Uncategorised

More homework? No – more encouragement

We had a record number of parents / carers who attended parents’ evenings this week – thank you to all who showed up.

A small number of parents asked for more homework. Please bear in mind we asked your views about homework in the Annual Survey last year, and the findings were quite mixed: some thought there was too much whilst about the same proportion thought there was not enough. The majority agreed with us: the amount of homework we set is about right.

Taken from our Homework Policy, this is our rationale for giving homework:

Educational experience that a school by itself provides is limited; children benefit from wider, complementary experiences out of school. However, some prompts and guidance from school can direct these experiences and develop greater learning. We see homework as an important example of cooperation between teachers and parents / carers. An aim of our teaching is to promote independent learners; homework is one of the ways in which children can acquire the skill of independent learning.

We recognise the importance of quality family time; this policy should help to promote opportunities to be creative rather than labour over frequent worksheets or carry out activities that pupils and / or parents / carers may not understand.

Whilst homework develops children’s learning and independence, quality family time, play and free time are also important. Homework should not prevent children from taking part in wider activities such as those offered by out-of-school clubs and other organisations. Children develop their interests and skills to the full only when parents/carers encourage them to make maximum use of the opportunities available outside school.

Also in our Homework Policy is this statement:

We believe the frequency of homework set out here provides the right balance for pupils and meets the expectations of most parents (whose opinions we sought in the Annual Survey, 2014). Staff may occasionally provide additional homework; this will amount to two or three extra pieces across the year. As an alternative, staff will be happy to suggest to parents other ways they can support their child’s learning at home.

Please do not expect extra homework for you child to be set as a matter of routine. Governors want to protect teachers work / life balance, but – importantly – we believe extra homework would not be helpful for most pupils.

End of half term

Well, it’s nearing the end of half-term already and what a busy one it has been!

Continuing our Time Travel theme, this week we’ve travelled back to the “Stone Age”. Check out our Stone Age artefacts below.

There will be no homework or spellings to learn over half-term, but extra practice of times tables and spellings would be a good idea. Please continue with lots of reading, Lexia and Mathletics at home, too!

Parents’ evening

Many thanks to all the parents who recently attended parents’ evening. It was a pleasure to meet so many of you. The children are all working hard at the moment and are demonstrating a positive learning attitude – as noticed by all the staff around school.

Happy half term

The end of another half term has whizzed around and I just wanted to wish everyone an enjoyable and relaxing half term. There will be no homework or spellings over the holidays but keep up with reading each day, Mathletics and Lexia.

After half term, we’ll be sending times table practice home and there will be a test each Friday alongside spellings.

As our plants are now thriving, each child will be bringing their herb home to keep and take responsibility for watering it every few days. It’d be great to see how you get on with this – particularly if you end up being able to use it in your cooking!

Enjoy the break and we’ll see you in a week.

Polling station is open!

Today, we are voting for who our new school councillor will be. We have 23 potential candidates!

Dance!

This week is our last week dancing with Mr Lynch. He’s worked us really hard over the last six weeks; working on our technique and our fitness. This week, we’ve mostly been practising and refining our Time Travel routine.

The Tin Forest update

Our Tin Forest will be heading home to you on Friday to see who can keep their herbs growing over half term and beyond. Here’s how they’ve grown since we planted them.

Friday 16th January 2015

Friday 30th January 2015

Thursday 12th February 2015

They’ll need plenty of water, warmth and light!

The Great Fire of London

Today, we took on the role of archaeologists and delved deep underground (our tables) to find clues about the past. We found pictures of Tudor buildings on fire; images of people with buckets of water; the date 1666; and a street sign for Pudding Lane. After a few more clues, we guessed what event might have happened in the past and suggested our ideas using the clues we’d found.

We had, of course, uncovered clues to The Great Fire of London, 1666. After watching a short video (another way of understanding what happened in the past) we moved on to maths for more information. We can use data recorded from the past to learn more about what happened.

Look how much you can find out from these…

Tricky words

‘Tricky words’ are those words which children cannot use their phonic knowledge to blend.

Once you’ve introduced tricky words and practised them, reinforce the words regularly when sharing picture books and reading together. 

When helping your child to learn to spell the tricky words you may decide to use the ‘Look, Cover, Write and Check’ method. This involves first looking at the word and identifying which part is tricky, covering the word, writing it and then checking the spelling. Remember: if phonics can’t work, it’s not possible to sound out all the sounds, so you might want to start using the letter names.  

Aim to make learning tricky words a fun and enjoyable activity, perhaps by writing the tricky words in sand, paint, shaving foam or glitter. Once your child has practised a few times in a less structured way, give them the opportunity to practise writing the tricky word on coloured paper with pencil colours or felt tips. The only way these words can be read and spelt correctly is by learning them and having plenty of practice.

The tricky words children learn in Reception are:

• the
• to
• I
• no
• go
• into
• he
• she
• we
• me
• be
• was
• you
• they
• all
• are
• my
• her
• said
• have
• like
• so
• do
• some
• come
• were
• there
• little
• one
• when
• out
• what

09 February 2015

Here are some sentences for your child to write at home.

• Read the sentence to your child.
• Ask them to repeat the sentence several times. They could whisper it, shout it or say it in a silly voice.
• Count the words.
• Say the sentence word by word for your child to write.
• Remind them to use a capital letter, a full stop and finger spaces.
• Ask your child to read the sentence back to check they have written every word.
• Write the sentence together, modelling how to read back.

1. Lots of shops sell chicken as well as fish and chips.
2. I will soon visit a farm.
3. We can all run to the park.