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11 December 2020

This week, the whole school has the same Creative homework, which should be returned by Thursday 17 December.

The children are invited to respond to something from either a cultural or a spiritual perspective.

I can present a review of a book / TV show / film or something else cultural.

We’d like children to present their responses about a recent book they’ve read, film they’ve watched, piece of art they’ve looked at, piece of music they’ve listened to – anything cultural in fact.

We’re interested to read some sort of description (a summary, for example) and then your child’s opinions. This review might include pictures, an interview (your child could write a fictional script between himself/herself and the artist, for example), a letter (eg to or from a character, or perhaps even the author) – anything which might include your child’s responses!

However, your child might prefer to do the following:

I know what a faith celebration means to me.

Over the course of this term, some children in school may have celebrated a religious festival of some sort.  This might have been

• the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha
• the Sikh and Hindu festival Diwali
• the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, coming up in December
• the Christian festival (of course, celebrated by many non-Christians) of Christmas
• and the Chinese New Year festival, coming up

There are lots of other festivals and celebrations, which you and your child together might want to reflect on.

We invite children to respond to the sentence above – they might include a recount (like a diary entry), pictures, an interview (perhaps in a script).  Your child might also choose to research a completely unknown festival, or they might even think about creating a brand new festival, one that everyone will celebrate.

Of course, there are many other ways in which children could respond. Children should be ready to celebrate their learning as part of their homework review by Thursday 18 December 2020. 

Christian Value: Friendship

This half term, our Christian Value has been friendship.

We have thought about how we can be a good friend and what we can learn from the Bible about friendship. We learned that Jesus teaches us to be a good friend to all – he told a story about how the good samaritan was a friend to someone who was supposed to be his enemy.

In our reflection areas, we had two challenges: a friendship flower and how to be a good friend.

For our friendship flower, we thought about who was a good friend or someone we were thankful for and wrote or drew a short thank you thought or prayer for them.

We took the friendship finger challenge and thought about all the things that make a good friend. We thought about how we could be a better friend.

Foundation stage have also been learning all about our Christian value of friendship. They’ve created a friendship tree and friendship stones whilst thinking about the qualities they would like in a friend.

Look out for next half term’s Christian value: perseverance.

Potion Commotion

As always, Foundation have had another fantastic week!
This week, we entered into a wonderful world of wizards and witches.
At the writing table, the children created their very own potions. Some of the children had a go at writing a list of ingredients.

In Literacy, we’ve been reading Potion Commotion by Peter Bentley. When reading the story, the children were great at listening for the rhyming words – it is a book full of rhyming words! The book is about a little witch called Betty. She ends up making a big mess when putting just about everything into her cauldron to make a potion. Betty’s potion grows and grows and spreads all over the town! 
Talk to your child about the story and see if they can remember what happened at the end.
Linking to the potion theme, we decided to be scientists and make our very own hubble and bubble potions.
We did four experiments using five ingredients: oil, water, bicarbonate soda, energy tablets and vinegar – the classroom spelt lovely!
The children observed what happened and recorded their findings.
Ronan – “It’s bubbling.”
Connor – “It’s fizzing.”
Daisy – “It looks like a tornado.”
Beau – “It’s not bubbling.”
We talked about what a chemical reaction is and that bubbling is a sign of a chemical reaction.

In phonics, we’ve learnt more  sounds: m, d and g.
Here’s a link to the Jolly Phonics songs.
The children are doing really well in phonics and love doing the drum roll before I show them the new sound – it creates a lot of excitement! Some of the children are starting to segment and blend cvc words, for example, sat, mad and pin.
The children went on a sound hunt around the classroom. They were encouraged to say the sounds when they found them.

F2 – Please remember to practise the sounds in their sound book and their words in their word passports.

In maths, we’ve continued looking at number 2. On Thursday, I dropped all of the counting bears all over the floor – silly Miss Marsden! The children had to collect two bears and put them on their ten frame. The children moved the bears around on their ten frames and checked that it still showed two. After half term, we will finalise our number 2 learning and move onto number three.
F1
The F1 children have also continued with their phase one phonics activities. On Tuesday, they had to watch carefully to different body sounds and pass it around the circle.
On Wednesday, the children went on a musical instrument hunt around the outdoor area. When a child found an instrument, they talked about its sound and compared it to the other instruments.

What else have we been up to?
We made playdough spiders.

In the sensory area, the children enjoyed melting the frozen hands!

Next half-term, we will become story tellers and look at some traditional tales. The children will come up with actions to help them retell the stories. We’ve chosen traditional tales because they usually follow a typical structure and include lots of repeated phrases.  Here’s a clue to help you guess one of the books we will be looking at…  It will help with our number three learning. 

Here are some pictures of the displays in our classroom…
Foundation Parents
A Parental Partnership presentation will be uploaded onto the class news page on Monday 2nd November.

I hope you all have a lovely half-term break!

Home-Link Challenge

01 July 2020: Home Learning

Happy Wednesday!

Today’s learning…..

Year 5 and 6 maths

Use the Topmarks website to play ‘Hit the button.’ Put your times table knowledge to the test.

Your learning for today is about multiplying mixed numbers.

Multiplying mixed numbers

SPAG: colons

Watch this video and read about colons.

Then, complete this activity. 

Living and Learning: I can make healthy choices

On Monday, we looked at healthy eating. Yesterday, we did some exercise to make our bodies healthy.

Today, we’re thinking about keeping our minds healthy.

Follow some of the links below and have a go at some activities.

Calm Zone 

Meditation

Yoga video

Our daily message (19 June 2020)

Before the end of the school year, teachers will host some Zoom meetings for children who remain at home.

Some background

The meetings will be with groups of children from the class. They’ll be a one-off chance for children to re-connect with the teacher, classmates and with learning. We think this is important for our friends still at home during lockdown, especially since we now know they won’t be returning until September, all being well.

One or two of you have been asking for teachers to deliver lessons by Zoom since the start of lockdown. We didn’t pursue this for two main reasons: safeguarding and effective teaching. (We have other reservations about Zoom to teach, too, but these are the main ones.)

We’re still not convinced Zoom (or any online video conferencing service) is an effective way to teach large groups of younger children online. It might work well for older children, but the important two-way dialogue that we have in school would be hard to re-create and sustain in a Zoom meeting.

There were some unpleasant stories at the start of lockdown that highlighted safeguarding concerns. However, Zoom has introduced improved security features. We’ve researched how best to secure the Zoom meetings; we’ve consulted colleagues who have begun to use it; and we’ve trialled it amongst ourselves. We’re now confident that Zoom can be used securely.

Next steps

The next steps are simple…

If your child is still learning at home, and you’d like your child to be part of a Zoom call with their teacher and some of their classmates, email your child’s teacher. By now, most of you will already have emailed – the teacher’s address is something like joebloggs@spherefederation.org (first name, last name and then @spherefederation).

When you email, you’ll need to provide the name that will appear in the Zoom call – the teacher won’t allow anyone into the meeting if they’re not expecting them. Ideally, the name would be the child’s first and last name, but it can be your name. (And please make sure the name is appropriate.)

The teacher will decide a date and time for this to happen – it’ll happen before the end of term. They’ll send an invitation with the log-in details back to you. We’re sorry – there can’t be much flexibility about the date and time.

How to prepare

For younger children, your child’s teacher will have a chat and read a story. For older children (Y3-Y6), the teacher will ask a couple of questions which will include questions related to home learning:

• What home learning have you felt most proud of?
• What learning have you made most progress with at home?
• What sort of learning routine are you in?

It would be great if your child has thought about these so they’re able to answer a question like that.

Some more details

• Meetings will be with groups of children from the class: no more than 10-12 children.
• The meetings are only for those who are home learning.
• Teachers will have a list of pupils and appropriate Zoom name in advance to allow people to enter.
• Two members of staff will be present throughout the Zoom.
• A parent / carer should be present at home, although you don’t need to be on screen throughout the meeting.
• Teachers will continue to make occasional phone calls home, too, but you might not get a call during the week teachers do their Zoom.
• The meeting will last about 15-30 minutes, depending on the size of the group.
• Some Zoom features will be disabled: the chat function, the record function, and the ‘re-name’ function will all be disabled.
• Participants will all be ‘mute’ on entry; teachers will manage the Zoom meeting by ‘unmuting’ children one at a time.
• Our school rules will still apply (including We respect everyone).
• Your child can be part of the Zoom but choose not to talk – no pressure!
• Teachers are aware of actions to take if a child doesn’t follow ground rules, school rules, instructions: this could include disabling video of anyone who is not following rules, for example.

11 June 2020: Home Learning

Good morning, year 3 and 4!

Maths

Today, year 3, have a look on this BBC bitesize page to learn all about fractions on a number line.

Year4, here are your answers to yesterday’s maths problem. Today, have a go at this circles problem – watch Mrs Welsby talking about it here.

Reading

For your reading task, watch this video of Mrs Welsby all about Mr Botte’s mystical shoemaker’s shop. The answers to yesterday’s learning are also in that video.

Science

Head to Oak National Academy to learn more about Plants. Throughout the lesson, you will be asked to pause the video to complete tasks (just like when we do a video lesson). Don’t forget, you can go back and listen to bits again to help you fill in the answers correctly. Have fun!

21 May 2020: Home Learning

Happy Thursday- I hope you’re all doing OK.

Today’s learning…….

Y5 maths: perimeter

Follow the BBC Bitesize lesson all about calculating perimeter.

Y6 maths

Play the final stage of Guardians of Mathematica – Ancient City of Algebra.

Test out your algebra skills by solving the Alphabet Algebra questions. Remember to start by using letter D.

Reading: fact and retrieval

Follow this online lesson.

Science: adaptation

Your learning today is science based and is all about adaptation. Complete this BBC Bitesize lesson.

19 May 2020: Home learning

Happy Tuesday!

Maths:

Y3 – continuing on with our problem solving, here is the video for today – it has the answers to yesterday’s problem (and how I worked it out) and today’s new problem. Here is the problem if you wish to print it.

Y4 – Yesterday’s answers.

Today’s learning – Position and direction 1 video and worksheet.

Reading:

Something a little bit different ….

Read through this interview with Ben Schwarz and find out about the Sonic the Hedgehog movie.  Then, answer the questions on the next page.

Topic:

Answers to the last lesson’s continents and oceans. Today, we are learning about the hemispheres. Video learning and worksheet.

Storytime:

If you want to listen to chapter 2 and 3 of the story The chicken gave it to me by Anne Fine, click here. (If you missed chapter 1, you will find it on yesterday’s post)

11 May 2020: Home Learning

Good morning- I hope you all had a good time celebrating VE day with your family.

Today’s learning…..

Year 5 Maths- arithmetic paper

The answers are at the end of the test.

Year 6 Maths

You may recall that this week was supposed to be our SATs week. Don’t worry you can recreate that magical feeling from the comfort of your own home. Sharpen your pencil, set your timer to 30 minutes and take the 2019 arithmetic paper. Scroll through the questions and use your exercise book to write down your answers and working out. You don’t have to wait weeks to find out how well you did; the answers will be revealed tomorrow.

Reading

For your learning today, complete this BBC Bitesize lesson.

Living and Learning

This week’s living and learning statement is ‘I recognise the importance of money’.

The £5 dinner challenge!

This guide may help you design your £5 family meal and check it’s healthy and filling- not just good value! Eat well guide NHS

Parent / carer survey

At St James’, we’re always keen to hear your views. We hope that you let us know of any questions, comments and concerns (as well as causes for celebration!) whenever these crop up, but we like to gather your views in our annual survey, too.

We know that in the current situation, it might feel a bit strange to be asking you questions about learning when it’s you who’s currently teaching your child. You might also feel you’ve no time to respond. Because of this, we’ve tried to keep the survey short and simple this year:

• we’ve used only some of the questions that Ofsted asks
• all you need to do is click on the relevant response for each question
• there’s just one space for comments at the very end, only if you’d like to add anything or explain one of your answers

Please complete the survey

The survey should only take about five minutes, and you’ve plenty of time – the deadline is Friday 29 May 2020.

Although we can’t guarantee to meet the needs and wants of every parent / carer, we do assure you that if specific areas for improvement are highlighted by the responses from this survey, we aim to act on these.

We’re looking forward to receiving your responses.