Change to PE days
Our PE days are changing from next week. We will now be doing PE on a Monday and Friday. The children should come to school in their school uniform on Thursday.
Please ensure that your child comes to school wearing the correct PE kit on Monday and Friday. If you have any questions about this – please refer to our uniform policy or speak to me.
Thank you!
Let’s get reading!
Another busy week in Reception and despite the disruption of Covid cases, the children have been amazing.
Thank you for your patience with regards to the e-books that we are using as part of our reading practice. As Mrs Burke has been unwell, there has been a slight delay but you’ll be pleased to know that each child has been allocated three e-books. This means they can read with you at home and show you that they are ‘readers’.
Normally, they’ll only get one allocated but we’ve made more available to keep you going and then hopefully, Mrs Burke will be back and we’ll get into more of a routine. In the meantime, enjoy the e-books and sharing them with your child.
If you have any issues in logging on, please ask a member of staff and we’ll try and sort it out for you.
As always, thank you for your support and patience.
Inheritance (like you’ve never seen before!)
In biology, Year 5 have been learning about inheritance and how characteristics are passed down from parents to offspring.
We used Mr Men and Little Miss to demonstrate our understanding of this. Check them out below!
Electrical Circuits
In today’s science learning, children were given the following components:
– two wires
– one cell
– one lightbulb
Without any instruction, children were asked to make the light bulb turn on.
See if your child can remember the components needed to make a complete electrical circuit that turns a lightbulb on!
Free White Rose Rugby event for all pupils
Gymnastics
On Thursday, Year 2 enjoyed their first gymnastics session with two gymnastic coaches. We showed great resilience, determination and team work during our PE lesson.
eBooks – an update.
First of all, thank you very much for your support and engagement with our new online reading books. I hope you have seen, as you were reading with your child this week, that they were reading more fluently and more confidently as a result of the changes we have put in place. I would just like to update you all on a couple of items regarding the new system.
Sharing books – the ‘sharing books’ are the books that your child will bring back from the library every Friday. Take time to enjoy these books and talk with your children about the story or information they contain. We have also been working hard on expression in reading so these books are a perfect chance for you to model good expression which your child can copy.
It is very important that these books come back to school every Friday so that your child can bring home two new books.
eBooks – From next week I will assign your child’s new ebook on a Thursday. This is to avoid your child having 3 new books on the same day (Friday).
I have heard that some people have had a couple of problems accessing the books on a laptop or tablet device. There is an app you can download for tablets and phones which would probably make the experience better. Search Collins ebooks to find the app. If you are still having problems, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Reading records – I would still like to see reading records once a week, on a Thursday, as it is an important line of communication about your child’s reading.
Additional books – I will release all the books from your child’s previous reading phase into their ebook library early next week. This is so your child can have additional practice reading fluently and with expression if they want to.
Thank you for all your support with this new initiative and, as always, get in touch if you need to.
Thanks,
Mr McGriffiths
Performing (and remembering) poetry
This week’s homework was to memorise the poem From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Y6 performed their poems this afternoon and did so with voice projection, expression and a great pace.
We also had a chat about how we went about learning them. We came up with several different ideas. Some techniques worked for some people but others so it’s important that you try a variety of ways and see which one helps you retain whatever it is that you’re trying to remember!
Other memory techniques could be to come up with actions, make it funny or use the Roman Method of Loci method where you imagine yourself walking around a familiar place and finding items in each section of that place.
Have a discussion at home about what helps you remember something!
What’s been happening this week?
We’re very proud of Reception this week; there have been a lot of staff changes (because of illness and other things) and the children in Reception have been amazing!
There’s been so much learning going on that it is hard to know where to start! They have shown that they’re ready to learn and they’ve shown that they are able to take responsibility for their own learning – brilliant.
Some great PE has been happening this week – here are some photos from a movement lesson:
In Maths, they’ve been finding out all about the number ‘7’ including finding different ways of making 7 and counting 7 objects – they’re now experts so make sure you test their knowledge!
Just a reminder that there is a bit of a change with the books that are coming home. Children will bring a book home to share with you; this isn’t a phonics book but a book that you can just enjoy with your child. They have read their phonics book in school, several times this week, and this can be accessed as an e-book with the details that have already been sent home. This is a very new system for all of us so if there are any issues, please be patient.
A great week for Reception – well done everyone. Have a great weekend.
Topic learning – History
History is the focus of our topic learning this half term. During this topic, we will be ordering significant events in our lives. We’ll be discussing them using historical vocabulary.
As the half term progresses, the children will discuss how significant things have changed over time: the food that we eat, the shops that we visit and the toys that we play with.
So far during our topic sessions, we have looked at ordering key events in our lives on a timeline, ordering events within living memory (the last 100 years) and discussing the key vocabulary past and present.