I know the 8Rs!
This week in Y6, we’ve been focusing our attention on the 8Rs.
Challenge your child to name them as quick as they can!
Not only have we made some bright and colourful posters to remind ourselves of these important learning behaviours…
…but we’ve also been threading them through our classroom atmosphere all week. Here’s what Y6 think.
“They’re sort of like school rules but fun extras. They’re easy to remember because of all the Rs and they help your learning all round,” said Leah.
Billy continued: “They’re important because you’d struggle if you didn’t use them. If you’re not resilient, you’d always give up and never be able to do anything!”
“They help people’s memories and they’re great rules to live by. They encourage you to take safe risks and become more confident,” explained Edris.
“They always help. For example you need to be ready so that you’re concentrating and you always have what you need,” stated Ashton.
Reading records!
Hi everyone,
Reading records!
Last week, Year 4 were sent home with their new and exciting reading records! These records are to help Mrs Maqbool and I (Miss Birch) keep track of the children’s reading progress.
The new reading records key info:
- Each time one of the children signs out a new book to read from the library, they can make note of these in the book and rate them out of 5 stars.
- I’ll choose an activity for the whole class to complete on their chosen book each Friday. More information on these activities are inside the record. I’ll post this on class news as well!
- The children will need to bring in these reading records every Friday for our Book Club lesson where we’ll discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- The children’s grown-ups will also need to write a short comment sharing with us the lovely reading their child has been doing at home.
- It’s also fab as it will give the children ownership and responsibility of their reading!
I hope this is all clear and I’m really looking forward to seeing their progress.
Any questions, please ask!
Great learning at home
Every week, the children will be rewarded with any Lexia and Numbots certificates they have achieved. Well done to all the children who have already started this learning at home. Remember just 10/15 minutes a day can really support your child’s reading and phonics (Lexia) and their recall of addition and subtraction number facts (Numbots).
In Year 2, we are aiming for the children to achieve up to Level 9 for Lexia and Diamond level for Numbots. All logins remain the same from Year 1 and they have been sent home with your child’s homework book last Friday.
Here are the first certificates for Year 2!
Lexia
Congratulations to Aliza and Saavi who have achieved their Level 6 certificate.
Numbots
Congratulations to Talha who has achieved his Copper level certificate. We also have a class leader board for the children who have earned the most coins in the week. Here are this weeks’ results.
1st Roshni
2nd Talha
3rd Saba
Keep working hard at home and we look forward to lots more certificates throughout the year.
If you’ve any questions about this learning at home, please ask.
Netball coaching and half term camps
We are looking forward to having some coaching in school from Elite Netball Academy in the next few weeks.
Elite Netball Academy run weekly netball classes on a Saturday morning at Gateways school and they have an early bird offer for their October half term camps held locally at The Grammar School at Leeds- £25 per day if booked by 17th September.
Week 1
Hello everyone!
I can’t believe that we are already in our second week! Year 5 have demonstrated fantastic attitudes towards their learning and I look forward to seeing how this will help them progress throughout the year.
So far, we have enjoyed…
Practising our linguistic skills in Latin…
Fine tuning our pocket passes in rugby…
Learning as part of a team…
And finding a quiet moment to enjoy some reading or drawing!
Looking ahead, we have a lot of exciting learning to look forward to this half term.
In maths, we’re learning about decimals and fractions.
In writing, we’re learning about how to write a diary entry. Ask your child if they can remember any key features of a typical diary entry.
In reading, we’re recapping how to answer retrieval, inference and choice questions. Our class novel this half term is Survivors – a fascinating read packed with short stories of bravery, resilience and danger. Ask your child if they can use their summarising skills to retell one of the short stories we’ve read so far.
In topic, we’re learning as geographers about the world we live in. Check out this tool on Google Maps to see how school has changed over time. You could see how your own front garden has changed, too!
In science, we’re learning as chemists about the properties and changes of materials. Watch this space for reports on some exciting science experiments!
As of this week, Year 5 also have an in house TTRS competition. Every week, the child who has spent the most time on TTRS is able to randomly shout out a times table of their choice for the class to answer. Please encourage your child to log on so they have a chance of having ‘the power’!
As always, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if there is anything that I can help you with.
Miss Needham
Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA)
The Reception Baseline Assessment (RBA) is statutory for all schools from September 2021.
It is a short, interactive and practical assessment of your child’s early
literacy, communication, language and mathematics skills when they begin
school, using materials that most children of your child’s age will be familiar with.
All Reception children will be participating in the reception baseline assessment (RBA) within the first 6 weeks of starting school.
The purpose of the assessment is to provide the starting point for a new measure that will help parents understand how well schools support their pupils to progress between reception and year 6 / the end of key stage 2.
For further information about the RBA, please see this guide.
Introduction to Reception – Zoom session
We’d like to welcome new Reception parents to our school by inviting you to a short Zoom session on Wednesday 15 September at 6pm. This session will be a 30 minute introduction to Reception at our Sphere Federation schools.
The sessions will outline the recent changes to the EY’s Framework and the introduction of a Reception Baseline Assessment. It’ll also offer you a few top tips on how you can support your child at home.
The session starts at 6pm. It will last around 20-25 minutes, plus there will be a questions and answer session at the end of around 5-10 minutes.
If you’re interested in attending this Zoom session, please either send us a message on the School Gateway app or email the school office. We’ll then email the Zoom joining details out to all those who have expressed an interest.
Watch out for further workshops relating to both English and Maths on your child’s class website page in the coming weeks.
Reading Record
Hi everyone,
On Friday 10th September, your child was sent home with a brand new reading record. Now you might be thinking, ‘Hang on! My child came home with their reading record earlier this week!’. Although this is the case, we’d like you to use the new reading records that were sent home on Friday.
The new reading records offer the following benefits:
- it is a place for children to record the books/texts they’ve read and rate them out of five stars
- there are a range of activities your child will accomplish throughout the year based on what they’ve read (each week, details of this task will be posted on class news)
- it gives children a chance to enhance their love of reading during our weekly book club sessions in school
- it gives children ownership and responsibility of their reading
- it allows children to practise their oracy skills during book club sessions when they share what they’ve been reading
- it can be a place for parents to share with teachers the wonderful reading their child has been doing at home
This week, the activity your child should complete based on their reading is…
Vocabulary Ninja
You can find more details about this in the activities section of the reading record.
Any questions, please ask!
Happy reading!
First week back!
We’ve had a brilliant first week back at school in Year 1 and the children have shown a wonderful attitude to learning. They have been really eager to learn new things and I am sure they will be very tired this Friday!
This week we have introduced our topic for the half term all about British Geography, Where in the world am I? We have updated the maps in the playground so have a look at them with your child as you arrive at school.
In maths, we have been using the 100 square to practise counting forwards and backwards. Help at home by practising counting different objects around the house. You will also have received a log in for Numbots today which is a great way to support their maths learning too.
In reading, we have been developing our reading fluency by reading our weekly fluency text based on the book Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. The children will also have sent home with a new reading book this Friday. Help at home by reading daily with your child and choose some of the reading activities from this guide. Books will be changed every Tuesday and Friday.
In phonics, we will be recapping the Phase 4 learning from the end of Reception before moving onto Phase 5. Help at home by playing some of the games on Phonics Play, accessed through their website not an app, choosing Phase 4 games (Login Sphere Password Sphere3)
In Living and Learning we have been working on this week’s target, ‘I greet someone politely’. They have done a brilliant job and we practised in small groups how we would greet each other politely.
Homework books will be sent home on Friday and they can be kept at home and used for the children to practise their weekly spellings and to record any brief notes from their talk time homework.
Please do let me know if there is anything we can help with.
Mr McGriffiths
Our first week of Year Three…
In our first week back of Year Three, we have been settling in, getting into routines and doing lots of different learning!
In writing…
We’ve been leanring all about Must Dos. These are the things we absolutely must remember to do in our writing. This includes: capital letters at the start of a sentence and for proper nouns (like Moortown), full stops/punctuation at the end of sentences and making sure that our writing makes sense! Next week, we will be looking at squashed sentences! This is when two sentences that make sense on their own are squashed together without either a full stop or a conjunction.
For example:
I went to the park it was fun.
This is a squashed sentence.
It should read…
I went to the park. It was fun.
or
I went to the park and it was fun.
Ask your child if they can remember our learning from this week!
In geography…
We’ve been learning about ‘Where in the world am I?’
This is our new geography topic where we’re finding out about where Moortown is in relation to the city, county, country and continent!
We recapped all seven continents at the start of the week. See if your child can remember!
In maths…
We’ve been recapping our number facts within and across ten. We’ve also been practising our 10x tables as well!
We’ve done lots of learning in other areas, too. We’ve been practising our ‘ai’ sound in spelling, doing daily reading fluency and much more.
Finally…
We’ve been reminding ourselves of what we need to do on 3, 2, 1 STOP. This is empty hands, silent voices and eyes on the speaker. It’s really important that we are all ready by STOP so that we are ready to learn as much as possible! See if your child can tell you what to do on 3,2,1 STOP.
Here’s to another great week next week, Y3!