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Our second open morning

This morning, we welcomed more parents into school to watch some lessons – thanks to the parents who visited. We hold these open mornings because you tell us in the Annual Survey that you’d like to know more about how you can support your child at home.

Like our last open morning on 13 January, each parent watched the teaching and learning in two classes (30 minutes each), then discussed what they’d seen with Mrs Weekes and me. We’re very happy to receive feedback which was as positive as the last open morning. Here are some of the comments:

• “I really liked the focus on children’s needs and their abilities in the Year 1 class.”
• “The English lesson in Year 6 was very dynamic and interesting. The teacher interacted with the children really well. I received good tips from the teacher about how to support my child at home.”
• “Teaching assistants worked well.”
• “It was interesting to find out from the Reception teacher how children learn throughout the day.”
• “The Year 2 teacher was fantastic and the children were very happy and confident in their learning.”
• “Fantastic and a real eye-opener. Great to see two very different classes and teaching styles in action.”
• “I picked up some ideas that I will take home to help with my child.”

Parents encouraged us to have more, similar events. Based on this, we’ve planned in three open afternoons where parents can come in up to half an hour earlier than the close of school to look at homework and / or topic learning:

• Wednesday 04 March (homework review)
• Wednesday 18 March (Big Topic review)
• Friday 01 May (setting homework).

Please do try to attend.

Work on our plague masks begins.

Continuing on with our topic of Medicine Through The Ages, we have started making our very own plague masks. Plague doctors wore masks with a bird-like beak to protect them from being infected by the disease. We’ll be working on these over the next few weeks. Looking forward to the finished masks.

Homework in Reception

Now that we’re well into the Spring term, we’ll be sending homework every Friday. In addition to the new phonemes and tricky words the children are given to learn, your child will receive either practice handwriting sheets or sentences for your child to write independently.

Please check on the homework section of this website for practice sentences from next week.

Reception Class assembly

Don’t forget! Our first class assembly is on Thursday at 2.40pm.

See you there!

30 January 2015

This week’s homework is talk time. 

I can stay safe at home.

It’s important that your child is ready to talk about this by Wednesday 04 February. 

Encourage them to think about all the different rooms in the house and specifically think about situations where it may be dangerous.  How can we avoid these dangers?  How can they be responsible for their actions?  How should we respond if there is an accident?

30 January 2015

Here are this week’s spellings.  There will be a spelling test on Friday o6 February.

Our class assembly

Thanks to all who attended our per-historic class assembly this week, which tied in with our history learning as part of the Time Travel topic.

Here are a few comments:

• “Very informative.  I was impressed that the children all knew their lines without needing a script.”
• “Very interesting and entertaining as usual.”
• “Very educational and very funny.  I learnt a think or two.  Well done!”
• “Great cavemen!  Lots of information.”

30 January 2015

Group 1

The spellings this week are all words which end with cious. If the root word ends in –ce, the sound is usually spelt as c. Eg. vice – vicious, grace – gracious.

Group 2

For the next couple of weeks we’ll be investigating words which contain silent letters. This week,they are mostly at the start of the word. Can you spot the one which isn’t?

Congratulations from the Minister of State for Schools…

We’re delighted to have received a letter (26 January 2015) from Rt Hon David Laws, Minister of State for Schools, congratulating us on our work with disadvantaged pupils:

It gives me great pleasure to write to you and congratulate your school on your key stage 2 results for disadvantaged pupils since 2012.

Your results show that you are highly effective in educating your disadvantaged pupils.  It is clear that you and your staff have provided your disadvantaged pupils with a good start in life and prepared them well for secondary school.

[The letter then refers to the Pupil Premium Awards.]

I would like to congratulate your staff, governors, parents and pupils for their hard work and success, and thank you for your leadership in making such a difference to the future success of your pupils.  Finally, I would also encourage you to share your achievements with other schools so that they learn from your strengths and experience.

Yours sincerely

David Laws MP

30 January 2015

The homeworks this week are Creative and Practice Makes Perfect.

The Creative homework is to design a section of our ‘contraption’ display. We are currently taking inspiration from ‘Rube Goldberg machines’ to make a contraption out of things we have in and around the classroom. Children have to plan and explain how their section would work and suggest materials which we could use to make it. The trickiest part of this is that most of the contraption has to hang from the wall.

A Rube Goldberg machine is a contraption, invention, device or apparatus that is deliberately over-engineered or overdone to perform a very simple task in a very complicated fashion, usually including a chain reaction. For ideas and inspiration, just ‘Rube Goldberg machine’ into youtube.

The Practice Makes Perfect homework is a Mathletics activity on our next unit of maths: measures.