Our Year 6 Reading workshop
Thanks to the parents and carers of Year 6 children who came to school yesterday evening for a Reading workshop. We’re really pleased to see so many of you taking the time to learn how you can best support your child at home.
Here are two examples of the great feedback we got:
‘The evening was very informative. It helped me understand what the reading SATs paper will be like and where I can help my child… Thank you for taking the time to give us an insight…’
‘I feel more comfortable with what [my child] is being taught and the support he is being given.’
Read the PowerPoint slides here: part one, part two and part three.
Watch a short video about the Key Stage 2 assessments (SATs) here.
One parent suggested the evening should be scheduled towards the end of the school for Year 5 parents, so they are more prepared for Year 6 from the outset. Thanks for the idea – we think it’s a good one and we’re going to organise this.
Be reading ready!
We hope your child is enjoying the opportunity to use their reading journals, which were sent home a couple of weeks ago. Although we set a target page for their group reading book, children should feel free to read further. Children should be using their journals to capture their thoughts about what they have read.
Here are some ideas of how to use your journal:
- word banks
- summaries
- questions about the character/ text/ plot
- predictions
- labelled diagrams from descriptions
- reviews
- author fact files
- lists of books read
- lists of new vocabulary
- glossaries
- lists of impressive words
Fantastic homework!
Recently, the standard of homework has been high. The pupils’ skills and dedication has been going from strength to strength! We’d love to show some of them to you!
We find them inspiring. They are creative; demonstrate the children’s interests; show research skills (without copying huge chunks from the internet!); maintain the high standard of presentation we expect; and are all relevant to the task set.
Following learning conversations and feedback in class, it’s been very clear that the children have really enjoyed the opportunity to research and present their findings.
They are fantastic – well done, everyone. Keep it up! We can’t wait to see next week’s homework!
Judo taster
On Friday, we all thoroughly enjoyed a Judo taster session. The children were very active in the session.
We had a go at a variety of warm-up activities, a range of holds and a couple of throws – it was brilliant!
What’s the matter?
Over the past two weeks in science, we’ve been learning about matter: reversible and irreversible changes, sieving, filtering, evaporating. The children have enjoyed a range of practical investigations. They’ve made great progress in their understanding of the terms and the differing properties of matter.
Ask your child to explain what is happening in these photos. Can they explain the scientific processes using some of the specific language?
What our children think about our learning…
Each term, we ask the children for their opinions about the learning that has been taking place in our classes.
This is what some of our children had to say about last term…
- “I learn maths better when the teacher shows us. I think the new maths groups are good.”
- “I like maths because I enjoyed working out the four operations when we did fractions. It was challenging at first, but then I learned how to do it and it wasn’t challenging any more.”
- “My favourite subject is science because we got to make some circuits and now I know all the symbols.”
- “This term my favourite subject is science because we got to make circuits and make bulbs light up. If we add more cells the bulb gets brighter.”
- “My favourite piece of work was when we wrote a setting description because it made me feel proud of myself.”
- “I’ve made most progress in reading because I feel I have become much better at skimming and scanning. I also have more reading strategies.” Y5
- I think I’ve made most progress in PE because I didn’t really enjoy it at first. I wasn’t really active, but no I feel like I am more active and enjoy it more.”
- “I adored our explorers topic because I love learning about all the amazing things the explorers did.”
- “Residential was amazing! I learned more about teamwork.”
- “I look forward to hearing the teacher reading. The story was very funny and silly.”
Reflecting on our learning.
Children reflecting on their own learning is an integral part of the learning journey and all children in school have regular opportunities to do this. Some of the ways reflection can happen is through verbal discussions with an adult, peer discussions or through written feedback.
Here are a couple of examples of written feedback in maths. This reflection is detailed, specific and shows the learning journey this child has made in these particular lessons. It is great to see the use of our 8 Rs for learning in the feedback!
Let’s Get Active!
As part of our commitment to being a happy and healthy school, we’re continually looking at ways to increase the physical activity undertaken within school. The UK Chief Medical Officers found that, “the latest evidence shows there is a clear link between physical activity and chronic disease.” We want to reduce this risk by ensuring that our children can achieve the recommended 60 minutes, or more, of physical activity per day. The government wants schools to provide 30 minutes of this.
In response to this we have launched the 30:30 Wristband Challenge.
Y1-6 children should have brought a recording sheet home. We’ll be taking part in the challenge in school and are encouraging children to continue this at home as well. We already do 10 minutes of Wake Up, Shake Up per day (join in here). We are now striving for 10 minutes of running per day and a further 10 minutes using interactive online resources. The Change for Life website has fun ideas how you can achieve 30 active minutes at home, too.
SATs in May
The Key Stage 2 tests (commonly called SATs) are in May:
- Monday 14 May: English grammar, punctuation and spelling papers 1 and 2
- Tuesday 15 May: English reading
- Wednesday 16 May: Mathematics papers 1 and 2
- Thursday 17 May: Mathematics paper 3
New style National Curriculum tests were introduced in 2016. This video lasts around five minutes and gives you a useful overview of the tests.
As always, speak with us if you have any questions, comments or concerns.
Well done to our swimmers
Well done to our swimmers who represented the City of Leeds swim team at the Jingle Bells gala. They managed to get seven medals between them!