Author: Mr Roundtree

Cricket

Year 6 had their first cricket lesson this week and they all really enjoyed it. They started off with some simple drills practising their throwing and catching skills before moving very quickly into a big batting and fielding game. We then finished off with some quick cricket which we’ll be playing again next week after some batting and bowling practice.

The batting team, ready to strike.
The fielding team, hoping to make a catch.
Summarising the positives and negatives of the game and what we need to improve on for next time.

Term-time absences

In the summer term, the number of parents / carers requesting term-time absence increases a little. We do not authorise term-time absence for holidays or other reasons that are avoidable. This follows our Attendance Policy which the Governing Body agree, and follows the recommendations from the Department for Education.

If a child has unauthorised absences, there is the likelihood that parents will be issued with a penalty notice from Leeds City Council.

The National Association of Headteachers has produced some guidance recently, extracts of which are shown here:

The Education (pupil registration) (England) (amendment) Regulations 2013, which came into force on 1 September 2013, made it clear that head teachers may not grant any leave of absence during term time unless ‘exceptional circumstances’ prevail.

The fundamental principles for defining ‘exceptional circumstances’ are that they are ‘rare, significant, unavoidable and short’.

Term times are for education. This is the priority. Children and families have 175 days off school to spend time together, including weekends and school holidays. Head teachers will rightly prioritise attendance. The default school policy should be that absences will not be granted during term time and will only be authorised in exceptional circumstances.

If an event can be reasonably scheduled outside of term time then it would not be normal to authorise absence for such an event – holidays are therefore not considered ‘exceptional circumstances’.

27 April 2018

For the rest of the year, Year 6 won’t have a specific list of spellings. Instead, they should think about the spelling skills they need to develop (from the list below) and create their own spelling practice. There will be a test each week and, along with this, we’ll discuss the sorts of spellings we’re finding more difficult.

  • tion/ssion/sion/cian endings
  • homophones
  • ant/ent/ancy/ency/ance/ence endings
  • adding prefixes
  • adding suffixes
  • unusual spellings
  • ible/able/ibly/ably
  • fer endings
  • spelling rules
  • tious/cious
  • ough
  • tial/cial endings

27 April 2018

This week’s homework is Practice Makes Perfect and will be marked as a class on Friday 04 May (as school is closed on Thursday).

We’ve been working on our vocabulary this week so all of the children have some questions to complete based on our learning. These questions should be able to be completed independently but see whether your child can explain three of their answers to you.

Great spelling practice

In Year 6, we’ve been working on our ability to spell words when we haven’t had the week to learn them. We had a go at fifteen words each day (with Miss Rushbrooke reminding us about spelling patterns, sounding words out, pointing out trickier parts and all sorts of other hints and tips). Then we spent ten minutes practising any words we’d found difficult or got wrong.

We’ve really enjoyed our spelling practice and have been getting more creative every day, trying to make sure we’re thinking of ways to remember the spelling rather than just write it over and over.

Here’s an example you could use in your practice at home.