08 January 2016
For all children in Year 1 to Year 6, the homework this week is Talk Time and is due Wednesday 13 January.
Which two charities should we support at school and why?
It’s time for children to think about our next two school charities. In 2014 and 2015, we have supported St Gemma’s Hospice and Cancer Research UK raising a total of £4370.02. We’ve helped these charities for two years now, so it’s time for a change.
We need you to have a discussion at home about which charities would be best for us to support. Following a class discussion next week, each class will nominate two charities to be considered by the School Council, who will make the final decision.
Once your child has decided on two charities, make sure they have clear, powerful reasons to support their views.
You might want to discuss whether we support…
- a local charity
- a national charity
- an international charity
- a children’s charity
- an animal charity
- a charity which helps a vulnerable group in our community
- a charity that has helped our learning, like Heart Research UK, NSPCC, RNLI
Our new school charities will be announced on Friday 15 January.
It’s Christmas…
There are no homework tasks or spellings during the holiday period.
Instead, support your child in other ways. Make sure they take part in family events, encourage them to relax and catch up on some reading at home, encourage them to send thank you notes (emails are fine, too!) – all these things will help their English skills of speaking and listening, reading and writing.
Plenty of maths skills can be practised, too – planning some top telly and considering times and durations of programmes, working out what half price is when the sales start… could your child even help with some cooking to use various measures?
Whatever they do, make sure your child, and you, have a happy and healthy Christmas break.
27 November 2015
Following our Health themed week, this week, our whole school homework is creative and is due on Wednesday 02 December.
I make healthy choices.
Each class has taken part in a variety of learning this week including a range of visitors to support our teaching of keeping healthy (please see our Class News pages).
Your child could present this creative homework in a variety of different ways:
- a quiz which tests the knowledge of other children
- art work
- poetry
- a poster
- writing: diary, story, letter, instructions, report
- a rap
- a mindmap
- your own creative idea
We look forward to seeing your creative ideas to demonstrate how to keep healthy and this homework will be the focus of our open afternoon, next week.
Homework open afternoon, 2.40pm on Wednesday 02 December – parents/carers of children in Years 1 – 6 are invited into the classroom to help you to be aware of the standards of homework in your child’s class; it will also give you an insight into how we give feedback to your child even if the homework does not appear to be marked.
It’s half-term…
…so there is no homework this week.
Please make sure your child spends some time most days reading – books, comics, newspapers… Why not visit the library or a book shop this week?
To support writing, your child should review their spellings from the last few weeks. You could test them on words from all the lists, and ask them to use the words in sentences or a story, or create a comic strip with a word used in each speech bubble.Perhaps you could set a challenge (for you as well as your child!) of using spelling words in everyday conversations! Practising handwriting by joining up is a useful activity, too.
In Maths, children in Key Stage 2 should definitely practise times tables – including the related division facts. Can your child respond within five seconds (not counting up to work it out) to questions like ‘What’s 7 times 8?’ and ‘What’s 42 divided by 6?’
Of course, make sure your child is happy and healthy over half-term, too! A walk and play at Roundhay Park, a bike ride, a conker challenge, a trip to the art gallery… Enjoy!
02 October 2015 – Talk Time
This week’s homework is Talk Time and is due on Wednesday 07 October.
Some people leave to go holiday and some people leave because they have to.
Discuss.
Lots of us like to go on holiday but some people are forced to move away from their homes. Why might people have to leave when others don’t have to? How would you feel if you were forced to move away from your home? Where would you go?
10 July 2015
This week’s whole school homework involves completing the pupil health questionnaire sent home with your child.
I can share my views about health.
This annual questionnaire has been compiled in consultation with our school council and helps us to find out pupil views on some of our key health issues at school. Please support your child to complete the health questionnaire by discussing these issues. The questionnaire should be returned to your class teacher by Wednesday 15 July.
03 July 2015
I can complete a diary about my lifestyle.
This includes what snacks they eat, how much they exercise do and how long they spend doing different activities. The homework has come from Mrs Taylor, who leads health in our school – it doesn’t take long to fill in and is used by local government to understand what children’s lives are like and how healthy they are. The diaries remain confidential and personal information will not be discussed in school if children don’t want to.
15 May 2015
The homework this week is Creative and is due Wednesday 20 May:
Who do you think you are?
Next week, we embark on five days of learning about identity, diversity and community. Your child is required to think about themselves and what makes them who they are.
Creative homework is a great way for your child to engage with their homework any way they choose. I’ll be looking for homework with some creative flair as well as some refinement and finesse. Ideas could range from:
- a family tree
- a personal timeline
- a comic strip depicting their life journey
I’m looking forward to finding out what makes each child who they are and the themed week is sure to be a successful one!
Time to learn your times tables
Practising times tables at home is really important. Knowing times tables facts really helps your child to feel confident in Maths, and enables them to make progress in areas such as calculating, fractions… even shape work can involve times tables – when we think about angles, for example.
The National Curriculum sets out expectations for times tables knowledge:
- Year 2: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables, including recognising odd and even numbers
- Year 3: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables
- Year 4: recall multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 × 12
If your child is in Year 5 or 6, they need to know all the tables facts so they can start thinking about prime numbers, factors etc. Knowing the tables facts (including division) means having rapid recall – being able to say the answer within about five seconds, not counting through the times tables to work it out.
Each week, your child is asked to learn a particular times table. We might also work on a pair of tables which are related, such as x4s and x8.
Please make sure your child practises as home: in the car, in the bath, on the way to school, straight after school as a matter of routine. Your child needs to know that something like this involves effort and there aren’t any easy solutions!
It’s really helpful to test them two or three times during the week to make sure their ‘score’ improves, and also try to build in some multiplication and division games and references:
- play ‘tables ping-pong‘, where you and your child counts through a times tables forwards and backwards, alternating the counting: 0, 4,8, 12, 16, 20…
- look out for arrays, where you see a grid of something: eggs in a carton is a simple 2 x 3 or 3 x 2 array, and there are arrays on your mobile phone (to log on to mobile phones, you might see a 3 x 3 array – a square number), on buildings (the window panes of a block of flats are useful for larger numbers), tiles in your bathroom, chocolate and other food products…
- download an app to practise on a phone or tablet (there are loads of free ones)
- talk about when you use times tables knowledge
Supporting your child’s maths at home
This article is a thought-provoking read, and might inspire you to support your child in different ways; in it, Professor Jo Boaler sets out this list of top tips for parents who want to support their child in Maths:
- Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games at home. Anything with a dice will help them enjoy maths and develop numeracy and logic skills.
- Never tell children they are wrong when they are working on maths problems. There is always some logic to what they are doing. So if your child multiplies three by four and gets seven, try: “Oh I see what you are thinking, you are using what you know about addition to add three and four. When we multiply we have four groups of three…”
- Maths is not about speed. In younger years, forcing kids to work fast on maths is the best way to start maths anxiety, especially among girls.
- Don’t tell your children you were bad at maths at school. Or that you disliked it. This is especially important if you are a mother.
- Encourage number sense*. What separates high and low achievers in primary school is number sense.
- Encourage a “growth mindset” – the idea that ability changes as you work more and learn more.
- For younger children, the ‘five-ness’ of five and then the ‘ten-ness’ of ten is really important: five fingers, five toes, five displayed on a dice, five split into 4 and one more, five split into three and two…
- For older children, if they are asked to add up 27 and 16, when they have number sense they can break the numbers apart and use them flexibly – take three from the 16 and add it to 27 to make 30, then add on the remaining 13 to make 43.
Number sense is not something you can get from simply being given an extra worksheet for homework – it develops from play, discussion and observation of number in the world around them.