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06 December 2013

The homework this week is a moral talk time homework and is due in on Wednesday 11 December.

We all have electricity in our homes but should we be more aware of how much electricity we use?

In our mini-topic, we have been learning about electricity. We now want you to think about how much we use electricity and the cost of this both economically and environmentally. Children should be considering how we could use less electricity in our day to day lives and also other sources of energy we could be using (solar power, wind power, etc).

06 December 2013

This week, we are learning to spell words which have a silent h. Can you think of anymore?

06 December 2013

This week is talk time homework.

Should everyone have the right to electricity in their homes?

Although we all have homes with electricity, not everybody does! Do you think it is fair that not everybody can access electricity? Discuss this with somebody at home and we will have our own discussion in class next week.

Money well spent!

Year 1 decided to spend their profit (£24) from their stall at the Enterprise fair on some new books to be enjoyed by the class.  We chose a mixture of fiction, by the author Julia Donaldson, and non fiction.  There was even a snake book for Filip.  It was great to see the enjoyment these books brought to the children – definitely money well spent.

What can you do in a minute?

Year 1 timed themselves doing lots of different things in one minute.  Have a go at home.

How many star jumps can you do in a minute? Alex can do 99!

How many times can you write your name in a minute? Ben can write his name 16 times.

How many times can you hop on one leg in a minute?  Humairah can do it 104 times.

29 November 2013

Here are this week’s spellings.  There will be a test on Friday 06 December 2013.

29 November 2013

The spellings this week are all words with silent letters, e.g. knee, gnat, wrinkle.

29 November 2013

The homework this week is creative. The children are invited to respond to something from either a cultural or spiritual perspective.

I can respond to a book I’ve recently read.

We’d like children to present their responses about a recent book they’ve read. We’re interested to hear your child’s opinions and any connections they might have made between the book and their own life. This book review might include pictures, an interview (you could write a fictional script between an interviewer and a character), a letter (eg to or from a character, or perhaps even the author) – anything which might include your child’s responses!

However, your child might prefer to do the following:

I can show what Eid, Diwali, Hanukkah, Christmas or another festival means to me and my community.

Before half-term, some children in school will have celebrated the Muslim festival of Eid. A couple of weeks ago, some children in school celebrated the Sikh and Hindu festival Diwali, and more recently, children of Jewish faith might have celebrated Hanukkah. Finally, in a few weeks, Christians (and many non-Christians) will be celebrating Christmas. We invite children to respond to the sentence above – they might include a recount (like a diary entry), pictures, an interview (perhaps in a script).

Attendance matters

Our attendance data is looking great so far this year – thank you to all of you who are respecting new guidelines around avoiding term-time absence, which is having a big impact on our attendance and therefore on your child’s learning.  The table below lists attendance this year up until 22.11.13 (final column), which you can compare with the same period last year, and the overall figures for the whole school year.

Don’t forget that each row for last year and this year is a different group of children, so you might want to compare Year 1 last year (95.8% for this period) with Year 2 this year (97.7%) – a great improvement for the same children (and parents / carers) here!

Attendance data is something which Ofsted and other educational bodies look closely at.  For example, Fischer Family Trust reports on attendance by breaking down figures for different groups in school.  They report, for example:

• children who attain well at Moortown have better attendance figures than similar children nationally
• most ethnic groups (but not all) have better attendance than the same groups nationally
• boys and girls have the same attendance data at Moortown

Once again: thank you to all parents / carers who are trying hard to maintain good attendance for their child.

Getting ready to write!

The children are progressing quickly with their phonics learning and reading. Alongside blending to read, the children also need to segment words to spell. Children often find this harder and lack confidence in their ability to write.

In Reception, the children take part in shared writing activities where they can ‘have a go’ on whiteboards with the support of adults. We then encourage independent writing in all the areas of provision. This includes writing a label for their model, writing a shopping list in the role-play shop or writing a letter to a friend. We value all the children’s attempts at writing and model writing (and making mistakes) to them.

You can help at home by:

• Providing plenty of different types of pens and pencils and encouraging your child to use a correct grip
• Encouraging them to use the school’s handwriting style and to use lower case letters; we teach that a capital letter is required for the first letter in a name and at the beginning of a sentence
• Spelling is harder than reading words – praise, don’t criticise. Little whiteboards and pens are a good way for children to try out spellings and practise their handwriting
• Remember that at this stage children’s phonetic attempts are valued. They will learn the correct spellings of words later.  We want the children to become confident writers by ‘having a go’ and using their phonetic knowledge independently.
• To be able to write, children need to be well co-ordinated through their whole body, not just their hands and fingers. Games that help co-ordination include throwing balls at a target, under-arm and over-arm, and bouncing balls – also skipping on the spot, throwing a Frisbee, picking up pebbles from the beach and throwing them into the sea.

Have fun!