Issue 12 2013-14

Newsletter Issue 11

Friday 22nd November 2013

Dear Parent/Carer,

Thanks to all of the Reception parents who joined us this week to view the children’s profiles. We have had some lovely positive feedback and we are delighted that we had the opportunity to share some more brilliant Early Years learning with you.

Parent’s Coffee Morning

Please come along to the Coffee Morning on Monday (2^nd Dec) if you can, between 9 am and 10 am with Miss Thackeray in Friendly Faces. As previously mentioned, agendas for discussion will be:

·         Do you know how well your child is achieving? What manageable ways could we improve that knowledge?

·         What would make our end of year reports better?

·         What knowledge do parents have of age related expectations?

If you cannot come along, please feel free to send your views to gaynor.dale@robinhood.leeds.sch.uk

Crossing patrol opportunity

In order to improve the safety on the main road outside of school, we would like to employ two Crossing Patrollers, who can manage the safe crossing of the road and hopefully alleviate some of the anxieties that parents have recently been experiencing at drop off and pick up times. If you are interested in taking up this role, please see Sue Smith or Liz Holland in the office for details.

Netball tournament

16 of our pupils will be accompanying Miss Pensom to Rodillian Academy on Monday night to take part in an inter-school netball tournament. The children will be competing against children from other schools in the Rothwell Family and we feel that this is a brilliant opportunity to get Robin Hood Primary School back on the local sporting map! Good luck to everyone who will be competing. GO ROBIN HOOD!!

Operation Christmas Child

Please note that the final date for shoe boxes is Monday 2^nd December, NOT Tuesday 3^rd as previously advertised. A huge thanks to all who have contributed so far. We were at 50+ at the last count.

Supervision of children after school

I am aware that some children are using the outdoor play areas on the school grounds after school. Whilst I do not want to come across as a “party pooper”, I must make it very clear to everyone that children are only permitted to use the play equipment between 9:00 am - 3:15 pm and when supervised by a member of staff. We are responsible for the children when they are on the school grounds so must insist that the children only access these areas when a member of staff is able to sufficiently supervise. Thank you.

Christmas Fayre

The PTA would like me to give the Christmas Fayre one last “plug” which I will do with hopefully enough gusto to persuade all of you to come along. I have to say, the events that our PTA have organised and delivered in the past 14 months have been amongst the best I have ever seen during my 11 years at Robin Hood. What I love most, is that the ladies (and gents) are continually seeking ways to make each event better than the last and have an uncanny knack of thinking outside of the box. So I am sure that the Fayre tomorrow will be a magnificent gateway into the festive season for most of us and with the new additions, such as the outdoor market, we will be treated to another really brilliant event. Ultimately, what you spend will go back into the school and provide your child with something wonderful which you can feel very much part of. As I always say, creating great memories is also hugely important and I would like to thank everyone involved in advance. I know how hard you have all worked.

So……. Tomorrow…..Robin Hood Primary School…..12 pm - 3 pm. I trust it’s already in your diary! See you there!

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Dale

Don’t forget!

Assemblies have changed and will run as follows:

Key Stage 1: Friday 6^th December; Year 3/ 4: Friday 13^th December; Carols around the tree- Foundation/KS1- 11:30 pm- 12:00 pm; KS2- 2:30 pm - 3:00 pm Friday 20^th December.

Year 5/6: Friday 10^th January; Nursery: Wednesday 15^th and Friday 17^th January; Key Stage 1: Friday 24^th January; Spring 1 Year 3/ 4: Friday 31^st January; Year 5/6: Friday 7^th February; Reception: Friday 14^th February

Unless specified differently, all with a 2:30 start time. Thanks.

 

Nursery newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

This week we have been having a fabulous time thinking about all the different things we have to do during advent to prepare for Christmas and the children are now all very excited about preparing for the big day! The children have done really well at learning our nativity songs and they are beginning to sound like angels.

THIS WEEK
In topic the children have made a very sparkly Christmas tree advent calendar and we now have one in each class. The children can’t wait to start opening the doors each day and receiving their treat. In literacy the children came up with some super ideas of what they like to do to prepare for Christmas. They have done some amazing learning in mathematics and have been counting using one to one correspondence and thinking about the concept of ‘more’.

NEXT WEEK
We are continuing with our Christmas celebrations and in literacy we will be writing our Christmas lists to Santa. We will be making our very own collage of all the different toys we would like Santa to bring us. In topic we will be practising our nativity and making our very own snow globes.  In maths we will be showing off our shape knowledge to Mrs Steel who will be trying to catch us out with some very tricky shapes!

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·     Please help your child learn the nativity songs which can be found on the blog and help them learn their lines if they have them and don’t forget to have a look at all the children’s wonderful learning whilst you are there.

·      Please organise your child’s nativity costume. We are asking that the children’s costumes are in school by Monday 9^th December.

·      Please read with your child for 5 minutes every day and ask them lots of questions about the stories you are sharing.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Steel and the Nursery team.

Reception newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

This week we have been having a fabulous time thinking about all the different things we have to do during advent to prepare for Christmas. The children are now all very excited about preparing for the big day! The children have done really well at learning our nativity songs and they are beginning to sound like angels. We really hope that you enjoyed our showcase assembly. We thought that the children did an incredible job! Well done guys!

THIS WEEK
In topic the children have made a very bling Christmas tree advent calendar and we now have one in each class. The children can’t wait to start opening the doors each day to receive their treat. In literacy the children wrote some wonderful sentences about what they liked doing to prepare for Christmas. The children have done some amazing learning in mathematics and every child can name 2D shapes and they can even name some 3D shapes like a cone. They decorated Christmas trees with different shapes and created in pairs their own magical 3D world. In phonics they have learnt to read the Phase 3 sounds ai, ee, igh and oa and have learnt to write the tricky words; I, no, go, to, the and into.

NEXT WEEK
We are continuing with our Christmas celebrations and in literacy we will be writing our Christmas lists to Santa. We will be making our very own collage of all the different toys we would like Santa to bring us. In topic we will be practising our nativity and making our very own snow globes. In Reception we are going to be creating our very own Christmas shop so we will be making extra Christmas items so that if you wish to buy any more you may purchase them at our nativity.  In maths we will be making our very own Christmas wrapping paper which will be decorated using a repeating pattern and we will then cut some beautiful Christmas ribbon which we will order from shortest to longest. In phonics we will be learning read the sounds; oo (book), oo (hoop), ar (car) and or (corn) and read the tricky words you, all, are, her, they and my.  

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·     Please help your child learn the nativity songs which can be found on the blog (although this has not been working over the last week so fingers crossed it will be working soon) and help them learn their lines if they have them and don’t forget to have a look at all the children’s wonderful learning whilst you are there.

·      Please organise your child’s nativity costume. We are asking that the children’s costumes are in school by week commencing Monday the 9^th of December.

·      Please read with your child for 5 minutes every day and practise their sound recognition with them.

Have a great weekend!

Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception team.

Key Stage 1

 

Home Learning: For this week’s home learning we would like for your child to have a go at following or making instructions. In week 6 we will be learning how to follow instructions to make a Christmas card so this home learning is a quick practise! Depending on your child’s inclination they might want to find instructions in a book or on the internet to make something Christmassy or crafty or if they’re really creative they might design their own card or sculpture and write instructions for us their class to follow. Any interesting and well-presented instructions will be put out for independent learning times so the children can have a go at making their friends designs. We hope to see anything from models to cards to origami – let their creativity flow!

Assessment Week:

The time has come round again so fast; next week sees our final assessments for 2013. The week will be filled with snippets of reading, writing and numeracy tests, all of which the children really enjoy and embrace. We’re all very confident that all the children will be just fantastic and look forward to celebrating a successful term of learning with them and you!

KS1’s first Celebration Assembly:

As you are all aware each key stage is now having their own celebration assembly on a monthly basis and next Friday afternoon will play host to our first one! Everyone in the key stage one team is really excited about dedicating a whole assembly just to the wonderful learning that takes place in our classrooms on a daily basis and are sure that you’ll all leave glowing with pride at how much your child accomplishes. We’ll be showing a variety of learning from our literacy, numeracy and afternoon topic sessions. If you want to know more you’ll have to come on down next Friday, the 6^th of December…you never know, you might learn something too!

Literacy

Well, it has been a really fun 4 weeks learning all about narrative writing but this week sees the end of this unit. All children in the key stage took part in the final star write, building their own story’s characters, setting and plot based on the outline from the three books we have shared (The Gruffalo, The Smartest Giant in Town and Room on the Broom). This unit has allowed the children’s creativity to flourish and seen great improvement in their writing, especially around their knowledge and application of verbs, adjectives and time connectives. Year 1 has had a tight focus around the different stages of a story mountain, covering the details of an opening to the tension and excitement of the climax whilst Year 2 have honed in on a couple of sections of a story and focussed on how to construct a fluent and purposeful paragraph which really paints a picture of what you as the author want your reader to envisage.

Next week the children will all take part in a ‘cold write’: a write for which they have minimum input so that we can assess the level at which they can write at without any scaffolding of structure and modelling of how to build ideas. This will run just like a normal star write so it will not be a pressurised or unusual experience and, having heard the brief, will certainly spark their enthusiasm.

Numeracy

This week has seen the end to our numeracy unit on subtraction also. The children have spent this week looking at and investigating the laws of subtraction, and have even related them to using the inverse to find the opposite addition sum using the same numbers. We have solved sums and seen that in subtraction problems the biggest number must come first as opposed to an addition where it is always the answer. We have also investigated finding the difference instead of counting back from the biggest number in our heads or on our hundred square. We have found that finding the difference is really handy when we have two higher numbers that are close to one another numerically, for instance 45-41=. The children chose their preferred method to work this out based on whether they were more comfortable counting forwards from the smallest number to the biggest or backwards from the biggest number to the smallest. It has been a week jam-packed full of mental and written arithmetic, which has allowed the children to apply their taught skills in numerical and worded problems.

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

It has arrived at that time of the term again, when assessments are upon us. The children dealt with them really well last term and all we ask for is the same again. This is an opportunity for the children to shine and demonstrate all the fantastic learning they have done this half term. This week we started rehearsals for the Christmas production and have asked those children with speaking parts to have learnt their lines by Thursday 5^th December so that they are confident without their script to allow for smooth rehearsals and in turn a spectacular performance. The children in 3/4T will be dressed as elves, 3/4B dressed as fairies or in Christmas attire (jumpers, hats, scarves, etc.) and 3/4S dressed in Christmas attire or as reindeer. If you require any further details of costumes, etc. please do to hesitate to contact us. Just a reminder that the production will be staged in school on Tuesday 17^th December at 2:00pm and Wednesday 18^th December at 6:00pm. Further details of available seats will be sent out nearer the dates.

Due to the new changes in our Friday afternoon assemblies, Year 3/4 will be holding their first celebration assembly on Friday 13^th December. We look forward to welcoming parents and carers to share all of the wonderful things we have been doing this half term.

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 10 Times Table. The numeracy home learning for this week is a revisit of the four operations (addition, subtraction, division and multiplication) to consolidate their learning from lessons in the week. In addition to this, we have sent everybody home with a reading comprehension activity, again, replicating one of our activities from in class. This reading comprehension has a set of questions related to the text for the children to discuss and answer with parents, carers or older siblings. These activities have proved very popular in class and we hope they will be just as stimulating at home. We understand time is precious at home, so we are more than happy for this activity to replace the normal weekend reading. Please ensure home learning is returned to school before Friday, so we have time to mark it, and hand out new home learning before the weekend.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been applying their fantastic problem solving skills and knowledge of the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) to solve tricky real life problems. The children coped with these really well and enjoyed the challenges that they were presented with.

Literacy

This week in literacy, the children have continued to apply their persuasive skills to write a letter to the Governors, trying to persuade them to continue allowing packed lunches. The children have used lots of persuasive techniques and have thought of some fantastic reasons as to why delicious packed lunches need not be eradicated!

Spellings

These Spellings will be tested on Monday 2^nd December. For this week’s spellings we are giving the children some of the trickier words from this half term.

Group 1: news, screw, stew, flew, drew, grew, glue, jewel, clue, blue

Group 2: furniture, texture, figure, sculpture, creature, picture, temperature, mixture, signature, future.

Other areas of the curriculum:

In ICT, we have been creating our very own photo show reel about our school and friends using Photostory 3. This is a free piece of software that can be downloaded at home. Why not have a go?

In topic we have been planning a design ready to transfer onto our pumps next week using lots of exciting materials like metallic and fluorescent fabric paints, sharpie pens and metallic studs. As well as this, the children will be making advertisements for their pumps to persuade the class that their pair is the best!

In science we have been looking at how sound travels and how we hear. We are using instruments (guitars, recorders and xylophones) to experiment with pitch and volume.

Reminders

·         Our last swimming session for this half term will be Friday 13^th December.

·         Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

·         Now that the weather is turning colder, we ask that your child must bring a 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.

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 fabulous weekend!

Team 3/4

UKS2 Newsletter

News Roundup:

Friday Celebration Assemblies:
Upper Key Stage 2 will be showcasing their learning in our phase assembly on Friday 10^th January 2014.  This will be a chance for parents/carers to come along and see the amazing learning which has taken place this half term.  We look forward to seeing you there!

Core Subjects:

Numeracy:
In Numeracy this week the children have been showing off their understanding of the four operations (addition, division, multiplication and subtraction).  The pupils have been unpicking multi-step problems and learning to identify and extract the relevant information.  We hope the Parent Workshop held by Miss Thackeray and Miss Gascoigne, on Wednesday night, was useful and showed the strategies which are taught within school.

Next week in Numeracy the pupils will be showing off all their learning from the year so far and completing assessments.  These assessments will show us the learning which is embedded and help us to plan for the upcoming half term.  We know the pupils will amaze us, as they always do!

Literacy:
This week in Literacy pupils have been learning about the layout and key features of a written letter of complaint. Pupils have begun writing a letter of complaint to Alton Towers.  A number of the pupils have shared their own experiences of Alton Towers, even explaining the nerve-racking time when they had been left stranded on a broken down ride! They have looked at writing an opening paragraph which clearly states they are writing to complain, along with the reasons for the complaint.  The pupils have been using formal language and powerful vocabulary choices in order to get their point across.

This learning will continue into next week.  The pupils will also be taking part in an assessed write, writing a letter to Santa asking for a favourite present and stating the reasons why they deserve it.  This will give the pupils a chance to apply their learning from this week and show off their art of persuasion.

SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are: activity, community, readily, history, relevant, definitely, conscript, similar, secretary, hospital. Your child has received a copy of these spellings which has been glued into their planner. They will be tested on these words on Friday 6^th December

Other areas of the curriculum:
PE: This week pupils have been combining a range of core skills into a group sequence. Within the sessions smaller groups have also been learning the key techniques involved in preparation for using the vault and trampette in the coming weeks.

Once again, please ensure that your child comes to school with the appropriate PE kit each week.

5/6M and 5/6MO PE sessions are on Mondays and 5/6G PE sessions are on now on Wednesdays. As the PE unit this half term is Gymnastics, the children only need their plain white PE t-shirt and black shorts.

Spanish:
This week in Spanish the pupils have continued to embed their pronunciation and spelling of the days of the week and months of the year.  The pupils have been putting their knowledge of los objetos de la classe (classroom objects) into sentences using the sentence starter ‘Tengo…’ (I have) and ‘No Tengo…’ (I don’t have).  Miss Hinton’s class have been very creative and created their own classroom display showcasing the Spanish vocabulary for a range of classroom objects.  Check out the Year 5/6 blog for photos of the amazing team work and the Spanish classroom objects made.

Science:

This week, the children have been continuing their learning about forces in action. Pupils investigated the effect of water resistance on a range of different objects. During our lesson we explored the concept of up thrust and the effect it has on certain objects and their ability to float.

ICT:
During our ICT sessions, the children have been using the touch, light and sound sensors to program their Lego Mindstorms robots to respond to the environment around them.