Author: Mr Roundtree

Matheletics has changed…

…to Spellodrome! Why?

…to Spellodrome!

Two years ago, we entered into a three year contract for the whole school. We’ve incorporated Mathletics sessions into the weekly routine in school, and classes have sometimes been given Mathletics Practice Makes Perfect homework. Of course, we also hoped that you would encourage your child to log-in regularly at home, too.

As a school, we’ve been really happy with Matheletics. However, with one year left in our current contract, we thought it was time for a change. Spellodrome is created by the same people, so we’ve decided to swap to this for the final year.

Why?

Well, put simply, our children’s spellings need to be better. Despite being one of the top performing schools in the country in the phonics screening check which Year 1 children do (we received a letter from the Department of Education congratulating us for having 100% of children pass in 2015), our children’s spelling accuracy isn’t good enough.

We’re finding many children use their phonics knowledge to spell words which are phonetically readable, but not accurate. By this we mean, for example, Moortown might be Moretown, English might be Inglish, phonics might be fonicks. (I’ll include a couple of other examples below.) All these words can be read, but there are so many ways to make sounds in our language, and children are choosing the wrong ways (not weighs!).

Also, many children aren’t applying some common spelling rules which would really help – and which teachers practise a lot with their classes:

  • double up for a short vowel sound (think of the difference between hoping and hopping; able and apple; diner and dinner)
  • drop the ‘e’ for ‘ing’ (take becomes taking – no ‘e’; like becomes liking; accommodate becomes accommodating)
  • drop the ‘y’ for an ‘i’ (so try becomes tries; party becomes parties; quality becomes qualities)

So, for the next year at least, the whole school is using Spellodrome. Please, please make sure (not shoor!) your child is regularly logging in.

Also, and probably more importantly, they should be reading. Reading will help to familiarise children with correct spellings in the correct contexts – and has so many other benefits, too (studies have found that children who read fiction for pleasure have increased empathy and better mental health in years to come).

Testing times…

Check out this leaflet and short video for parents about 2016 assessments at key stages 1 and 2 – especially useful if you have a child in Y2 or Y6.

Do you have a child Year 2 or Year 6?

If so, they will be taking the national curriculum tests (SATs) in May 2016. The tests will provide information about how your child is progressing, compared to children the same age nationally. The results are used to ensure that schools are teaching their pupils the essential knowledge and skills in the subjects that are the early building blocks. This is to ensure every child reaches their full potential. There are changes to the tests this year at both key stages. This is because the tests are based on the new national curriculum, which your child has been taught since September 2014.

The Standards and Testing Agency has published a leaflet and short video for parents about the 2016 tests.

PTA event coming up…

Keep your diaries free for Friday evening, 22 April!

PTA writes:

Cheese and wine evening 

Friday 22 April, 7.30pm for an 7.45 start

Dear parents / carers

Over the last year, the PTA has organised some memorable quiz nights for parents and carers. These have been very popular, and thanks to your support we have raised large amounts of funds which have gone towards the new school library and building the field fund.

With this in mind we are pleased to invite you to our first PTA cheese and wine evening. We promise you a fun evening trying out hand-picked wines to compliment a range of specially selected cheese. The cheese will be provided by cheesemonger George & Joseph of Chapel Allerton and the wine by Majestic Wine.

Join us for the evening to find out more about the selected cheese and wine from the experts, and take part in the tasting to see if you agree with their selection! There will be the opportunity to buy your favourite cheese to take away after the tasting, and you could also win great prizes on the night by entering the raffle or taking part in the cheese and wine quiz.

Tickets cost £10 per person, which includes the cheese and wine tasting, and the disco after the tasting. A range of drinks will be available to purchase from the licensed bar throughout the evening.

Please note that this is an over-18 event only, and friends and family are welcome.

Tickets will be sent in book bags prior to the event.

We look forward to seeing you on the night for what will be a fun evening!

Please contact the school office no later than the 18 April to book tickets.

Are you keeping up with ways to support your child to stay safe…?

Each week, Parent Zone produces a newsletter full of useful advice. In this week’s edition…

…or just hoping they will stay safe on their own? You wouldn’t expect them to cross a busy road without teaching them and checking they know what they’re doing – it’s pretty much the same for online safety!

Each week, Parent Zone produces a newsletter full of useful advice, and their website is packed with other great ways to support your child. They update content every week, usually on a Thursday afternoon, so don’t miss out on the latest articles and information for parents. In this week’s newsletter…

Nude selfies: understanding why
A film explaining what they are, and what parents should know about them.

Setting safety and privacy settings for social media apps
If you want to set parental controls on apps such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, here’s how to do it.

Self-harm: what parents should know
Why do young people self-harm and what can you do to help them? Expert advice from SelfharmUK.

Teens on Tinder
Shockingly, 13-year-olds can legally use Tinder. Here’s what parents need to know about the popular dating app…

In case you missed it: Don’t pay the price for your child’s online fun
Parents sometimes end up paying unexpectedly large phone bills and don’t know why. PhonepayPlus, the premium rate services regulator, explains what to look out for when giving your child a mobile device…

24 March 2016

This week’s spellings will test how well children are retaining information they are learning by focussing on spellings covered across the year so far.

There have been many different spelling rules and patterns explored up to this point in the year. Next week’s test will be from the spelling lists learnt in the first half term (07.09.15 – 23.10.16). Children should look over these lists and note the patterns we learnt about, picking out words they think they found most tricky at the time.

Ten spellings from this list will be tested as children are not expected to learn spelling simply for a test but for long term use of these words.

24.03.16

24.03.16 2

24 March 2016

This week’s Talk Time homework is due on Tuesday 29 March.

To be able to tell my Fighting Fantasy story confidently.

After lots of work in class on writing narratives, Y5 will be writing their own short story on Tuesday next week. In order to be confident with our stories and to enable us to write a well-thought-through tale, the children have brought their story plans home.

Ask them what the story is about. Question any gaps you think there might in their tale and look out for ideas that are too complicated and might sound muddled. Can they tell you their story orally, remembering key events and some details?

As always, the children are asked to write notes demonstrating what has been discussed. These notes could point out main story events, effective adjectives, verbs or phrases that they’ve used at home and don’t want to forget, or they could detail feedback they’ve had on their story from people at home.

We’ll write our stories on Tuesday so this homework is due on Tuesday 29 March, one day earlier than is usually the case.

24 March 2016

This week’s Practice Makes Perfect homework is due on Wednesday 30 March.

To be able to solve maths problems.

The children have got a selection of Maths problems to read, understand and solve in a given context. They need to think about what question they are actually answering and, sometimes, interpret correctly what remainders mean when dividing. This is work that has recently been learnt in class so they should be able to work independently.

Any working out can be completed in homework books and, for each question, a full sentence should be written to communicate their answer.

If you’re wanting to support your child in their work, check out our calculations videos to see how we do our working out in class.

 

Three or free?

Listen to your child as the say words like ‘three’ and ‘the’. More and more children are saying these words in a way which sounds like ‘free’ and ‘vuh’ or ‘fuh’ – all words that use ‘th’, in fact.

Increasingly, we’re noticing children who are not speaking clearly enough – and this is having a negative effect on their spelling.

Listen to your child as the say words like ‘three’ and ‘the’. More and more children are saying these words in a way which sounds like ‘free’ and ‘vuh’ or ‘fuh’ – all words that use ‘th’, in fact.

We know this is simply because children are not learning to stick their tongue out to make the ‘th’ sound – maybe it’s a bit lazy, maybe it’s because they never learnt, maybe it’s because the London accent (where this is more historic) is heard so much these days. When we prompt children, the vast majority can do say ‘th’ perfectly.

Does this matter?

Well, yes. This week, a child told me in a Maths lesson that the cost of something was ‘free’ – he meant £3. In the same week, a good writer demonstrating his ability to use a wider bank of words begun a sentence with ‘Furfermore, …’

If the way children pronounce words means that someone can confuse what they say, or that they end up making mistakes in spelling a simple word like ‘further’, then yes, this does matter.

As Mrs Burke tells her class in phonics lessons, saying ‘th’ is the only time your child is allowed to stick their tongue out at someone – please help your child get out of this habit, whatever their age!

18 March 2016

Spellings this week are not one specific list. The children have gone through their English book and picked out words they have spelt incorrectly in the past in order to learn these and not make the same mistake again.

It’s best if ten minutes of each day is given to practising spellings and we’ve looked at lots of different ways in which we can practise in class.

  • word shapes
  • word pyramids
  • missing vowels
  • create a crossword
  • make it into a wordsearch
  • good old look, write, cover, check.

These spellings will be tested on Thursday 24 March.

18 March 2016

This week’s Talk Time homework will be discussed on Wednesday 23 March.

To be able to see things from other people’s point of view.

This links to our SEAL statement for the week and is an essential skill for life. Over dinner, discuss when we might have a different opinion to somebody else; why somebody else’s opinion might be different; whether it’s OK for our opinions to differ; and what we can do to get along with each other and accept/respect our differences.