Class News

A brilliant first week!

Well done everybody! We have had a fantastic first week in Year 1! The children have been amazing settling in and have really impressed both Mrs Roth and myself with their brilliant attitude and learning.

We look forward to meeting you over the next few weeks but for now, here is some key information about Year 1.

Important days and dates

PE – Monday and Thursday

Spelling test – Friday

Library – Friday

Class assembly – Wednesday 25th October at 2:40pm

Water bottles

These should be brought to school daily and they will be brought home every day for refreshing and cleaning.

Homework/Spellings

Whole school homework is set every Friday (along with new spellings). Homework and spellings can also be accessed from the website.

Reading

In Year 1, we will continue using e-books for our reading practice. Your child will bring home a log-in for the e-book website. Please log out of last year’s account and log in with the new account. This will ensure any new books are in the account.

Numbots

We continue to use Numbots in Year 1 (using the same login as reception) and certificates will be awarded every Friday for children who complete the different stages.

For spelling practice, reading and Numbots, little and often (10/15 minutes a day) is recommended.

Uniform

Please do check the uniform policy to ensure your child is wearing the correct items including for PE days. Earrings must be removed on PE days.

Finally, please do ask if there are any queries and keep checking back on class news to find out more about your child’s learning!

Living and Learning: rules

At the start of the new school year, the children have been reminded about rules and the importance of rules in our daily life.

Before focussing on our revised school rules, we started by thinking about…

Why do we have rules?

What rules can you think of?

What places have rules?

Who makes the rules?

Rules tells us what to do.

We need rules so we don’t hurt each other.

Rules help us to know what is right and what is wrong.

Rules help us to be happy and healthy.

In our school we have three school rules.  Three, two, one, stop is one of the most important instructions the children will hear at school.

We concluded that following our school rules will make our school a happy, healthy and SAFE place to learn.

We also agreed our Living and Learning ground rules.

Finally, we considered our rules about online safety at school. Your child has brought home their Being online – acceptable use agreement for pupils and parents/carers which should be read through, signed and returned to class.

Any questions, please do ask.

Help at home – think about our revised school rules and talk with your child about what that might look like or sound like in the classroom, the playground or at lunchtime.

Spellings

Instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.

However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.

Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more.

Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would.

We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home.

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out this ‘Super Spelling Strategies Guide’ : Some-super-spelling-strategies

Half-term 1

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• alternative ways for writing the ‘ay’ sound
• alternative ways for writing the ‘ee’ sound
• ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
• ‘drop the e for ing’
• ‘drop the y for an i’
• adding the suffixes ed, ing
• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

Welcome back!

Year 4 have hit the ground running this week – it’s like we’ve never been away!

It’s been so lovely to spend time as a class again and Mrs Burgess, Mrs Charlesworth and I have been blown away by their behaviour and attitude towards school and learning. They are superstars!

A few bits of information:

• Our PE days are Wednesday and Friday. Please wear PE kits on these days. (If you have been told that your child is going swimming on Wednesday, they will need to come in their PE kit and bring their swimming kit with them).
• Reading records will be sent home tomorrow. The activity (stated on the homework) needs to be completed and accompanied by a parent/guardian’s comment and signature and brought back to school every Friday for book club. Thank you for your support with this.

As always, if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to ask.

Reading Records!

Reading Records

This week, Year 3 will be sent home with their new and exciting reading records! These records are to help me (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.
• 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 gives 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!

Spellings for this half term…

Instead of learning eight different words each week, we’d like you to learn these 40 words over the whole half-term. Lots of research suggests that learning more spellings over a longer time leads to better remembering how to spell them in the long term.

How you decide to do this is up to you. You might decide to focus on the trickiest words first. Or, you might decide to learn 8 words a week and really focus on these whilst still practising the others, too. For some of you, you might already feel confident with some of the words so might choose to not practise these at all.

However you decide to do it, is up to you. The important thing is that you’re learning them and learning how you like to learn them best.

Each week, we’ll choose eight random words to test you on. These tests aren’t pressured. They might just help you figure out which words you need to practise more.

Learning spellings in this way might feel quite different – or even scary – but it shouldn’t. In fact, you’ve actually got less words to learn this half-term than you normally would.

We’ll keep thinking about this in school and we’ll regularly talk about how we can best practise these words at home.

If you need some ideas for practical things to do, check out this ‘Super Spelling Strategies Guide’ : Some-super-spelling-strategies

Half-term 1

This half-term, our spellings are linked to the rules and strategies we’ll be learning in class:

• alternative ways for writing the ‘ay’ sound
• alternative ways for writing the ‘ee’ sound
• ‘double up for a short vowel sound’
• ‘drop the e for ing’
• ‘drop the y for an i’
• adding the suffixes ed, ing
• homophones (words that sound the same but are spelled differently)

Each Friday, you’ll be tested on 8 of the words from the list below.

Living and Learning: Rules

In Living and Learning this week, we looked at the school rules and why they are important.

We also discussed our school’s Acceptable Use Agreement for their use of the internet in school. This document will be sent home with your child today; please sign and return them ASAP.

Help at home: Discuss what rules you have at home and compare them with the school’s rules. Are they similar? Are they different?

Living and Learning – rules

This week’s Living and Learning session was all about the school rules and why they’re important.

• We’re respectful.
• We’re ready.
• We’re safe.

Have a look at these illustrations below and see if you can work out which school rule they’re representing.

Help at home by discussing these rules we have at school and how they might be similar or different to the ones you have at home or in wider society.

Welcome back!

The children have settled really well in their first couple of days in Year 2 with lots of new routines to learn and an earlier start time of 8:45am.

We look forward to meeting you over the next few weeks but for now, here is some key information about Year 2.

Mrs Taylor – Monday and Tuesday

Mrs Lake – Wednesday, Thursday and Friday

Mrs Maqbool also assists in the class.

Important days and dates

PE – Tuesday and Thursday

Spelling test – Friday

Library – Friday

Class assembly – Wednesday 18th October at 2:40pm

Water bottles

These should be brought to school daily and they will be brought home every day for refreshing and cleaning.

Milk

Please contact the office if your child would like to have milk in Year 2.

Homework/Spellings

Whole school homework is set every Friday (along with new spellings). Homework and spellings can also be accessed from the website.

Reading

Your child will be bringing home a letter explaining about their reading. Daily reading, whether this is their e-book, a book from home or the library, is key to making progress in reading and to develop fluency.

Numbots

We continue to use Numbots in Year 2 (using the same login as Year 1) and certificates will be awarded every Tuesday for children who complete the different stages and make the most improvement over the week.

For spelling practice, reading and Numbots, little and often (10/15 minutes a day) is recommended.

Uniform

Please do check the uniform policy to ensure your child is wearing the correct items including for PE days. Earrings must be removed on PE days.

Acceptable Use agreement

The children have brought home the acceptable use agreement for their use of the internet at school. We have talked through this together but please read it with your child and sign and return to class.

Finally, please do ask if there are any queries and keep checking back on class news to find out more about your child’s learning!

Welcome back!

A very warm welcome from me, Miss Wilson!

I hope you had a happy and healthy summer. It’s been a pleasure seeing the class again and fab to get properly stuck in to Y6.

Here’s some important days to note down:

• Book Club will be on Mondays so please bring your signed Reading Record in then.
• Our library slot is every Tuesday.
• PE will happen on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• Our first class assembly is on 29 November.

My door is always open should you have any questions, comments or concerns. I’m really looking forward to the year ahead!

Miss Wilson