outstanding monies to be handed in for school lunches, please settle them by next Wednesday. Thank you.
PTA NEWS
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The PTA are trying different meeting times to enable as many people as possible to attend. We are therefore alternating between evening meetings (for working parents), after school meetings (for those who pick children up) and morning meetings (for those who struggle with child care on an evening). With this in mind, the next PTA meeting will be held on Tuesday 26th March 2013 in the Friendly Faces Annex (in the Reception playground) at 09:00. Please come and join us for a tea/coffee if you feel you can help us out this year in ANY way (even if it’s just for an hour!!). Or, just come for a drink if you feel you want to get to know us before committing yourself! Children are most certainly welcome.
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Have a great weekend everyone.
Mrs Dale
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Me, Miss Fox and Mrs Chin have had big smiles on our faces this week because it has been assessment week and yet again the children have impressed us with their fantastic progress and have made us feel very proud. They have really enjoyed learning about the story of Handa’s Surprise and they have made some fantastic clay baskets and have really enjoyed learning about the different animals they might see in Africa .
THIS WEEK
The children drew some fabulous pictures of the Handa’s Surprise story and wrote underneath what their picture was showing. How they are holding their pencil and their control when they are writing is really improving and we are really proud. The children found looking at the globe fascinating and were really excited to tell us about all the different places they had been. In maths we practised sharing equally between us, so now we can be really good friends and share fairly between each other.
NEXT WEEK
Next week our theme will be Easter so we will be focusing on the Easter story. We will be making Easter buns and Easter cards. In Mathematics we will be focusing on sharing but we will be extending our knowledge to share by 4. We will be going on an exciting Easter egg hunt and then all the Easter eggs they have found, they will share between them and 3 of their friends. The children have done really well in the phonics assessment but some children are still struggling on the aspect 4 rhyming so we will be revisiting rhyme next week by playing lots of rhyming games.
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.
· Please look at our foundation stage blog which you can access through the school website and see if you can spot any of your child’s wonderful learning,
Have a fantastic weekend and we look forward to seeing you next week at the parent drop in sessions.
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin & Miss Fox
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Me and Miss Lambert have had big smiles on our faces this week because it has been assessment week and yet again the children have impressed us with their fantastic progress and have made us feel very proud. They have really enjoyed learning about the story of Handa’s Surprise and the role play they have been doing, including carrying baskets on their heads with lots of fruit in has been a pleasure to watch.
THIS WEEK
We began the week by fully immersing ourselves in our learning by taste testing some tropical fruits from the story Handa’s Surprise. The children then came up with some adjectives to describe the fruit, which they included in their fabulous star writes. In mathematics our main focus was volume and capacity so we have spent the week playing with coloured water, measuring jugs and measuring cylinders. The children have measured the correct amount of each fruit juice and mixed them together to make some yummy smoothies. We have been thinking about the difference between numbers this week and using everyday examples to help the children’s understanding of this concept e.g. you have 4 sweets and your friend has 2 sweets what is the difference? How many more do you have than your friend? Please keep continuing to do this as and when you can in everyday situations to help develop and consolidate your child’s knowledge. In phonics we revisited the sounds; ure (pure), er (letter) and air (hair) and we read the tricky words; their, people, oh, Mr and Mrs.
NEXT WEEK
Next week our theme will be Easter so we will be focusing on the Easter story. We will be making Easter buns and Easter cards. In Mathematics we will focus on number bonds to 10. We will be going on an Easter egg hunt and we will be finding the 2 Easter eggs that add up to 10. In phonics we will be reading the tricky words; looked, called, asked and could. We have now finished learning all the phase 3 & 4 sounds and we will be moving on to phase 5. If your child is still struggling on any of the sounds please keep practising them with them.
QUICK REMINDER
Next Thursday (28th March) Miss Hinton & Miss Lambert will be hosting a reading focus day to celebrate world book day, so the children are invited to come dressed as their favourite book character or a character they have made up. We will use this day as an opportunity for us to introduce next half term’s topic which is Kings & Queens, so we will be creating a fairy tale small world and participating in lots of different drama activities.
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. Following the reading interviews this week there will be a comment in your child’s reading record to let you know if your child has moved book bands. Please keep supporting your child in their reading as often as possible.
· Please have a look at our foundation stage blog which can be accessed via the Robin Hood website to see if you can spot your child’s wonderful learning.
We look forward to seeing you at parents evening next week.
Miss Pyatt and the Reception Team
Home Learning:
For this week’s home learning, please support your child (if needed) to log on to I am Learning and complete 20 minutes worth of activities that their teacher has allocated for them. Just like with Bug Club, it is really important that every child is able to use their own log in details to access this fantastic learning tool both in and out of school. You will find a mixture of numeracy, reading and literacy games for your child to attempt. (Try to sway them away from just playing the games!) We will then be able to monitor the children’s attainment and time spent on each task through our own accounts. Once you have completed this either you or your child can put a note in their home learning books about whether they know their log in details now, the activities they completed, what they enjoyed and what they struggled with.
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News:
Reading Records:
It is so interesting getting the reading records in every Monday and reading about what the children have done throughout the week with you at home; whether they have really got their teeth into a particular book, found the spellings really challenging but persevered each day with them until they got 10/10 or that you both sat down and enjoyed doing the home learning task together. The reading record really is a fantastic tool for us to understand how a child’s learning is supported and nourished at home; it is also great to hear when you have had a lovely time together sharing the home learning. With this in mind: just a polite reminder to interact with the reading record on a weekly basis and to really try to support your child around learning the spellings. A strategy that we use in school is to read the word, cover it, write it and then check it. This shouldn’t be something that takes more than a few minutes.
Assessment Week:
Assessment week starts on Monday and will run through until Wednesday. We will be handing out an information sheet at parent’s consultations with your child’s levels on for numeracy, writing and reading, the levels for which will be taken from last half term’s assessments.
Reading Day:
Plans for our reading day are coming together and it seems we are set for another lovely day of learning! Reading day will take place on Thursday 28th March to which you and your child are invited to come and enjoy tea and toast over a book in the hall before school. As well as this, we are inviting parents into our classrooms after school to come and share the outcomes from the day. If the last reading day is anything to go by, we are sure that this day will once again prove to be a happy and enjoyable way for you to encourage and rejoice in your child’s learning inside school. The children can come dressed as their favourite book character, which may be the same as the previous reading day, but this is okay!
Dates to Remember:
Here are two important dates and times for you to get in your diaries:
· Our school hall will be open to tourists to visit the Roman Museum
· Celebration assembly will run alongside our Easter performance of ‘The Three Trees’ on Thursday the 28th March starting at 10am.
Literacy:
Well as you read this your child’s star write from the last two weeks unit on Invitation writing should have been handed to you by your child. You can consider yourselves cordially invited to our Roman Exhibition and can go ahead and feel as proud as we do about the quality of your child’s writing. The children really have excelled again within this unit of study and have loved writing invitations for events that they feel an emotional attachment to and pride around. Each child wrote their invitation and referred to a success criteria that was stuck in their books; why not ask your child to read their invitation out loud to you and question them on the textual features they have included…you may learn something too! After the Easter holidays we will move on to Adventure Stories, which will no doubt inspire their imaginations!
Numeracy:
Well this week has seen the completion of our unit on multiplication, with a focus on pulling out important information from word problems, solving missing number problems and solidifying doubling, halving and times table facts. It is interesting to watch the children decoding word problems, then be able to go ahead and apply their strategies to solve it. Such word problems will continue to be revisited throughout the summer term.
After the Easter holidays we will move on to looking at length, capacity and weight in our numeracy and plan to dedicate one day a week to oral questions around all units of mathematical problems.
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had a lovely time this week in year 3/4! The week got off to a great start with the children’s super numeracy home learning - it was really great to see that so many children had really tried to continue their learning at home and we are very proud of them. We chose all of the children for our achiever this week- they have blown our socks off with their outstanding figure drawings of Egyptian Gods so we simply had to celebrate everyone’s success. They showed so much attention to detail in making sure that their drawings were in proportion and were very careful with their watercolour painting!
Literacy
In Literacy this week, we have been developing our ideas into complex sentences, focussing on the main clause and embedded clause in a sentence and making sure the children remember their commas in the right places. The children have been applying this into their diary writing this week. They imagined they’d been marooned on a desert island and then wrote a diary about a day on the island - we had some great ideas, from swimming with dolphins and eating coconuts to looking for shooting stars at night!
Numeracy
This week we have been using our multiplication and division knowledge to answer word problems. The children have been successful in identifying the key parts of information in a word problem, before deciding what operation they need to use (add, subtract, multiply, divide) and what strategy they need to use to find the answer. The children have then been given different assessment - type questions to tackle, in preparation for our assessment week next week. We have been really pleased with how they have been able to apply their learning to solve these!
Topic
As mentioned earlier, the children have produced fantastic art outcomes in our topic sessions this week. They have all produced an accurate human figure and then displayed great skill in their use of watercolour pencils. Look out for them on display in the classrooms and mall when you come in for parent consultations!
Spellings to be tested on Monday 15th April (The children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Group One
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Group Two
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want
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dance
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were
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distance
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what
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advance
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when
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difference
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water
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notice
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with
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place
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where
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surface
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to
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entrance
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too
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science
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two
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practice
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Have a lovely weekend!
UKS2 News Roundup:
· Our achiever of the week is Bethany Bethany
· This week, 5/6M visited the Sinai Synagogue in Leeds to further their learning on diversity in our community as well as symbolism in religion. We were very impressed with the thoughtful questions the children asked during their time at the synagogue.
· Dates for your diary:
Wednesday 27th March: 5/6G visit to the synagogue. The class will leave promptly at 9am and travel to
the synagogue on the public bus, returning after lunch. A packed lunch is required.
Thursday 28th March: Easter Service in the school hall at 10:00. World Book Day- Please come dressed as your favourite book character. Classrooms will be open from 3:15 to view writing published during the day.
Monday 29th April: Year 5/6 trip to Jodrell Bank. Your child has received a letter about the trip this week.
Numeracy:
· This week, the children have been telling the time and reading time tables. There has also been a focus on using negative numbers as well as practising written division using the bus stop method and chunking. There is a game to practise division on the Year 5/6 Blog. Visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ and click on Numeracy.
· The Times Tables Challenge will be held on Tuesday. There is a link to the bingo machine that is used during the challenge on the Year 5/6 Blog. Visit http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/ and click on Numeracy.
Literacy:
· This week, the children have been continuing to write their adventure stories, with a particular focus on the climax and resolution. They have been focusing on including figurative language such as similes and personification to enhance description in writing. Next week, the children will be editing and publishing their adventure stories.
· SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are common irregular verbs and their past tense form: catch-caught, hear-heard, find-found, fight-fought, choose-chose, bring-brought, see-saw, creep-crept, wear-wore, shake-shook.
Other areas of the curriculum:
· This week in ICT, the children have been using Puppet Pals and Morfo on the iPads to begin creating animations which share information about climate change. There has been a particular focus on ensuring the content shows an awareness of this purpose as well as the audience who will be watching the animations. Next week, the children will assemble their animations in iMovie.
· This week in Spanish, we have looked at how to describe the temperature in degrees using positive and negative numbers. We will be applying all of our new vocabulary next week when we perform our very own weather forecasts.
· In PE this week we have been continuing our outdoor and adventure activities unit. This week pupils have experienced an introduction to orienteering. Pupils have familiarised themselves with different compass bearings and points to navigate a sequence of control points in pairs.
· In our Topic session this week, we have looked at very moving examples of art work depicting the impact of climate change. The children have taken elements from a variety of these pictures and have designed their very own piece of art, complete with an emotive motto. These will be completed next week using a variety of different mediums.
· 5/6B have learnt a new melody and accompanying chords on the 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 a rhythm and a pulse can help to set the mood and tempo of a soundtrack. 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 the final section of the song next week.
Visit our blog: http://robinhood56.blogspot.co.uk/
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