homophones
Next week years 3 and 4 will be tested on homophone words.
there/they’re/their
whole/hole
peace/piece
right/write
break/brake
hear/here
This week’s message (Friday 01 July 2022)
Our message this week is a short one, but an important one. We know we send lots of messages about online safety, but please do take on board what we’re saying – this year, we’ve experienced more issues, and more serious issues, than ever before.
Ofcom recently published a report looking at media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 3-17. It also includes findings on parents’ views about their children’s media use, and how parents of children and young people aged 3-17 monitor and manage their children’s use.
The summary of key points (below) comes from a safeguarding email we receive each week in school. The bold text is from us:
- Children were more likely to experience being bullied via technology than face-to-face: 84% of 8-17s said they had been bullied this way (ie via text or messaging, on social media, in online games, through phone or video calls, or via other apps and sites).
- Nearly all children went online in 2021 (99%); the majority used a mobile phone (72%) or tablet (69%) to do so.
- Using video-sharing platforms (VSPs) such as YouTube or TikTok was the most popular online activity among children aged 3-17 (95%).
- Among all types of online platforms, YouTube was the most widely used by children; 89% used it, compared to half using TikTok. But TikTok was more popular than YouTube for posting content.
- A majority of children under 13 had their own profile on at least one social media app or site; 33% of parents of 5-7s said their child had a profile, and 60% of 8-11s said they had one. This is despite the minimum age for most social platforms being 13.
- Just four in ten parents of 3-17s knew the minimum age requirement for using most social media; 42% correctly said 13. Four in ten parents of 8-11-year-olds said they would allow their child to use social media (38%).
- Six in ten children aged 3-17 played games online in 2021, increasing to three-quarters of 12 – 17s.
- More than a third of 8-17s who gamed online played with people they didn’t know (36%); overall, 16% of 8-17s chatted to people they didn’t know, via the messaging/ chat functions in games. You wouldn’t let your child play out with random strangers – for the same reasons, talk to you child about who they may be chatting with online.
Check out our online safety tips.
As always, if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns, do speak with us.
Have a good weekend.
Next week
Sports day
Tuesday 05 June at 9.15am
Your child needs to come to school in their PE kit and wearing suitable footwear.
Please could you ensure your child has a named water bottle and a cap/hat at school; it would also be useful if you could apply sun cream before your child comes to school.
Tropical World
Wednesday 06 June
Your child needs to come to school in their school uniform.
They’ll need a packed lunch and named water bottle.
PE
Thursday 07 June
Your child needs to come to school in their PE kit.
01 July 2022
This week’s Talk Time has a Living and Learning focus:
I can talk about how to be safe near drugs (over-the-counter medicines and prescription drugs, for example).
A good starting point for your discussions could be to identify the drugs you’re aware of that have the potential to be helpful. Then, you could discuss a range of scenarios, establishing what being safe around drugs does and does not look like.
The following R2s will help you to stay safe around drugs:
- Only take drugs as detailed by your doctor and/or in the instructions (if an over-the-counter medicine).
- Do not take drugs that are prescribed for someone else.
- If you’re not sure what the drug is or how much you can have, don’t take it.
- If you need any medicine or have any related questions, ask a trusted adult.
01 July 2022
This week we have been learning about the word endings –ance and –ence. Please learn the following words for a test on Thursday 7th July
- hindrance
- apparent
- convenience
- excellent
- existence
- frequent
- nuisance
- sufficient
This week’s bible story
Daniel and the Lions Den: Daniel 6 (Omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Read the story of Daniel (omit verse 24 for younger or sensitive children)
Daniel was captured, along with many more of God’s people, and taken to live in a foreign country. In this country, they had different traditions and customs and it was not acceptable to worship God. But Daniel chose to continue serving God. Even though it meant that he was risking death, Daniel knelt down and honoured God by praying three times a day.
When the king discovered that Daniel was breaking the law by praying to God, he had Daniel thrown into a den of hungry lions. God stood by Daniel and rewarded his unwavering commitment to righteousness by protecting him from being eaten by the lions.
Reflection:
We’re going to have a little think about this story now and what we could learn from it about telling the truth.
Have a think about these questions:
Why did the other servants not like Daniel?
Why didn’t Daniel bow down and worship the king instead of worshipping God?
What do you think you would have done if you had been Daniel?
Can you think of a time when you have stood up for the truth in a difficult situation?
Is it ever OK to tell a lie?
Daniel believed in something so strongly that he was willing to risk everything – even his life – to stand up for that truth. In the story, God honoured him for his truthfulness and saved him from the lions. This sets us a good example to try to stand up for the truth on all occasions and (if appropriate) to know that God will be with us in that decision to tell the truth. It might be easier to tell a little lie on occasions, but one lie often leads to another and this can often mean that lots of people get hurt in the process. It would be good to aim to be like Daniel and to tell the truth on all occasions!
Prayer
Dear Lord,
Thank you for the example of Daniel.
Please help us to be brave enough to tell the truth on all occasions and help us to know that you will be with us when we find that hard to do.
Amen.
No spellings this week!
Due to tests in years 3 and 4 that are coming up next week, there will be no spelling test on Friday 1st July.
All about transport!
This week, we’ve been continuing with our theme ‘On the move’. The children have looked at maps, sorted different vehicles into the categories of ‘air’, ‘land’ or ‘sea’ and they’ve also described familiar routes around school. We’ve been junk-modelling cars and trains and drawing our own tracks, too. As the weather’s been so hot, we’ve spent lots of time outside conducting experiments. One was to find out how our small cars would cope with different sorts of weather conditions. We tried using foaming soap to represent snow drifts but enjoyed the foam so much that we ended up making impromptu pretend ‘ice creams’ with it! Who’d like some soil sprinkles on theirs?
Last week, we harvested our first crop of broad beans. On Monday, after the beans had been cooked, the children had the opportunity to taste their own vegetables. Some children were not very keen to try them; however, others really enjoyed them (and some even asked for a second helping).
The children have also been looking very closely at their faces using mirrors. We spent a long time talking about all the details we could see, thinking about our eye and hair colour and what shapes our heads are. After these discussions, the children drew some fabulous self-portraits in pencil.
In phonics, we’ve been continuing to think about initial sounds. We’ve also played lots of games to help us identify the different sounds (phonemes) which make up simple words. Metal Mickey, our class robot, has been eating all sorts of strange things for his dinner including a ‘h-a-t’, ‘c-a-n’ and ‘p-e-n’. In maths, we’ve been using positional language (such as ‘under’, ‘beside’, ‘behind’) and have also tried to describe a route to our friends. Next week, we’ll be talking about capacity and we’ll be using the words ‘full’, ‘half-full’ and ’empty’ in our learning.
Please remember to name all of your child’s belongings. The current heatwave means that we have lots of discarded jumpers, cardigans and other items to send home at the end of the day.
Ahoy there!
Our focus book has been ‘The Night Pirates’ by Peter Harris. On Monday, we found a note at the back of the book. The note said:
Look carefully outside and you will find…
We looked outside and found a bottle buried in our sandpit with a letter inside. 
We talked about the skills/qualities we would need to join Tom on an adventure. Here are some of the skills/qualities that the children came up with:
- brave
- good listener
- strong
- clever
- perseverance
- quick
- sneaky
We then had a go at writing our letters to Tom. We talked about using ‘Dear’ or ‘To’ at the beginning of our letters.
We’ve also been super busy completing this week’s chilli challenges.
We created our own treasure maps.
We cleaned the ocean of plastic to help look after our sea creatures.
We investigated magnetic and non-magnetic materials.
In maths, we have deepened our understanding of the counting system and recapped some key skills:
- tagging each object when counting groups of objects
- knowing number names and their order
- knowing that the last number counted gives us the total in the set
- counting body movements
- using different strategies to keep track of we’ve counted and not counted
- counting beyond 20
Every morning, we write a sentence about a picture. We’re super proud of our writing skills!
Thank you!
Finally, thank you to all the parents/carers that came to one of our learning journey drop ins. It was lovely to welcome you all into the classroom. We hope you enjoyed looking through your child’s books and talking to your child about everything they have enjoyed/achieved during their first year at school.
Home-Link Challenge
This week’s message (Friday 24 June 2022)
Thanks to everyone who responded to this year’s annual survey. We’ll spend the next few weeks reviewing the responses and building in some action points to our School Improvement Plan.
This week’s message comes from Miss Beatson, who writes about our Junior Leadership Team…
This year, the JLT have had a busy time taking on various responsibilities in school. Here are a few highlights: