This week’s message (Friday 18 March 2022)

Almost exactly two years ago, schools were closing for the start of the first lockdown. Numbers of Covid-positive cases are rising again, and we’re really noticing that in our Sphere Federation schools – we’ve had close to ten staff members absent each day this week.

On a much more positive note, with daffodils springing up and the weather looking brighter, it’s really starting to feel like Spring.

This week, amongst the various messages, we’ve one related to Covid. We’ll start with an important one about reading…

The benefits of reading at home

A recent news article caught our eye. The article talks about a research study about trips to museums and art articles, which suggests that such activities don’t improve exam results. (The article also points out other research indicates cultural trips like these have lots of other benefits, even that they ‘could actually lead to a longer life’.)

What we thought was more significant was the findings about reading – findings that come as no surprise:

…researchers did find that reading activities by both parents and their children played a role in exam grades. They measured activities such as reading for pleasure, visiting a library and discussing books at home. Such activities boosted GCSE scores by a significant amount.

Parents often ask how they can support their child more. Our advice would always be to make sure your child’s reading and talking about what they’re reading.

Brighten someone’s day

The theme of this year’s Comic Relief fundraiser is ‘You’ – inspiring people to do something, however modest, to brighten someone’s day. A lot of those uplifting actions, we’d venture, can easily be accomplished online. Check out this poster highlighting ways that we can all spread some much-needed happiness through the digital world. What about each person in your household agreeing to do one thing each week?

Dealing with worrying content online

In contrast, this poster addresses the timely and delicate issue of speaking with children about worrying content they’ve seen online. Your child, by now, could well be very aware of the situation in Ukraine, even if they’re not quite old enough to comprehend it fully. Many will have watched or read potentially upsetting news items online covering the invasion – and, in all likelihood, will need extra reassurance from trusted adults during these unsettling days. Check out the practical advice on raising the subject with young ones, allowing them to express their concerns, and helping them to avoid feeling overwhelmed by their fears.

Covid vaccination for at-risk 5 to 11 year olds

The Department for Education has asked us to share the following information with parents and carers of at-risk 5 to 11 year olds…

Children aged 5 to 11 years who are in a clinical risk group or who live with someone who is immunosuppressed can get the COVID-19 vaccine, in line with advice set out by the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI). Eligible children include those with diabetes, immunosuppression, learning disabilities, and other conditions as outlined by the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) in the Green Book.

Vaccinations help to increase protection against COVID-19, which is particularly important for those with underlying health conditions.

Further information is available in the guide for parents of children aged 5 to 11 years published by UKHSA. We have published some frequently asked questions on the vaccination programme including information on eligibility, accessibility and advice for parents of children at high risk from COVID-19. Following advice from the JCVI, healthy 5 to 11 year old children will also be offered two 10 microgram doses of the COVID-19 vaccine. The NHS will prepare to extend this non-urgent offer to all children during April.

As we said at the start of the message, it’s really starting to feel like Spring’s in the air. Enjoy that feeling this weekend!

A super, sunny week!

This week, we’ve made the most of the glorious weather! The children have loved being outside in the fresh air. From making soup in the sandpit to making mud pies in the mud kitchen, we’ve some fantastic imaginative play.

Literacy
On Monday, we started our new focus story, The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle. After reading the book, we talked about the events, looked at some key vocabulary and made story maps. Next week, we’ll continue to look at this book, discuss what plants need to grow and plant our own tiny (sunflower) seed.

Music
Maths
This week, we looked at the composition of seven. We used lots of different resources such as Numicon, multilink cubes and beanbags to show our parts.

In the areas this week, we’ve seen lots of children being independent learners and completing the chilli challenges.
Here they are in action…

Making spring gardens in the playdough area.

Playing take away a tower of 8 with a friend.
Reading tricky words on carrots.
Blending words in the ball pool.
Working out the missing whole on the part-whole models.
Home-Link Challenge

Coming up…
Thursday 24 March – PTA cake sale
Monday 28 March – Whole school farm visit
Monday 28 March – Decorate an Easter egg competition
Thursday 30 March – Easter service at St James’ Church
Friday 01 April – Break-up for Easter

Enjoy the spring sunshine this weekend!

18 March 2022

The /f/, /l/, /s/, /z/ and /k/ sounds are usually spelt as ff, ll, ss, zz, ck if they come straight after a single vowel letter in short words. This week’s spellings for year 1 follow this rule.

Y1: off, well, miss, buzz, back

This week’s spellings for year 2 will focus on suffixes. A suffix is a letter or group of letters that goes on the end of a word. Adding suffixes changes their meaning.

Y2: enjoyment, amazement, sadness, kindness, careful, playful, hopeless, plainness, badly, loudly

18 March 2022

This week we have been learning about the -tial and -cial spelling pattern.

Please learn the following words for a test on Thursday 24 March

• controversial
• official
• commercial
• special
• artificial
• glacial
• social
• influential
• confidential

Reading with prosody

We have started talking about prosody in our reading practice sessions.

Prosody is the rhythmic and intonational aspect of speech that manifests as expressive reading. It comprises timing, phrasing and intonation, and helps to convey meaning and add ‘life’ to reading.

It is basically reading with expression.

We have been reading and talking about Owl Babies and trying to add prosody when reading certain sections. Ask your child to read this page with prosody.

18 March 2022

Living and learning provides the focus for this week’s Talk Time.

I can describe what to do in different sorts of emergencies.

 An emergency situation is when there is an immediate risk that needs to be addressed right away.

We suggest approaching this Talk Time in two parts. First, where and when might you face an emergency? Think of a range of settings and scenarios.

After that, consider what your response would be. If there’s not a trusted adult around, call 999 if possible. The LIONEL acronym below is one that we’d like you to learn. It will help you if you ever need to phone the emergency services.

L – Location – Tell them where the emergency is and where they need to come to.
I – Incident – Tell them what has happened.
O – Other services – Do you need the ambulance, police and fire service?
N – Number of people – How many are involved?
E – Extent of injuries – How badly are they hurt?
L – Location – Repeat again where they need to come to.

Science – microbes

We have been working scientifically in science this half term and also learning about microbes, linked to preventing illness and cleanliness.

We used pepper in a test today to represent microbes. We filled a dish with water. We put a stick in the water. It got wet! We then dipped the stick in a dish filled with water and pepper . The pepper stuck (like microbes do to our hands when we touch anything). Finally, we dipped our stick in a bowl of washing up liquid and water. When we dipped it in the water again, the pepper moved away like magic! There was a gasp from everyone! This shows us that microbes (that sometimes make us ill) do not like soap and that is why we use it to wash our hands.

Recorders

Year 3 have been learning to play the recorder with Mrs Bald. Today, they rehearsed playing to the tune of the rhyme ‘Hot Cross Buns.’

The children will be performing at St James’ Church on Thursday 31st March and the service will begin at 2pm. Please join us if you are able to.

Year 5 & 6 ‘rulz’… Yeah, it does!

Our cloakroom has a plethora of compliments, boosts and celebrations of friendship! It’s only March and I think we’re rapidly running out of space!

It’s great to see the children being so positive about their classmates.

If children catch someone being friendly, kind, helpful or just generally being an all-round top person, they can grab a chalk pen and scribe on our communal cloakroom wall to share that moment with us all! Nice one, Y5/6!

Quick Beats

In today’s music lesson, we’ve explored Quick Beats – it’s an app used to create different styles of drum beats, like grime, hip-hop and Latin.

We mirrored our iPads onto the board so we could share our beats with our classmates – everyone was impressed at how cool our beats sounded!

Nicholas – ‘Scarlet’s beats were wild  because it sounds like it’d be played in the jungle!’

Joe – ‘Evie’s beats made me feel like I was at a disco!’ 

Siana – ‘Jess’ beats were upbeat and energetic.’

The children have been given their log-ins so that they can have a go at accessing Quick Beats at home.