Welcome to Year Six
Hello and welcome to Year Six! I hope you all had a relaxing summer and managed to find some good weather amongst the rain.
Things have been busy already in Year Six with lots of learning. I’ve been really pleased with how motivated and responsible the children have been on their return to Moortown, especially now they are the oldest in school.
Our first few weeks will involve some re-capping. For example, checking through the children’s preferred strategies for addition, subtraction, multiplication and division as well as lots of learning in Literacy on how to use punctuation correctly, especially commas. Children already have a guided reading book and a target page to read to for the following week.
For those of you who I don’t know, this will be my third year at Moortown Primary, all of which have been in Year Six. I have taught at several other schools and have been a teacher for more than twenty years. Parents’ evening will be towards the end of October; in the meantime, please feel free to drop in if you have any questions. I look forward to getting to know you all better.
Finally, I’d like to welcome Mehak to our class. She’s been welcomed by all the class and is already proving to be a great member of the Year 6 learning community and is impressing everyone with her excellent Maths and quietly confident attitude to learning.
Parents’ / carers’ annual survey 1
In the summer term, you were invited to complete the annual survey of parents / carers. There were 88 returned surveys, meaning over half of families have replied – thank you. We do listen to your views: the Chair of Governors and I have gone through all the data and comments and agreed appropriate action.
99 children (just under half) were represented in the survey by 88 respondents, and (generally speaking) the younger the child, the more likely their parent returned a survey. The survey asked for views about school dinners; these will be discussed by governors and passed to council caterers (an equal amount were positive and negative). Of the general comments, more people praised the school than the counter – thank you. The general comments will be highlighted to teachers, office staff and governors – we’ll respond positively where we can. One or two comments were very specific to a child or class – I’ll try to discuss those with parents, but I can only do so if you noted your name. If you didn’t, sadly, we can’t try to remedy a problem.
I’m delighted to report that once more, 100% of parents / carers who responded agreed with the statement My child is happy to come to school. This confirms yet again that Moortown Primary is a happy place to learn.
Over 90% of you also agree with the following statements:
- My child learns a lot in lessons.
- The school helps my child to do as well as he / she can.
- Teaching at Moortown Primary is good.
- Teaching at this school helps my child to develop skills in communication, reading, writing and maths.
- I am happy with my child’s spiritual, moral, social and cultural development.
- Behaviour is good at Moortown Primary.
- Behaviour is good in lessons.
- My child feels safe at school.
- I am happy that my views will be listened to.
We’re very pleased with such overwhelmingly positive results. We’re equally interested in the three statements which received a less positive response (figures may not total 100% due to rounding):
I know how well my child is doing at school: 88% agreed with this statement, whilst 13% were unsure (nobody disagreed). The fairly high percentage of responses which were ‘unsure’ is possibly to do with not having received the annual report to parents which came out after the survey – I hope the report indicated clearly enough your child’s attainment, progress and attitude, summed up in the table at the end of the report. Teachers give me attainment data for every child at the end of every term, so if you’d like more frequent updates, we can let you know each term – come to see me or your child’s teacher (and, of course, come to parents’ evening).
Adults in school explain to me how to support my child at home: 78% agreed, 16% were unsure, 2% disagreed. In response:
- I have reminded all teachers that they should ensure our Homework Guide with helpful tips and a Reading Activities booklet are attached to Homework Books
- I have reminded teachers to regularly add ideas to support your child to Class News sections on our website and to the Newsletter
- We will continue to hold Learning Workshops this year (look out for a general one about key skills and a specific one about iPads)
- Mrs Maver has already trialled an Open Morning where you can visit the classroom when you drop your child off – this proved popular and all classes will have one this half-term
- We will have more Open Afternoons where you can look at a selection of children’s work
- Have you visited our Learn More pages? Here, you’ll find ways to support you child’s learning and descriptions of the different levels your child may be working at with some skills and activities that will support the next steps, and you can download reading activities and handwriting guides
- Finally, it may sound simple, but the best ways to support your child’s learning at home is to concentrate on the basics, and make it fun: daily reading, spellings practice, counting (in 1s, 10s, 5s – forwards and backwards), number bonds (pairs of numbers that add up to 10), times tables (from Year 2) – and, most importantly, lots of opportunities for speaking and listening
The school deals with all types of bullying very well: 78% agreed, 18% were unsure, 1% disagreed. The high percentage of ‘unsure’ responses can be explained by one or two parents’ extra comments, such as, ‘I ticked unsure because my child has never encountered any bullying at Moortown.’ I urge the one respondent who disagreed with the statement to discuss his / her concerns with me – we have zero tolerance to bullying.
Three was the highest number of respondents who disagreed with any one statement, which was I am happy that my views will be listened to. Again, I urge these three parents to come and speak to me or, if still unhappy, to address their views to the Chair of Governors. I can assure you all we will listen to your views (but we do need to know who you are for us to do so).
Thank you, once again, for taking the time to complete the survey.
Welcome to Year 3
Hello and welcome to Year 3!
I hope you all had a lovely summer. I’ve been really impressed with how the class seem to be settling into Year 3 over the first week and a bit and have enjoyed listening to all the fun things that they have done over the holidays.
In this post I’ll go over some of the key things that you will need to know for this year:
Ok, here goes…
• PE is on Wednesdays and Fridays. Children will need a PE kit suitable for both indoors and outdoors. This should include a pair of trainers or pumps. I usually ask parents to bring in the kit at the start of the term and take it home at the end of each half-term to wash. This way, the children always have a kit. Also, please put the children’s name on the kit!
• We have a spellings and tables test each Friday morning. The new spellings and tables are written in the red learning lists books. These books are for the children to take home each day to practise. However, they should bring the books back in to school each day in case we do some practice in school as well. The children will be given ten spellings and ten times table facts to learn each week but they will only be tested on eight out of the ten. The times tables we learn in Year 3 are the 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6 times tables. The spellings we will be learning are a mixture of important spelling rules which may be revisited more than once during the year and specific vocabulary which will tie in with the learning in the literacy lessons.
• Homework is the same in Year 3 as it was in Year 2. There will be a mixture of creative and talk time homework with a few practice makes perfect as well. New homework is given out on Friday and is to be handed in by the following Wednesday.
• Some of the children have asked me what they are allowed to bring in for a playtime snack. They can bring in any type of fruit but not cereal bars, yoghurt, fruit bars etc.
• Tuck shop is starting next Tuesday and will be weekly on this day. Children can bring 20p to buy some fruit at morning break.
I’m sure I won’t have covered all your questions in this post so please pop into the classroom to see me or grab me in the playground if you have any queries – or even just to say hello!
Finally, I’d like to welcome Lennox to our class. He’s been made welcome by all the class and is already proving to be a great addition to Year 3!
Welcome back!
As most of you already know, I taught the current Year 4 two years ago in Key Stage 1. They were a wonderful group of children then and it’s great to see that Mr Wilks has had such a positive impact.
In literacy, Year 4 are currently story-writing in literacy. Further into the term, they will be learning about promotional writing (advertisements, leaflets) as well as writing reports (information texts – often a website or factual book). Encourage your child to read these different types of text when you’re out and about or if you spot an interesting report in a newspaper or magazine.
In maths we’re investigating place value (this is all about knowing the value of digits in a number, such as knowing 357 has three hundreds, five tens and seven units) as well as the four basic operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and divide). By the end of the year, your child has to know all times table facts up to 10 x 10. It is imperative that they practise their times tables every day for a few minutes until they can recall any times table within five seconds.
Parents’ evening will be towards the end of October; in the meantime, please feel free to drop in if you have any queries. Finally, I’d like to welcome Luca to our class. He’s slotted perfectly into our learning community and has already made excellent contributions– especially in art!
I look forward to seeing you all again soon.
New beginnings
As we start the new school year, our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme focuses on New beginnings.
New beginnings allows children the opportunity to discuss and reflect on how they or others may feel in a new situation or setting. This SEAL theme offers children the opportunity to see themselves as valued individuals within a community, and to contribute to shaping a welcoming, safe and fair learning community for all.
The key areas of learning throughout this theme are empathy, self-awareness, social skills and motivation.
Through discrete SEAL lessons, circle times and across the curriculum, children will explore feelings of happiness and excitement, sadness, anxiety and fearfulness, while learning (and putting into practice) shared models for calming down and problem-solving.
New beginnings supports the development of a learning community in each classroom where all members feel that they belong. Class contracts, produced at the start of the year, allow children to contribute to how they feel they can achieve a safe and fair learning community.
Fruit tuckshop returns!
Our fruit tuckshop, to be run by the Year 5 class this year, returns next week on a new day – Tuesday.
The tuckshop is open to all Key Stage 2 children during playtime. Reception and Key Stage 1 children receive free fruit at playtime.
Each item costs 20p and the fruit can be a snack for playtime or used to top up their packed lunch box – all contributing to their 5 a day!
As stated in our Food Policy, fruit is the only snack allowed at playtimes for Key Stage 2.
Maths websites
Today we looked at choosing the most appropriate number operation in maths. Based on the television programme Countdown, here is a website the children used to test out their skills – well done to Yasmin and Ayesha for your hard work today.
http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/countdown/index.htm
Another version can be found on the excellent nrich maths website:
SEAL statement 07 September
This week we begin our new SEAL theme, New Beginnings, and the weekly statement is ‘I can make someone feel welcome.‘
Over this half term, as the children are experiencing new beginnings, each class will be looking at how they can all contribute to establishing a welcoming and safe environment for learning.
Welcome to Year 5
Welcome to the Autumn term of 2012. It is a new start for everyone including me; a change from Year 1 to Year 5 is interesting and so far it has been a very enjoyable one. Having taught most of the children before, it has been fantastic to see how they have progressed and matured and the first week back has been a pleasure.
A big welcome to Brannoc who has made a fantastic start at Moortown; he was nominated by Pavanpal and Amit to receive a certificate in his first assembly as they felt that he had made a “brilliant start with a smile on his face”.
Our first mini topic, over the next couple of weeks, will be “Materials and their Properties”. This is a science-based topic with investigations, predictions and lots of questioning. The brain will then be investigated (not literally!) in a “Brain Box Week” before our main topic starts which is “Rich and Poor”; more on this at a later date.
A busy half term with lots of learning to be done. As always, my door is always open if you have any problems or questions. I look forward to seeing you all at parents’ evening in October if not before.
Thank you.
07 September 2012
This’s week homework is creative. We would like to find out more about the children and their interests. It should be handed in by Wednesday 12 September.
“I can show something interesting about myself.”
Just a quick reminder for our new friends at Moortown: homework should not be more than one page of A4 and can be as creative as you like.
We look forward to finding out more about our children.