Newsletter November 2011
Christmas dates reminder
Friday 9th Dec - Christmas Fayre 3.30 p.m.
Tuesday 13th Dec - Year 6 Concert at St. Margaret’s Church 11 am
Wednesday 14th Dec - Foundation Stage Christmas Celebration 2 pm, school hall
Thurs 15th Dec - KS1 Concert 9.30 am in the school hall
Thurs 15th Dec - KS2 Concert 2pm & 7pm in the school hall
Fri 16th Dec - Whole school visit to the Pantomime at Grimsby Auditorium am
Tues 20th Dec - Close for Christmas 2.30 pm
School re-opens for children on Wednesday 4th January at 8.55 a.m
Developments in maths, reading and writing
During the first half term we introduced a new way of recording children’s progress in their maths learning. This also involved introducing two new tests. There is a termly test, which covers all areas of maths, and there is a weekly basic skills test. These tests show us any gaps in the children’s learning. These then become the focus for their learning to help raise their level of achievement.
In reading the half-termly reading test is matched against a set of reading skills and expectations. This shows where the gaps in reading and understanding are and these are then worked on.
In writing the ‘Write Well’ work we were doing last year has been extended so that every Friday the children do a special piece of independent ‘Big Write Friday’ writing. This is matched against skills and expectations to identify any gaps in learning and understanding so that these can be the focus of learning for the next week.
How to help your children
Many of you are already a great help in moving forward your children’s learning. You read with them regularly, help them to learn their spellings and help them to memorise their tables.
Unfortunately, this is not the case for all our children. Since we started our new way of working this term we have seen that there is a small, but very significant, number of children who do not know their tables, do not practise their spellings each week and who do not read regularly during the week. These children are not progressing as quickly as the children who do these activities regularly for homework.
Parents’ interest, support and expectation that their children will do these regular tasks for homework makes a noticeable difference to the children’s learning. Please support your child by ensuring that they do these homework learning tasks.
A new Home Reading Record book for Key Stage 2 children will be sent home shortly.
Change of Training Day
School will be closed for a Training Day on February 10th. This replaces the day originally planned for June 15th. School will now be open on June 15th.