Year group: Year 5 Date: Friday 12th January 2018

English

We have started our new book study ‘Stormbreaker’ by Anthony Horowitz. So far the children seem very engaged in the character ‘Alex Rider’. This week we have learnt all about blogs. We have:

• Converted 3rd person into 1st person • Used a range of adverbials to help vary and structure our

sentences • The children pretended they were commentators

Next week, we will be writing a set of instructions linked to Alex’s time at the M15 training camp.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s English: Reading is still a very important skill in year 5. Can you please ensure all children read regularly at home – thank you.

Maths

This week, the children have been working really hard in maths. We have learnt how to solve sum and difference problems using information presented in line graphs. We ended the week by creating and interpreting our own line graph. Next week, we continue with our statistics topic and we will be learning about comparison, sum and difference problems presented in bar graphs and tables.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s Maths: Children should now know their times tables and related division facts up to 12 x12. Can you continue to ensure your child can recall these quickly and correctly. The children have made a great start on their weekly times tables tests.

Extra information: We would like to wish you all a very Happy New Year.

Year group: Year 4 Date: Friday 12th January 2018

English This week, we have begun our study of ‘Stig of the Dump’. We have also been focusing on the use of adverbial phrases in our writing, as well as improving our inference skills. In grammar, we have been revising homophones, in line with our spellings this week. Next week, we will be using the class text in order to understand key characteristics of the main characters. In addition, we will be continuing to strengthen our inference schools with comprehension-based tasks, whilst our spellings will be technically focused on our topics this term.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s English: Encourage your child to read aloud and ask them questions about the text that require them to infer (read between the lines). This will improve their comprehension skills.

Maths

This week, we have been ordering and comparing numbers beyond 1000, rounding numbers to the nearest 1000, counting in multiples of 25 and 1000, reading Roman numerals to at least 100 and applying our learning to number place value problems! A busy first week back! Next week, we will be:

• Describing positions on a 2D grid as coordinates in the first quadrant, using pairs of coordinates

• Describing movements between positions as translations of a given unit • Applying our learning of coordinates and translations to mastery challenges

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s Maths: Keep practising your multiplication tables for Thursday’s challenges! Try your hardest when learning your spellings! We want to see 100% effort every week. Extra information:

• 18th January – visit from The Royal Shakespeare Company to explore ‘A Midsummers Night Dream’ Please DO NOT read the story beforehand.

Year group: Reception Date: Friday 12th January 2018

Literacy and Communication and Language Our new topic is ‘Space Adventure’ and we have been learning about our solar system and looking at the different planets. We have made 3d planets and we have been busy potato printing the universe! We have written what we know about space already and have been thinking and talking about what we would like to find out about space. We are working hard in our RWI lessons, focusing on the set 2 sounds, blending and reading our green words We practise our Red words every day and are now using our sounds to read alien words! (nonsense words that can be phonetically read). Next week we will be reading the story of ‘Whatever Next’ by Jill Murphy and we will be thinking about what we would take into space and writing a list of things we would put in our space suitcase!

Maths

This week, we have been using numbers up to 100 and looking at patterns of numbers within the 100 square. We have been recognising numbers out of sequence and deciding which numbers are bigger than... or smaller than... Mr Muddles has hidden our number line and we can’t find them anywhere. We had to go on a number hunt to find them and put them in the right order. Some of us have been practising our careful counting skills and our number formation. Next week, we will be looking at shape and thinking about shapes we can see in a rocket and designing and labelling our own rockets.

Suggestions of ways you can support your reception child with the EYFS curriculum: Continue to refer to the time of the day and see if your child can tell you what o’clock time it is. Look for shape in your house, on a trip in the car or in the garden- shapes are everywhere! Talk to your children about space and technology. This week we have used Google Earth to look at some of our houses and we couldn’t look at all of them due to time limits so it would be good to do this with your children if you have access to a computer. The children loved using technology for this activity.

Extra information:

Forest school begins on Tuesday! Ensure warm clothes, wellies, hats and gloves are in school for that day as we will be outside all afternoon, rain or shine! PLEASE encourage your child to dress/undress themselves as some still need support and help to organise their belongings! THANK YOU and a very Happy New Year to all of our wonderful Reception families!

Year group: Year 3 Date: Friday 12th January 2018

English • A warm welcome back to all after the Christmas break! Mr Johnstone and Mr

Trusler would like to thank you again for your generous gifts. • This week in English Year 3 are using Fantastic Mr Fox to explore imaginary

worlds. They have explored the characters of Mr and Mrs Fox and also the evil farmers, Boggis, Bunce and Bean. The children are using the book to practise reading skills – using clues to help deliver a good performance, which may include adverbs describing how the character is talking, speech verbs and punctuation.

• Next week the children will plan and write a story set in an imaginary world. They will revisit the features of quality creative writing and will be expected to include these in their story. Features such as a variety of sentence types, powerful verbs, ambitious vocabulary, and a range of punctuation, all written in their developing cursive style.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s English: Partner reading each evening with your child. Ensuring a good standard of handwriting is used in homework. Ensuring children check their answers to comprehension questions. Practise inference questions with your children when they read to you. For example; ‘Why do you think the character did that?’ Or ‘How do you think the character felt when that happened?’ Please contact the class teachers if you would like guidance with this.

Maths

• Year 3 have brought an impressive range of Maths games to school this week. They have been explaining their games to the rest of the class and have enjoyed playing them. This activity benefits the children’s maths and social skills. They will be evaluating theirs and other’s games, commenting on the maths element of the game, ease of play and fun factor!

• Next week – place value will be revisited and increasingly complex problems set related to this area.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s Maths: Practice the children’s times tables regularly and as the children become more confident with times tables recall ask them the related division facts. For example if they can answer 6x4 quickly, can they tell you what 24÷6 is. Extra information:

The children had a great day on Thursday thanks to Steve from Victrix who appeared as a Roman gladiator and helped the children to learn many fun facts about the times when Britain was ruled by the Romans. It was a very interactive day and the children particularly enjoyed acting as a legion of Roman soldiers. They also became very involved in the everyday life of Roman citizens with role play based around a Roman forum. Please ensure your child has a jumper or cardigan each day as they cannot wear blazers during break times. Children should now have a fleece or coat in school to wear at playtimes, otherwise they may have to stay indoors if the weather is deemed too cold. Please communicate any queries with teachers through the children’s diary or by emailing the office. Mrs Cousins is now spending three days with Year 3, Mondays, Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Year group: Year 1 Date: Friday 12th January 2018 Wow! What a great start to the year. Year 1 have come back to school very ready to learn. They have been eager to take part in their lessons and I am so impressed by their growing confidence- they are really settling into Key Stage 1 learning now! ‘Outer Space’ Workshop- (Reception, Year 1 & Year 2)

The children enjoyed a fantastic drama workshop on Wednesday, all about ‘Outer Space’. They danced and moved to ‘alien’ noises, and practised learning the names of the planets in our solar system. A great way to start off our first week back to school with some confidence boosting, creative fun!

English We have been discussing ‘traditional tales’ and how, in the past, they were not written down but passed on from person to person as an ‘oral tale’.

Main texts: Selected Traditional tales, retold by spoken word. Dinosaur Dragon as told by Wilf Merttens. Comprehension: We have been listening to the ‘Dinosaur Dragon’ story, and choosing our favourite part, talking with partners which bit they liked best and why? We have taken turns to remember and retell the story to our class. Composition: We have been writing sentences about our favourite part of a traditional tale, using important connectives ‘because’- ‘and’ to extend our sentences. Spoken language: The children have been re- telling traditional tales to each other in class, taking turns to listen and understand each other’s tale. Word reading and transcription: We have been reading and writing high frequency words in our Phonics lessons this week such as ‘their’, ‘it’s’, ‘went’ and ‘from’. We have been understanding the different ways to read and write the grapheme’s (au/aw/ or)- understanding that they all ‘sound’ the same but have different spelling. (Paul/Saw/Cornet) Spelling rule: We have been practising our spelling rule based on the trigraph ‘igh’.

Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s English: Discuss a traditional tale at bedtime or breakfast, e.g.- Little Red Riding Hood, The 3 Little Pigs. See if you can pause and let your child join in re-telling a part of the traditional story? Try creating an exciting character e.g.- a pretty princess, a fierce animal to describe with adjectives for description. Maths

We have been revising and revisiting lots of number skills. These included: Focus: Number and Place Value

• Counting up in 2’s, 5s and 10s to 100 • Using a number square to spot number patterns in the 5 and 10 times

tables. • Adding 1 more to 2 digit numbers • Taking away 1 less than 2 digit numbers

Making number sentences for 1 more and 1 less than 2 digit numbers Suggestions of ways you can support your child’s Maths: Practise counting up and back in 2s and 5s, preparing for on the spot Times Table questions e.g. - 2x5, 6x2. Notices Wishing a very Happy New Year to you all! I hope you had a wonderful break. Our exciting new Topics of study this term will be: Science: Animals Including Humans/ Seasonal Change History: The Great Fire of London Geography: Weather and the Land Art: Using pastels. Working towards creating a ‘Great Fire of London’ scene picture. Design and Technology: Making Pizza Computing: Programming with Purple Mash ‘2Go’ We have a History workshop day planned for Wednesday 7th March. This will be all about the events of the ‘Great Fire of London’- a fun and interactive day of drama, and historical learning. Kindest regards, Miss Kitt