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Well done, Year 1!

Well done to every child in Year 1 for a great assembly this afternoon. Special thanks to Byron who offered to take over Arundeep’s lines.

The children have all tried very hard this week to learn lines, use props and to speak in front of an audience.  There were a few nerves but also excitement this afternoon. Aisha summed it up well: ‘That was fun!’

Thank you to all the family and friends who came to watch.

Good luck with the Wake up Shake up routine tomorrow.

10 October 2014

This week’s homework is talk time.

Is it fair that some art is worth so much money when charities need money to help people?

The children are familiar with a few paintings by famous artists eg Mona Lisa by Leonardo Da Vinci.  It will be interesting to investigate how much a painting like this is worth and then discuss whether this is fair when charities like St Gemma’s need funds to help look after people who are very ill.  There is no right answer and everyone has different opinions – the children need to hear differing viewpoints so they can form their own opinions. 

We will discuss this homework on Thursday 16 October as we’ll be at the Sculpture Park on Wednesday.

10 October 2014

Here are this week’s spellings.  There will be a spelling test on Friday 17 October.

10 October 2014

This week’s homework is Creative and is due on Thursday 16 October.

I can be an artist.

As we’ve been looking at so many pieces of art and tried a few ideas out in class, it’s now time to see what we can do ourselves. Create any piece of art you want. Take real care with your work as it would be great to include this homework in our gallery event at the end of the topic. Don’t forget, there are all sorts of types of art. Choose the one you like best or one you’ve never tried before…

• painting
• sketching
• pastel/chalk
• sculpture
• ICT
• photography

…and many more. I’m really looking forward to what you come up with.

Childline

We had a visit from Sam and Buddy from Childline this morning. We talked about some really important issues and the children had some really good ideas about how they could help people in certain situations.

Remember, Childline is free to call from any phone. The number is 0800 1111.

Creative homework

We’ve looked at our creative fantasy promotions today. There were some brilliant presentations, fabulous audio and visual adverts and lots of disgusting looking potions with accompanying posters! Well done.

Jennifer’s ‘One Wish Spell’ was a favourite. Check out the pictures:

Drop-in parent workshops

On Monday 06 October, Mr Owen, Mr Wilks and Miss Rushbrooke led the first of three learning drop-in sessions to support your child; this one was in English. Here are some of the comments.

• I like the handouts and the way the content of them was explained.
• Teachers are very approachable and explain everything in our language. It’s a great opportunity to get a feel for what’s going on in the class.
• Really pleased I came – learned lots.
• The practical suggestions of how to include writing in daily life and good ideas for encouraging reading were useful.
• Very useful session to find out some additional ways to help at home. The small group format worked well and it was helpful having the split by year group. The information to take home was very useful too.
• It was very organised with lots of practical ideas. It was a great idea to split the workshop into year groups.
• Very informal, good opportunity to ask questions and to talk to teachers and other parents about what works at home.
• Good advice and tips about how to encourage reading through asking plenty of questions. I liked the different methods of practising writing including using iPads.
• I feel more confident when discussing work with my children.

There is a similar drop-in workshop on on Monday 20 October at 2.30pm for Maths.

For Reception and Year 1 parents, Mrs Weekes and Mrs Burke lead a learning workshop where you get ideas about how to support the early stages of reading, writing and maths. This is on Monday 13 October at 2.30pm.

03 October 2014

Our homeworks this week are Creative and Practice Makes Perfect and are due in on Wednesday 01 October.

The Practice Makes Perfect homework builds on our measures learning  in class about length. Children have a sheet in their homework book which asks them to solve some length problems.

The Creative homework is again related to our Fighting Fantasy class novel:   I can create a fantasy item advert.

We will be writing promotions for the next few weeks in our English lessons. Children have to create an item which they might find in the class novel. This could be a weapon like a sword, cross-bow, axe, bow and arrow; a defensive item like armour, a shield or a helmet; a potion or spell which uses particular ingredients to perform a magical power; or it could be something else entirely! The choice is yours!

03 October 2014

This week, the spellings are all verbs which end in the suffix ‘ify’.

Can you find other family members for some of the words? For example, the spelling horrify has these words in its family: horrific, horrible, horrifies.

The spellings will be tested on Friday 10 October.

Your views matter… 5

In four previous news items, I’ve discussed your responses to the end-of-year annual reports and to the annual survey.

Don’t wait until June to raise any questions, comments or concerns!

On Friday last week, a mum came to see me to discuss how she could support her son at home – someone who’s already beyond the age-related expectations in reading, writing and maths. It was 5pm or later (nearly the weekend!), but I was happy to talk through some ideas, especially since she had quite a few ideas of her own about how we might be able to help. One idea was to buy a subscription to Mathletics – a computer program that would allow her child to practise maths at home, without needing an adult to support. From discussions with parents of children in other schools, she’s heard that it’s really good.  Just days after her suggestion, we’re now exploring subscriptions. We won’t rush into it – we don’t want to waste money.  We’re checking out costs and I’m asking other headteachers if their schools use it and whether they would recommend it. (We’ll let you know if we subscribe…)

Also this year, I’ve acted on feedback about school dinners. I hope problems here are teething problems following the introduction of free school meals for all younger children – a massive planning and organisational task to accommodate 60 more pupils (and numbers continue to rise for older pupils, too). Mrs Weekes has listened and responded to parents about children and concerns with regards their special education needs. We are restricted by funding as to how we respond – it would be great to be able to buy in more support or resources – but Mrs Weekes has excellent relationships with professionals who offer advice and guidance. I know class teachers have also responded to your views. Again, it’s not always appropriate or possible to act on every request, but we do listen and consider. When a parent mentioned their child was struggling to read the whiteboards in class, one teacher immediately re-arranged seating. When someone else mentioned their child was feeling a bit anxious this year, we included the child in a small, SEAL group (to promote social and emotional aspects of learning).

We can’t always act on your suggestions (some just aren’t possible) and we can’t always listen to your views (whether you think your child would benefit from a term-time holiday or not, we won’t authorise one, for example!). However, as always, please raise your questions, comments and concerns to me or one of the teachers in school: we do care and we do listen.