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What’s going on in class

Having thoroughly enjoyed our mini-topic ‘The Lost Thing’, we’ve now started a Big Topic called ‘Holidays’. The topic began by exploring two suitcases and predicting where we could be visiting (real and imaginary) in the next 8 weeks. We then look at the top ten holiday destinations from the UK in Summer 2015 and researched one of these countries in greater detail.

Topic – In the next couple of weeks, we’ll be planning a holiday abroad, looking at temperature, rainfall and all sorts of other important deciding factors. We’ll delve into the world of physics to understand how planes stay in they sky and boats don’t sink as well as starting to compare the UK to a (currently mystery) destination in the Americas.

Help at home by searching flights online, looking at how long it takes and discussing the children’s idea for how the plane works. 

Maths – Alongside this, we’ll learn lots about other countries by understanding graphs, tables and charts in our maths lessons. We’ll need to answer basic retrieval questions as well as compare data and use graphs that might be less familiar to us (pie charts).

Help at home by exploring different ways of presenting data and see which you think are the clearest and what makes them easy to understand (labelled axes, titles etc).

English – We’ll look at different types of sentences (simple, compound and complex) and practise writing these accurately before moving on to writing discussions to put forward different sides of an argument.

Help at home by discussing guided reading books and how sentences vary their openers, some are very short and some very descriptive and there are different joining words (but, because, although) used to link ideas together.

Times Tables

Next Friday will be our first times tables test of the year. The focus is the 10 times table. We will be practising in class next week but children should spend time practising at home as well. We’ll be counting in tens with lots of objects to get them used to what the numbers actually mean. It would be great if you could do this as well. As well as this, the look, cover, write, check strategy is also a tried and tested way to learn the facts.

One thing to be aware of when you’re practising with your children is that the test won’t list the times tables in order. For example, 1×10, 2×10, 3×10, 4×10, etc. Instead, the facts will be read in any order: 3×10, 7×10, 9×10, 3×10, etc. Please bear this in mind when you’re practising at home.

A couple of other points to bear in mind:

• Don’t neglect 0x10 and 1×10
• The National Curriculum sets out the expectation that children should learn up to x12, so include 11×10 and 12×10

Please ask if you have any questions.

Cracking creative homeworks

Each time we do a creative homework, the class pick five of their favourites. Here are this week’s top five:

25 September 2015

The homework this week is talk time and is due in on Wednesday 30 September.

I can talk to my family (especially older family members) about what holidays were like when they were my age.

Here are some questions you could ask:

• What holidays did you go on when you were my age?
• How did you get to your holiday destination?
• What did you do when you were on holiday?
• What did you pack?
• Was the food that you ate different on holidays?
• What things are different and what things are the same?
• Do you have any evidence of the holidays that you went on when you were my age? This could be photographs, postcards, letters. 

25 September 2015

Getting digital…

This morning we’ve been using laptops to write up some of our work from our English lessons. We’ve used our ICT skills to find a saved document on the school network, then open it, save it correctly and finally start to word process. 

Happy and healthy… and busy!

A group of our Year 3 pupils were part of over one thousand children from across Leeds who took part in the Rugby World Cup Big dance Big sing event in Millenium Square.

Singing and dancing to the RWC theme tune ‘World in Union’, the event was to celebrate the upcoming RWC matches in Leeds this weekend.

• ‘I loved it and I tried my best.’
• ‘It was exciting when we did the dance.’
• ‘I enjoyed using the rugby balls for the dance and singing the song too.’

Earlier this week, our three lucky ticket winners to Saturday’s RWC match at Elland Road were announced.

Other upcoming events planned are the children’s Brownlee triathlon and another trip to the RWC fanzone in Millenium Square to take part in rugby activities and meet author Tom Palmer, who is writing a live story during the RWC.

Annual survey results 3

In this, the final review of this year’s Annual Survey, we talk about your responses on page 2 of the survey. This part asks more open-ended questions about key areas of school life. This year, we asked about the different subjects of the curriculum because there have been so many changes introduced by the Department for Education over the last year or so.

Maths

“Mathletics is a fabulous way for children to learn.” (Year 4 parent)

We’re delighted that Mathletics has proved to be so popular. Children tell us they enjoy it, and your responses help us to know this is a valuable investment so that children can practise at home, too. Aspects of Mathletics you praised include the competitive aspects, the certificates and the ability to practise at home so regularly, whether doing the teacher-set activities or not. One of the reasons we’ve invested in Mathletics is that you’ve told us in the past you’d like more ways to support your child at home, especially in Maths. Other schools ask parents to fund this by making a donation; we’ll continue to fully fund this, partly by using a small amount of pupil premium funding, for as long as we can – certainly another year. One or two of you made some suggestions (including an alternative to Mathletics which help develop greater understanding) or put forward points to act on (such as appropriate times to post the activities) – these comments will be passed to Mr Owen, who leads on Maths in school, or to the relevant teacher for a particular child.

There were two concerns raised: the increase in screen time amongst children and the feeling of pressure to answer questions quickly. We agree these are valid concerns. Regarding the first, children don’t spend a great deal of time in front of computer screens at school, and when they are, it’s always active learning rather than passive viewing (studies suggest there’s a crucial difference in terms of health and attitudes). Regarding the latter, it’s true that one element of Maths is some rapid recall of facts and responses to calculations; it’s not the whole aspect of Maths, however, and we encourage you to try different ways to promote Maths skills if this pressure is excessive for your child – we can give you suggestions if you ask.

Whilst we prompted you to comment on Mathletics, we were also interested to read your responses about Maths in general. There were just a few.

Amongst these, requests for more challenge in Maths came up twice – I do encourage you to attend our workshops on Maths (19 October 2015 at 2.30pm) and on What is Mastery? (16 November 2015 at 2.30pm). The last one is especially important to help communicate the shift primary schools are making in response to the National Curriculum and expectations set out by the Department for Education and Ofsted – briefly, there is a move away from rapid progress to more secure learning where children will remember and better able to use and apply their skills. For higher attaining pupils, we need to explore ways of providing more depth to their learning with challenge in different contexts.

The other responses were a request for more Maths to be included in creative homework tasks (a great idea) and more worksheets (something which many education and Maths specialists might disagree with, but we’re open to the idea; in Year 1, we are trialling a new Maths scheme from Singapore which includes workbooks, and in Year 5 and 6 last year, based on parents’ feedback, we introduced weekly Practice Makes Perfect homework which often features a worksheet).

English

Lexia is a programme to support skills in English which is made available to all Year 1 and Year 2 children and some older children who need the extra support. Whilst we prompted you to comment on Mathletics, we didn’t do so for Lexia. Despite this, quite a few of you praised it which we’re really pleased with as it confirms the decision to invest in this programme to raise standards even more in phonics and wider literacy skills.

“My daughter enjoys using Lexia and practising her targets. This really motivates her to do more and improve her English overall.” (Year 1 parent)

It was also great to read praise for First News, a children’s newspaper we’ve begun to subscribe to.

“Reading ‘First News’ has led to some good conversation at home so that to gets a big thumbs up.”

Overall, people praised various aspects of English – some say their child loves how we teach grammar, others enjoy reading comprehensions and so on.

Of concern for a couple of parents was the lack of reading books sent home at the start of the year in one particular class – this problem was sorted a few weeks into term and I want to take this opportunity to apologise. This year, Miss Rushbrooke is working hard to promote reading in our school – she’s started by promoting the library service’s Summer Reading Challenge more than we’ve ever done before (and with great effect: from five people completing the challenge in 2014 to at least 17 this year) and her next big job is improving the quality and availability of books in the library (that’s why you may have seen quite a few books being sold at the start of the year – guidance is that books over a certain age should be disposed of so children access up-to-date books). Teachers have also improved their reading areas in school wherever possible.

Other points raised were more use of the library (and Miss Rushbrooke’s on the case with this one!) and not having time to finish guided reading books (thankfully, this parent left their name so we can sort this out in future – we agree this is not good). Finally, one parent asked for more guidance around choosing appropriate books out of school (again, that parent left their child’s name so we can speak directly and explore ways to solve the problem).

Topics

Of the 39 completed surveys, 31 contained comments in this section (eight had no comment).

Only one contained a criticism: “Some topics have been boring and not varied enough.” The remaining 30 comments were positive. Many noted that they help to really engage their children and stimulate discussions at home (“We know what the topic is about due to the increased questions and interest in that topic at home.”) and the variety they bring (‘The topics vary the learning.”)

A few parents suggested more Science-based topics. Lots of the mini-topics (the shorter, two week topics) have a strong Science focus. Also, in the Spring term, is a whole-school Big Topic called Life, which covers lots of biology.

Lots of parents cited particular favourite topics, and even more responded to the prompt to suggest other topics – thanks for these suggestions, which will be passed to Mr Wilks and Miss Valentine who lead on this area of teaching and learning. We can’t promise every suggestion will be taken up, but they will help to form a ‘bank’ of ideas for teachers.

Find out more about our curriculum.

(PS We won’t be repeating the medicine theme as part of the Time Travel topic – far too gruesome for Year 3!)

Other learning

The same number of completed surveys had comments in the final box, which asked for general comments about learning, but which featured some prompts such as themed weeks and Hobby Half Days. Both of these were subject to lots of praise – that’s great news, and we’ll make sure we say a big well done to Mrs Taylor, who organises the themed weeks; Miss Valentine, who organises the Hobby Half Days; and to our support staff, who lead many of the Hobby Half Day activities.

“My son loves the themed weeks as the children mix with other years for their lessons. Hobby half days are great – he loves to do different things in lessons which aren’t normally taught.” (Year 5 parent)

Themed weeks and Hobby Half Days are times when visits and visitors to school are frequent. These were also praised.

“My daughter has really enjoyed some of the new physical activities she has been introduced to – for example, she has raved about the boxing session… she enjoyed and found useful the visit from the police during the themed week.” (Year 1 parent)

A few parents also praised PTA events in this section for the events which they put on. They mentioned the trip to the panto and the movie nights – well done and thank you to all who actively help out in the PTA (and others are always welcome).

There were no critical comments here, just some suggestions which we’ll try to respond to:

• don’t consider changing the amount of homework
• more singing and dancing
• themed weeks around the arts and more arts-based activities during Hobby Half Day

Thank you to everyone to responded and gave us your views. Please don’t wait until next year’s survey if you have any questions, comments and concerns – tell us whenever they arise.

25 September 2015

This week’s homework is creative and is due on Wednesday 30 September.

I can create a Lego mosaic/model.

Whilst reading First News during guided reading, some of us spotted a competition we’d like to get involved in. The idea is to design your own Lego mosaic/model that commemorates the Queen becoming the longest reigning monarch. The winner of the competition will have their model made in school with their whole class. So, for homework, if you want to be involved in the competition, design your mosaic to mark this historic event. If you’re not especially inspired or interested in the Royal Family, design a Lego mosaic or model that links to our Holidays Big Topic instead.

Check out the competition information for top tips for your model design and make sure it’s clear as we’ll send any entries off to be judged. (Information is in homework books and here).

Any homework not for the competition will be judged in class and displayed on our topic wall.

25 September 2015

This week, our spellings will focus on a common spelling rule: double up for a short vowel sound.

1. different
2. difficult
3. disappear
4. grammar
5. happen
6. opposite
7. possess
8. possession
9. possible
10. suppose

Some of these words are included in the Year 3 and 4 spelling list in the National Curriculum. Therefore, it is key that your child knows these spellings but even more importantly, the rule that applies. When consonants are doubled up (accident), it forces the vowel in front to be a short sound (accident).

Feel free to pop in if you’d like some advice on helping your child to spell at home.