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Our new SEAL theme…

…starts next week. 

This week, we think about our manners: we encourage children to make way for others.  We’ve talked about stepping to one side or holding the door open for others, and especially for people who might have difficulty walking, or those who might be carrying heavy bags, or generally those to whom we want to show respect.

The SEAL theme beginning next week and lasting for the rest of the half-term is Relationships.  This theme explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends.  The key areas of learning are self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy.  There is a focus throughout the theme on helping children understand the feelings associated with an experience that we all need to cope with at some time: that of loss – whether of a favourite possession, a friend, a family home, or a loved one.  Although relatively few children are bereaved, most will experience losses of other kinds during their childhood; losing a home, losing friends because of moving house or changing schools, or losing a pet are examples.  We therefore ask you to alert us to any experiences your child has had that might make this area particularly difficult for them – for example, a bereavement.

Ready, steady write!

This term the children will gain confidence in their writing. All the children have learned enough phonemes to enable them to confidently write using their phonic knowledge. This term they will write stories, lists, poems, messages and letters, practise letter formation, good pencil control and when to use a capital letter and a full stop. It is important for children to know why we write.  In the classroom children will see adults writing for a variety of purposes, for example, notes, cards, labels and instructions. Through such experiences children will come to realise the importance of writing and the pleasure that can be gained from it.

We will be using lots of ‘Modelled Writing’ in which we will explicitly demonstrate the process of writing by ‘thinking aloud’ as we write and talking through the process step-by-step to show children what to do. Children will see that writing is an interactive process and will be reassured that writers make mistakes.

Children will be taught that

– printed text is recorded speech.

– writing can be read to or by others.

– writing can be used for different purposes.

You can help your child at home by encouraging them to write shopping lists, greetings cards, messages and stories. Let your child see you writing and talk about what you are doing. Most importantly, their writing should have purpose, be relevant and interesting and remember to give lots of praise.

Please ask if you have any questions relating to your child’s learning.

Phonics

This term we will begin phase 4 of our phonics learning.

Phase 4 relates to the blending of adjacent consonants at the beginning and end of simple words where the single letter sounds are blended together in a left to right order.

Examples of the adjacent consonants found at the beginning of English words are ‘bl.., cl.., fl.., gl.., pl.., sl.., br.., dr.., fr.., gr.., pr.., tr.., sk.., sm.., sn.., sp.., st.., sw.., tw..’ in words like ‘blob, clap, flag, glad, plop, slip, bran, drip, frog, grab, pram, tram, skip, smell, snip, stop, swim, twig’. These are known as ccvc (consonant, consonant, vowel, consonant) words.

Examples of adjacent consonants found at the end of English words are ‘..mp, ..nd, ..nk, ..nt, ..st, ..ft, ..ld, ..lp, ..lt, ..sk’ in words like ‘jump, hand, bank, tent, lost, left, held, help, belt, ask’. These are known as cvcc words.

There are also some combinations of three adjacent consonants such as ‘spr.., str.., spl..’ as found in the words ‘spring, street, split’.

Children will learn to blend and segment these words in just the same way as cvc words.

Remember that some adjacent consonants e.g. ‘ch, sh, th‘ are not blended together in the above manner. They are the spellings of distinct English sounds (phonemes) in their own right, and their sound is different to the sounds of the two separate letters.

As always please ask about any aspect of your child’s learning.

Easter Excitement!

The first ever “Egg Olympics” took place at Moortown Primary School last Friday.  The smell of eggs in the KS1 building was worth it just for the excitement of rolling eggs down the back playground.  All of the eggs were decorated beautifully by the children and then they were rolled expertly without much breakage at all – one yolk escaped but all in all it worked really well.

There were three heats from each year group and then a year group final.  Here are the lucky winners…

Thanks to all parents for supporting our “Egg Olympics” by boiling eggs and thanks to all those who helped at the bun sale along with everyone else for spending lots of money.

Have a great holiday.  See you on Monday 16 April.

Easter Excitement!

Thanks to everyone who entered the Easter cake competition.  There were some fantastic entries and it was great to see that the children had done lots of the hard work.  It was “eggstremely” hard to decide on the winners but we got there in the end.

Here are the winners…

Thank you for supporting your children in the competition and also thanks to everyone who helped at the bun sale and to those of you who spent lots of money!

Have a great holiday.  See you on Monday 16 April.

30 March 2012

It’s the Easter holidays and, in line with our Homework Policy, teachers do not set spellings or homework tasks. Instead, enjoy the sunny weather by getting active: a trip to the park, a game of football, a cycle ride or a long walk!

During the holidays, two of our teachers will visit Italy, one will be in Russia and one will be in…Barry Island!

Attendance matters

Attendance data has been released by the government.  Statistics show a small rise in the number of pupils skipping school without permission, but a drop in overall absence rates.  This trend is similar at Moortown.  We’re working closely with parents to make sure their children will not be deemed ‘persistent absentees’ – missing frequent days really does affect learning – but we also know that the children in question have ongoing medical issues.  In contrast, like the national data, we’re pleased to see absence rates continue to fall, although we need to keep getting better at this, especially when we compare our attendance figures with other local schools.

Nationally, there has been a small increase in the numbers of children missing school for family holidays.  The government wants to reduce this figure.  Again, it’s the same for our governing body: whilst we have seen a fall in the number of families who take a term-time holiday, we need to reduce this further.  This term, the governors have agreed a new criteria before we consider whether we authorise a term-time absence: we will not authorise a holiday if a holiday has been taken the previous year.

Attendance matters.  Help us to make 2011-12 our best year ever for attendance.

23 March 2012

The spellings this week are all words which I’ve noticed a few of the children are spelling incorrectly. Children will be tested on eight of the words in the list on Friday 30 April.

23 March 2012

This week’s spellings are ‘problem connectives’ that can be used as openers for a sentence related to the previous sentence or paragraph. For example: “Jessica really enjoys going swimming. However, she prefers playing football.”

As you can see, the reason we call these ‘problem connectives’ is because they lead to a statement that disagrees or offers an alternative to the previous sentence.  I’ve included a comma after each because that’s how they’d often be used.

These connectives will really help with the children’s writing next week. They are developing their persuasive skills and are beginning to use the other side of an argument to justify their points. For example, “Some people believe that the school day should be longer. Nevertheless, a large majority of parents disagree.”

23 March 2012

This week, we’re learning spellings where the c in the word sounds like an s.

Learn the words and find four more that fit the rule. Spellings will be tested on Friday 30 March.

• ceased
• celebrity
• ceiling
• exciting
• excellent
• circumnavigate
• cyberspace
• certificate
• scissors
• celebrate