School photographs

On Monday, the children are having their school photograph taken. This is usually our PE day. Please can children come to school in their school uniform and not PE kits.

This week’s message (Friday 14 October 2022)

This week’s message includes some ways to support your child at home with Maths, written by Mrs Allaway, the Sphere Federation Maths Leader. Sandwiched in between, a couple of useful reminders…

School day

Have you let us know your thoughts on changes to the school day? Our very short survey is open for one more week.

Maths

What are we learning in Maths?

In Key stages 1 and 2, our Maths curriculum is divided into blocks of learning. These include different aspects of maths such as place value, addition and subtraction, multiplication and division, geometry, fractions, measures and statistics. Each block is broken down into a sequence of small manageable steps in learning, with each step building on the previous one.

Years 1 and 2

In the autumn term, our blocks of learning are place value, addition and subtraction, and shape.

A significant amount of time is spent on developing a deep understanding of the composition of numbers so that children become confident and fluent in both counting and recalling number facts. The crucial number facts are simple addition and subtraction facts. Regular short bursts of practice on NumBots will help with this. In school, we use a wide range of practical resources to support understanding of these key concepts.

When learning about shape, children are supported to recognise, draw, compare and sort different shapes alongside using the related mathematical vocabulary.

Years 3 and 4

In the autumn term, we cover three blocks of learning: place value; addition and subtraction; and multiplication and division.

It’s essential that children become increasingly fluent with whole numbers and the four operations, including number facts. These facts need to be really secure so that children can develop efficient written and mental methods and perform calculations accurately with increasingly large numbers. Times Tables Rock Stars will help with learning times tables up to 12 x 12.

We continue to use a range of practical resources. We use these to support children’s understanding of concepts and procedures – so they can see the maths. Ultimately, the expectation is that children can do the maths without the resources.

Years 5 and 6

In the autumn term, our blocks of learning are place value, the four operations (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division) and fractions.

Children extend their understanding of the number system and place value to include much larger numbers – up to 10 million.

Children are supported to become fluent in written methods for all four operations, including long multiplication and division. Children develop their skills to solve a wider range of increasingly complex problems that draw on these arithmetic skills.

When learning about fractions, children develop their understanding of equivalent fractions and use these to add and subtract fractions with different denominators. In order to be successful with this, children need to be fluent with times tables. Short bursts of regular practice on Times Tables Rock Stars will help to keep these skills sharp.

As always, speak to your child’s teacher if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns about your child’s learning in Maths.

JLT elections

We’ve recently launched this year’s Junior Leadership Team election process. Our Junior Leadership Team is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.

The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class chosen democratically by their peers.

Here are some of the qualities our junior leaders think are needed to be an effective JLT member.

• use the 8Rs for learning
• be respectful and polite
• help others
• be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
• share and be confident with your ideas
• let others speak
• accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
• be friendly and approachable
• follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school

This weeks’ whole school homework is all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections next Thursday 20 October.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

Week 6

Thank you to everyone who joined us for our funky phonics session this week. We loved welcoming you into our classroom, so we could share our fantastic phonics learning with you. There will be lots of opportunities for you to join us in the classroom so please keep an eye out for future dates.

We have had a super Autumn week in Reception. Our focus book has been leaf man and we have had lots of lovely discussions about Autumn and the changes that we see. We used our treasures that we found on our Autumn walk to create our own leaf people!

We loved looking at the different trees on our Autumn walk and decided to create our own Autumn tree images. We thought carefully about the different colours we saw and how the leaves were on the trees and also on the floor.

Maths, maths everywhere! We have been using our maths learning to help us with a game of skittles. It was lots of fun trying to knock as many down as possible and then counting who had knocked down the most.

Could you be our next maths superhero? In class we have decided that we would like to reward someone for working really hard in maths. If you are nominated you get to wear our maths superhero cape and eye mask in class. Please send any super home maths work into school so we can share it with everyone.

Next week we have parent teacher consultations in school. If you have not already made an appointment and would like one please let me know.

Happy weekend everyone!

Mrs Payne

14 October 2022

There’s a democracy theme to this week’s Talk Time as we think about electing our new Junior Leadership Team (JLT). It’s important for everyone to feel their opinions are important and their thoughts and feelings are listened to and valued. Democracy is about knowing that sometimes we are given the power to choose and make decisions as individuals and as a group. This leads us to this week’s Talk Time:

I can talk about what characteristics a good leader should have.

Thinking about the term democracy, take some time to think about what characteristics make a good leader and the reasons why.

Also, think about situations at home when voting can help solve problems.

Additionally, if you would like to become a member of the JLT…

Use this time to think about your own characteristics and why you feel you would be a good representative for your peers. Use these ideas to prepare a speech to share in school for the upcoming elections.

Living and Learning

This week, we’ve been thinking about how we respect ourselves in Living and Learning.

Here are some thoughtful ideas: don’t doubt yourself, accept the way you are, eat healthily, look after yourself and respect the choices that we make. We also said to do something we enjoy. Could you show respect to yourselves this weekend by doing something you enjoy as a family?

When thinking about accepting the way we are, the children were asked ‘what makes you unique and different?’ We said that being unique is being one of a kind and we are unique by the way we look, what we believe in and what we enjoy.

We drew different ‘characters’ and talked about what made them unique. Here are some of our fantastic creations:

We’re going on a bear hunt!

The children have explored the story of ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ this week by Michael Rosen. The children have really enjoyed listening and joining in with key phrases throughout the story. They have also explored their senses and retold the story in our themed tuff-tray.

The children have continued to explore the seasonal changes in our garden area and discussed during our circle time some of the objects you might find on a walk. We also went for our ‘Wellie walk’ around our local area to see what objects we could find.

You could use some of your own conkers or leaves at home to see what patterns you can make!

The Nursery team

Numbots superstars

Well done to those children who have been using Numbots. Numbots is a fab way for the children to practise those vital maths skills that they need for their learning.

This week 29% of the class have been active on Numbots. Well done to Jig Kappaclone, Alloy Aquastar, Blue Autopod, Sunny Dataclone, Blaze Megamorph, Cruz Geigerdroid, and Crash Metastar.

It would be great if more children can be using Numbots. Have a go at using Numbots with your child for just 5 minutes a day and see how your child’s maths fluency improves.

Living and Learning: Protected Characteristics

Our Living and Learning statement last week was…

I respect others

Year 5 and 6 have been learning about equality and discrimination. We have looked at many scenarios where an individual (or group) was being discriminated against. We discussed what these reasons might be and what we would do to change the world if we could.

Then, we had a look at the Equality Act (2010) and our protected characteristics that we can’t be discriminated against. Pupils were mature, engaged and active in this learning, which resulted in some fantastic discussions and advice for others.

Here are the nine protected characteristics:

• sex
• sexual orientation
• gender reassignment
• disability
• marriage and civil partnership
• pregnancy and maternity
• religion or belief
• race
• age

We will continue to focus and test ourselves on these characteristics throughout the year.

Happy Harvest Festival!

Year 3 made me so proud at our Harvest Festival service on Thursday.

We sang some hymns and shared prayers and ideas about why it is important to make sure food is shared out fairly. The children agreed that we should only take what we need.

The children who read our poem did so beautifully and I was so impressed by how many children wanted to read. I wish I could have chosen everyone!

(click the link below to watch)

IMG_0450

A big thank you to everyone who donated and those who came to support.

spellings 7th October 2022

Next week, we will practice dropping the y and adding i when we change the root word and add a suffix.

cry/ cried/ crying

carry/ carried/carrying

copy/copied/copying

worry/ worried/worrying

happen/happened/ happening