Uncategorised

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.

06 February 2015

The Practice Makes Perfect homework this week is two Mathletics addition activities involving large numbers. Children must ensure that they don’t try to solve these problems in their heads. They should use a pencil and paper and not rush!

06 February 2015

Group 1 – The spellings this week are all words which end with tious. There aren’t many words with this ending so you also have the words with some prefixes. Think about what these prefixes do to the word and find other words which have this prefix.

Group 2 – This week, we’re continuing with words which contain silent letters. This time, the silent letters in the words are either a b or an h.

Parents’ evening

In the Autumn term, at Parents’ Evening, we sent the first Learning Update to you – a document showing where your child’s attainment is. We did this because, in the Annual Surveys, lots of you told us you want more frequent updates about how your child is doing. The second Learning Update will be given to you at Parents’ Evening next week.

You will notice this version looks a bit different. This is because we’re trialling a new assessment system to track pupils’ attainment.

This change is a result of the current government’s decision to withdraw the system of ‘levels’ used to report children’s attainment and progress. Instead, schools are being encouraged to monitor and report whether children are on track to meet end-of-year age-related expectations.

Terms such as ‘Level 4’ or ‘Level 5’ are being phased out. The current Year 2 and Year 6 classes are the last who will be given levels at the end of the year. (A Year 2 child is expected to reach Level 2B or 2A; a child in Year 6 is expected to reach Level 4 and ideally at least a Level 4B.)

There are three important things to note:

1. The new National Curriculum has much higher expectations. Last term’s Learning Ladder was based on the old National Curriculum whereas this one is on the new, more demanding curriculum. As a result, you may find your child does not appear to have made progress – this is due to the higher expectations.
2. Schools are being encouraged not to push children too quickly towards learning in older year groups. Instead, children should develop “mastery” and “deep understanding” – this means ensuring children can use and apply their skills and knowledge more independently and in more circumstances. This point is most relevant in Maths.
3. Your child’s attainment  in spelling, punctuation and grammar (‘SPAG’) will be included in our amended Learning Updates, reflecting increased importance placed by the current government on this aspect of your child’s education.

At the moment, like all schools, we’re in a period of change. If you have any questions or concerns, please do speak with me or Mrs Weekes.

Thank you for coming to our class assembly…

…It was great to see a record number of parents at the assembly!

Here are a few of your comments:

• “Lovely poems. Very impressed with the children’s contribution.”
• “Fabulous timing – just lovely.”
• “Fantastic performance from the Reception class. Looking forward to the next one.”
• “Very enjoyable – great to see all the children contributing.”
• “Well done! Loved the interactions and the singing.”

06 February 2015

Here are this week’s spellings.   There will be a spelling test on Friday 13 February.