SATs information evening
Thank you to everyone who came to the SATs information evening for year 2 parents. We hope you found it informative and useful. The presentation and information leaflet is here.
Odd Sock Day
Yesterday was Odd Sock Day. Children wore odd socks to highlight and celebrate their differences. At home, you might want to discuss how our differences make us unique. 
Odd Socks Day
It’s Anti-bullying Week, with the theme being Choose Respect. To kick off the week, we asked children to wear odd socks. We had lots of fun looking at the different combination of socks. We discussed reasons for their choices.
- Some children wore colours to represent their football teams.
- Some children chose their favourite socks.
- Some children borrowed socks from their siblings to make different pairings.
It certainly helped raise awareness of being an individual and respecting people’s personal choice.
Perfect perimeter!
This morning, in maths, year 4 have begun investigating perimeter. We used pieces of string and ropes to measure the perimeter of items in the classroom.
We even tried to find the perimeter of each other! It’s really important to find out what is hard to measure and what is easier.
Time to talk
We love hearing about what your child has been up to at the weekend during our time to talk sessions. It’s a great chance for your child to build their self-confidence by speaking in front of their peers. It’s also a valuable time to develop their communication and language skills.
If your child brings a time to talk sheet (which you can get from the parent partnership board in the classroom) on a Monday, they’ll be able to share their Monday news with their key worker group. You can also email pictures to support your child to remember what they did at the weekend.
As well as sharing time to talk sheets from home, your child gets the chance to draw a picture, label it (initial sound/word) or write a caption/sentence about their weekend. This is an opportunity for your child to write about something that is meaningful to them.
In this example the child has labelled her picture with the word red.
When teaching the children to write a sentence we get them to think it, say it, count it, write it and check it.
In this example the child has attempted to write a sentence – I went to a party.
If your child makes you go Wow at home it would be fantastic if you could share these with us at school, too. (Wow sheets are also found on the parent partnership board.)
Descriptive writing
This week during writing lessons, Year 5 and 6 have used expanded noun phrases to describe. Children worked in pairs to describe a picture with expanded noun phrases using that, which or with to add extra information to their phrases.
We enjoyed describing characters from a Where’s Wally picture. Why not have a go at home? Use the picture below to describe someone or something:
- Can you find a strong, bearded man with yellow trunks?
- Can you find a ____, _____ noun with…?
Use with, which or that to add extra information to your clue.
Living and Learning: I apologise when I need to.
Manners matter!
This week, our Living and Learning statement is all about manners. We’ve been learning about when and how to use good manners. The children have been encouraged to think about situations when they should use their manners in school and at home.
In particular, we’ve discussed how to behave if you accidentally knock or bump into someone in the playground. We all have accidents. It’s important to let the other person know that it wasn’t on purpose, to say sorry and check that they’re okay.
When do you expect your child to say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ at home? If there’s an accident, are they expected to say sorry? Manners matter!
We will remember them – Remembrance Day 2018
The children listened to poems and stories, then talked about Remembrance Day this week at school. They made poppies and some wrote messages to the soldiers.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Laurence Binyon
Thank you to Mrs Thorne for her artistic input and Peter Smith, from Lyndhurst View, who made the central piece.
Brilliant Balancing
1K have enjoyed challenging themselves to balance in different ways.
It was tricky on one leg.
I can balance on this foot really well.
Bang! Pop! Whooosh!
There were lots of happy faces in Nursery on Monday morning and lots of excited tales of Halloween parties and firework related fun.
We enjoyed talking about the photographs that some parents and carers sent in from their holidays, but we’d love to see more. They’re a really great starting point for conversations and help to remind children about their activities at home. The ‘Understanding the World’ part of the Early Years Foundation Stage requires children to be able to freely communicate about their home life. Having a stimulus to look at with children, such as a leaflet for somewhere they have visited or a photograph, is a really big help when trying to begin a conversation. Equally, something as simple as you telling us at the beginning of the day or emailing us about something you have done, is a helpful way for us to initiate conversation with your child about their experiences.
Here are a few ideas of things that you can do at home to support your child in the ‘Understanding the World’ and ‘Communication and Language’ areas of the curriculum. They’re taken from a really useful document,‘What to expect, when?’. It breaks down the Early Years Foundation Stage into a more user and parent/ cared friendly version.
As you can imagine, conversations at the beginning of the week were largely about fireworks and Bonfire night parties.
We listened to music with loud firework sounds and talked about the noises they made. We tried to re-create the sounds in our small world area with the moving rocket, whoooosh!
We enjoyed lots of creative activities this week, both inside and outside. Children really enjoyed our large scale firework artwork; they practised some gross motor movements, splattering paint onto a large ‘night sky’. As you can see from the photographs, we try our best to keep messy activities as clean as they can be!
In maths, we’ve been investigating patterns and repeating colour patterns.
We always try to look out for children’s interests to guide our planning and create relevant learning opportunities. This week, children showed an interest in the Gingerbread Man story so we’re looking forward to exploring this story a little bit more next week.
Please read the Weekly Up-date for information regarding our Nursery Parent consultation meetings and lots of exciting Christmas dates. We’ll post them here soon.