"Pupils behave well. They play happily together and consider each other’s needs very well.""Parents are right to be pleased with the quality of teaching at the school.""Pupils learn well because the work they do provides good levels of challenge and helps them learn new skills."100% of parents said they would recommend this school to other parents"The curriculum supports pupils’ spiritual, moral, social and cultural development effectively.""Pupils get off to a good start in early years."

Robins class 2019-20

Mrs Carter and Mrs Salmons

Resilient Robins!

Friday 20th March

It’s been an extraordinary week but the children have kept us smiling. We’ve had some circle times towards the end of the week where the children have openly talked about the virus and asked some great questions. They show incredible resilience and positivity and I’m so impressed by the knowledge they have of the world and our Prime Minister.

This week, we’ve had some fun drama lessons, acting out parts of the story of Beegu. We’ve written directed speech and postcards and created our own Talk Show to interview characters.

In Maths, we started a new unit of measuring, using different units like paperclips and cubes to measure lengths. We practised using our comparative language; short, shorter, shortest, long, longer, longest and equal length to compare different objects. Then we moved on to using rulers – making sure our objects were always in line with zero. We looked at mass briefly too and compared the weights of more than 2 objects. This is a topic you could continue with at home. I’ll post more information next week.

In Topic, we’ve created a fact file about Captain Scott and in RE we’ve recapped the story of Easter and produced a short report.

I’ll be in touch next week with some tips and tasks for home-learning. Stay well and find something positive in every day to keep your spirits up.

I’m really going to miss the children and would love some letters or cards to respond back to! Please send to the school address.

See you all soon!

Beegu

Friday 13th March

In Literacy this week, we’ve started reading a new story Beegu. We’ve been considering the character’s feelings throughout the book and how they might change. We’ve also imagined where Beegu the alien,  might live and have written some descriptions about her planet.

In Maths we’ve been comparing and ordering numbers to 50, now that we’re more secure with our place value. Please keep asking the children one more and one less questions of numbers to 50. The homework this week is to order numbers. Ask the children to compare the ones digit and the tens digit.

Captain Scott is a really exciting topic for Robins and they’ve loved finding out about his attempts to find the South Pole. We’ve tried to imagine his disappointment and how difficult his trek must have been and have written some diary entries. To coincide with this, we’ve been observing and testing a variety of materials to find out which are waterproof and might be suitable for a jacket for Captain Scott!

Our PSHE this week has covered Sportsmanship and how it’s OK to lose and not be the best at something and today we completed over 100 laps around the track in the Sports Relief lapathon. A great end to a busy week.

Have a lovely weekend!

Name
 Spellings for Week S2W3.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Catch it, bin it, kill it!
Friday 6th March

We’ve learnt some important messages this week to help keep us healthy, by catching our germs in a tissue and washing our hands thoroughly throughout the day. The children designed some posters to put around the classroom.

This week, in Literacy the children have been designing their own aliens, listing and describing their features and using their plan to the write a character description. This is in preparation for our new text Beegu, which we’ll start next week.

In Maths, we’ve been counting in steps of 2, 5 and 10 and finding one more and on less than numbers to 50.

In Topic/Science, we’ve designed, made and tested some boats to see if they float or sink and sail and learnt some facts about Captain Scott.

For World Book Day, we shared some of our own books and I read The Truth Pixie Goes To School. It focuses on friendship, being honest and being true to ourselves. We talked about what qualities an ideal friend should have.

Have a lovely weekend.

Name
 Spellings for Week S2W2.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Alien descriptions

Friday 28th February

This week the children have described a funny character from space! We’ve been thinking of amazing adjectives and learning all about verbs, so we can describe how the character might move.
We’ve learnt some different examples of how the verb changes within different tenses.

In Maths, we’ve been counting forwards and backwards to 50 and learning about place value. We need to understand that tens and ones have different values in a 2-digit number; ie. 32 consists of 3 tens and 2 ones. We’ve been counting in 10s and making bundles of 10 pipe cleaners to represent different numbers.
We’ve also been finding one more and one less than a number to 50 and have started to compare them.

For our Marvellous Middle, the children have thought about suitable materials they might use to design and make a boat that floats. Next week we’ll make and test them

We have started to ask questions about the explorer Captain Scott and the Antarctic.

Today, we had a really exciting experience. A woodwind band showed us their instruments and played for us!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Name
 Spellings for Week S2W1.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Our last week

Friday 14th February

The Robins have been very busy retelling their own versions of A Way Back Home by Oliver Jeffers this week. They’ve put their knowledge of adjectives, adverbs and exclamation marks to good use!

In Maths, they’ve counted forwards and backwards to 50 and have represented different numbers using a range of resources: tens frames and counters, tens and ones and Numicon. We’ll continue with this after Half Term.

It was Internet Safety day on Tuesday so we had a big discussion about things that are personal to us and how we shouldn’t give out information like our name and address. We talked about different websites that we use and how we must always check with our adults that we're being safe.

We’ve enjoyed listened to some Bangra style music and explored our dance moves, investigated whether certain material are waterproof or not and opaque or transparent, have painted animal skins and have talked about mental health. We’ve had important discussions about what makes us individual and unique and how we are all special.

Have a wonderful half term break!

Name
 Spellings for Week 6.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Continents and Columbus!

Friday 7th February

We’ve had a busy week in Robins– plotting Columbus’s voyages Westerly across the globe and learning what his intentions were to travel. We’ve refreshed our knowledge of the 7 continents in doing so.  

Our Literacy work continues to improve as we practise our sentence structuring – orally building simple sentences with actions and draw symbols on our story maps to represent words. Once we have our basic sentence, we think of words to make it even better (adjectives and adverbs and sometimes an exclamation mark)

In Maths, we’ve been partitioning numbers to secure our knowledge of number bonds and listing ‘fact families’ to recognise that addition and subtraction are inverse operations and to understand that addition is commutative but subtraction is not. We’ve also compared amounts using the greater than, less than and equal to symbols and moved on to comparing addition and subtraction statements.

In RE, we’ve recapped the artefacts used in the celebration of Shabbat and in Science have performed simple tests on materials to understand their properties.

Congratulations to Kiara for working exceptionally hard with her phonics this term. She has made fantastic progress!

Apologies for the American spelling last week! The children corrected my mistake and we’ve been practising the English spelling all week.

Name
 Spelling List S1 W5.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

A good friend!

Friday 31st January

This week in Maths, the Robins have been subtracting (across 10) using tens frames. It’s been quite a tricky process, but the idea is to be able to see amounts (by subitising) and eventually be able to use this strategy mentally. We’ve added on some partitioning using part part/whole models too. They will bring some homework back this evening to consolidate this.

In Literacy, we finished our description writing for the book ‘Journey’ and the children wrote an independent piece with a brand new image, using features they’d learnt in lessons. We are focusing on writing less but including more detail in our sentences. We’ve covered adjectives (describing words) and introduced adverbs (how something happens – gently, slowly)
We’ve started a new book ‘The Way Back Home,’ by Oliver Jeffers and will retell the story in our own words.

In Topic we have learnt some more facts about Christopher Columbus’s discoveries and in RE have learnt about the Shabbat celebration and special objects Jewish people keep in their homes.

We’ve had a fun art lesson making animal puppets and investigated suitable materials used for particular objects – learning that the same object can be made from different materials which have similar properties.

We’ve also talked about what makes a good friend and reminded each other that we have different qualities and skills and that’s what makes us unique.

Congratulations to Eli, our Star of the week! Eli has such a positive attitude towards school and learning and has made excellent progress with his reading and writing. Eli is also a super friend to us all!

Enjoy a restful weekend!

Name
 Spellings for Week 5.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Feelings and kindness

Friday 24th January

We’ve finished our maths topic of addition by making 10 and moved onto subtraction this week, using tens frames. We’ve been using our knowledge of number bonds to help us. We need to make sure these are really secure before moving forward in Maths so please practise these at home, mentally if you can!

In Literacy we have been adding to our story map and reading and repeating sentences so we are secure with them before writing them out. I’ve been encouraging the children to read their writing. “Does it make sense?”

In RE, we have learnt about the mezuzuah – a piece of parchment contained in a decorative case and inscribed with Hebrew prayer. Our topic work has covered one of the voyages that Christopher Columbus made across the Atlantic Ocean and so we’ve written a diary entry!

PCSO Kev Thompson came in from the Butterfly project on Wednesday. He spoke with classes about different feelings we might have and how and who best to talk about them. He also reminded us how to cross a road safely!

Mrs Salmons taught a PSHE lesson today on ‘feelings’ and reminded the children who we can talk to in school.

We’ve noticed a little bit of unkindness on the playground and are trying to tackle it positively. We want children to be able to tell adults when they experience worry or upset so issues can be dealt with.

Congratulations to Chase who is our Star of the Week! He has showed determination and perseverance this week and been our top marble earner!

 

Have a lovely weekend.

Name
 Spelling List S1 W3.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

A busy week for Robins!

Friday 17th January

We’ve packed so much into this last week!

In Literacy we’ve practised joining words and clauses using ‘and’ and using an exclamation mark to demarcate expression. We’ve also brainstormed lots of adjectives to add detail to simple sentences.

In Maths, we’ve repeated a tricky topic of adding by making 10, using tens frames. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9h4skGoWJ8 and we’ll continue this next week by adding along a number line

Our Topic work has involved retelling facts about Christopher Columbus and creating a human story board and we’ve started to make a class floor book about Hannukah, a Jewish celebration.

We’ve observed and identified a range of everyday materials and talked about the properties of materials in Science; studied British wildlife and learnt how to draw some animals using simple shapes; and listened to some blues music to copy the beat and discuss the different sounds of instruments.

Congratulations to Reuben who is our Star of the Week for forming beautiful kinetic letters and working hard in Literacy.

Have a restful weekend!

Name
 Spelling List S1 W2.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Happy New Year!

Friday 10th January

Firstly, I’d like to welcome Mrs Salmons to Robin class! She has joined us until the end of the year as Mrs Musson has moved down to Wrens class. Please pop in and say hello!

Wrens began the week with a code breaker lesson (our Stunning Start for our Topic) to uncover which famous explorer we’re going to study - the clues led to ‘Christopher Columbus!’ The children have been learning some facts about him.

In Literacy, we’ve looked at the illustrated book 'Journey' and started to describe a setting. We’ve focused on joining simple sentences with conjunctions to make them ‘compound’ sentences.

In our Maths we’ve been securing our number bonds and adding in different ways.

Our Science will now focus on Materials and in RE we’ll be studying the faith, Judaism. This week we looked at a very special prayer called the Shema.

Please accept my apologies for duplicating the spellings before Christmas. You should have the correct list for Monday but it’s also attached below. Hopefully we’ll see lots of high scores next week!

Robins were so proud to win the Cleaners Cup today (and I have loved having a tidier classroom!) We’re upping our game and becoming more responsible.

Congratulations to Katie for being our Star of the Week. Katie has impressed us with her mature attitude, focus in lessons and improved handwriting!

Next week, we’re going to continue to build sentences that link, in describing a setting and add by making 10. Quite tricky stuff!

Have a lovely weekend.

Name
 Spelling List A2 W7.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Merry Christmas!

Friday 20th December 2019

What a wonderful week we’ve had. The learning has continued even though we’ve all been feeling tired but we’ve had lots of fun too. A music lesson, descriptive writing, RE – learning about the Nativity story and creating our own books, working in groups and presenting, a carol service and Christmas lunch!

I haven’t set any homework this week but please keep practising the spellings and read some lovely Christmas stories!

When we come back in the Spring term, we’ll be learning about some famous explorers: Captain Columbus and Captain Scott. Really exciting!

Thank you for the lovely cards and gifts. We hope you have a wonderful Christmas break. See you in the New Year!

Name
 Spelling List A2 W7.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas!

Friday 13th December 2019

We hope you enjoyed the play this week! We’re certainly feeling very festive now. The children have done so well! Around our rehearsals, we’ve read part of The Jolly Christmas Postman and have been reciting the rhymes and giving them actions before developing story maps in pairs. We have then edited our own versions of the story map and then used it to write our own version.

In Maths, we’ve been consolidating some tricky areas; counting on, subtracting, one more and one less and recognising the correct symbols for greater than and less than.

Congratulations to Kiara who is our Star of the week. She has worked her socks off in phonics and has confidently used her phonics to spell out some longer words. She’s also been working independently in Maths too and trying some challenges.

Next week, we’re going to have an RE focus and learn more about the Incarnation. We’ll continue with some tricky concepts in Maths too and write up some character descriptions

We have the Carol Service on Tuesday morning and would welcome any adults to help walk us up to the church. And we have our Christmas lunch that day too and Christmas jumper day on the last day.

Enjoy your weekends!

Friday 6th December
We have had another really busy week in Robins class. On Monday we received a very exciting letter from Santa! Mrs Carter read us the letter and we looked and highlighted features in the letter at our tables. We spotted capital letters, punctuation, conjunctions and key words. For the rest of the week we planned a response letter to Santa using a bubble map. He also sent us an Advent Calendar so we made sure that we planned to thank him for his letter and the calendar as well as answering his questions. Some of us thought of some good questions to ask Santa too! On Wednesday and Thursday we began to write our letters back to Santa, using our bubble map plan to help us.
In Maths we have been looking at different groups of objects and ordering them from smallest to greatest and then greatest to smallest. We've used blocks to consolidate our learning as well as ladybirds on leaves to count and find which leaf holds the greatest amount of ladybirds. We have been practicing all week, moving onto sorting more than two groups into order of smallest to greatest.
Amongst all of this we have been practicing hard for our Christmas play, as we now have the stage set up in the hall. We have been practicing singing our songs too in the classroom.
We have also looked at how we celebrate Christmas, made some Christmas cards, decorated cakes to sell in our Christmas Fair and also enjoyed a music lesson. I have been blown away at how sensible the children were during our music lesson. We were able to identify the beat, clapping and dancing along, following complicated moves! We also were able to identify different instruments and discuss the structure of the piece of music we were listening to.

It’s beginning to look a bit like Christmas!

Friday 29th November

It’s been very exciting to start rehearsing our Christmas play with the Year 2’s his week. Hopefully you will have received a letter in bookbags detailing your child’s part in the play and a costume guide.

Next week, we’ll be drafting a letter to Santa himself, especially as he is due to visit the Christmas Fayre on Friday evening!

This week, however, a group of toys were discovered in our classroom! They were up to all sorts! After a class meeting we decided to write to a well-known toy store to see if they had escaped on a little adventure? The children thought they may have travelled on a train to get to Greens Norton. Over the week, they planned and wrote a letter to Hamleys. The children wrote an introduction to themselves first before then describing what they had found in the classroom. They ended their letter with a question.

In Maths, the children have been consolidating their understanding of numbers 11-20, recognising that 11 means ‘ten and one’, 12 means ‘ten and two’ etc… So they’ve been using Base 10 resources, (tens and ones) to represent the different numbers. We’ve also introduced these numbers in word format so the children can read them. (You may see some start to appear in their weekly spellings) Ten frames and counters have also been used and we’ve practised counting on from ten. If we have a full tens frame, we don’t need to count it all out, we can just count on what’s extra. Please keep practising to count on from different numbers!

In our Topic lessons we’ve explored more memorials and the cenotaph.

Are there any willing parents who would mind baking a batch of plain, un-iced cupcakes that the children can decorate on Friday morning for the Christmas fayre? 

Have a fantastic weekend! 

Name
 Spelling List A2 W4.docxDownload
 Spelling List A2 W5.docxDownload
Showing 1-2 of 2

Questioning!

Friday 22nd November

We’ve been asking lots of questions this week in all areas of the curriculum! And talking about exclamation marks!

In Literacy, we’ve been reading the book Dear Greenpeace; all about Emily who finds a whale in her pond! The book is written as an exchange of letters between Emily and Greenpeace. In most of the letters, a question is asked and then answered in the reply.
We’ve practised being characters from the story and asking questions to one another and then we’ve practised writing the questions – using key question vocabulary: when, what who, why, where, how, which and ending all our question sentences with a question mark.

In Maths we’ve been exploring 3D shapes and asking ourselves what 2D shape faces make up 3D shapes. We drew around the 3D shapes to find out. Perhaps ask your child what 2D shapes make up 3D shapes around the home?

In our Topic lessons this week, we found out about Armistice and the origins of Remembrance Day. We learnt that the world celebrated the end of the war but that not everyone was happy that day. We’ve questioned how some people may have felt.

Claire Reetz came in again for some Collective Worship during RE. She taught us about friendship and asked us what we thought was special about our friends. She told us that God is her friend and she likes talk to him in prayer.

Next week, we’re going to continue with Dear Greenpeace and planning the structure of a letter. In Maths we’ll be moving away from shape back to number bonds, to 20!

Below are this week’s spellings for a recap over the weekend and next weeks – so you can start learning them on Monday night. When the children take the spelling test, they are read the words in order and they write them purely from memory. They have time in the morning to practise one last time before the register!

Have wonderful weekends!

Name
 Spelling List A2 W3.docxDownload
 Spelling List A2 W4.docxDownload
Showing 1-2 of 2

"Don't give up!"

Friday 15th November 

We've had a super week with some challenge in Maths as we've been trying to understand the relationship between addition and subtraction. We've been finding addition and subtraction fact families for 3 numbers. E.g. 3 + 4 = 7, 4 + 3 = 7, and we’ve been ‘finding the difference’ between 2 numbers.
                                                                                                                     7 = 3 + 4, 7 = 4 + 3

The children will have brought some homework back today on fact families, which has been quite a tricky topic.

In Literacy we learnt the poem Poppy Poppy. We practised clapping out the rhythm and picking out the rhyming words. We discussed what the poem was about and the message it was telling us. This linked nicely to our Topic lesson in which we talked about Remembrance Day and other celebrations that we have throughout the year. We had a lovely letter from Arthur Parry, telling us how he was getting on in his new school so we structured an informal letter back to him.

Claire Reetz visited us for some Collective Worship on Tuesday and discussed the theme of not giving up. She read the story of Noah's Ark and then asked the children what they found tricky in school. We concluded that we shouldn't give up if we want to get better and achieve!

Congratulations to Amelia who is our Star of the week. Amelia is so kind and friendly towards others and has been so focused over the last few weeks. She’s impressed a number of adults!

Next week, we’re going to carry on with some letter writing in Literacy, picking apart the features of an informal letter, compare statements in Maths by saying which addition sentence totals more or less than the other and explore our 3D shapes.

I’ve given parts to the class for our shared Christmas play ‘Baubles’. They are written in Reading Logs. Children won’t have a speaking part unfortunately as we are performing the play alongside Year 2 but they will need to learn lots of songs.

Enjoy your weekends!

Name
 Spelling List A2 W2.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Our fantastic first week back!

Friday 8th November 

It’s so good to be back with the wonderful Robins. We’ve had a super first week and have been so impressed by the children’s attitudes and how well they’ve adapted back into the school routine.
I’ve been assessing the children’s phonics this week and they’ve made excellent progress since we started our new phonics scheme. The children wrote about their half term break with gusto!

In Maths we’ve been using part whole models to find missing parts. 5 + _ = 11 and have used number lines to count on, from the given part to the whole number – alongside using counters.

We launched the Marvellous Middle of our Topic and learnt all about where our fruit and vegetables come from, before they get to the shops. We sorted the fruit and veg into different types (root vegetables and produce that grows above ground, on trees and plants, tasted some new fruits, explored their shape and textures by printing with them and discovered where each item was originally grown, by reading their labels.

The children have been so fixated on buying poppies this week and had a special visit from the British Legion on Thursday. On Monday we’ll be reading some poems and discussing what they mean as well as highlighting rhyming words and the sound in them.

Many of our boys have been talking about the Titanic so we’re going to learn all about it next week and write some facts about it. We’ve also had a lovely email from Mrs Parry, Arthur’s mum so we’ll be writing some letters back to him too.

I hope you’re all enjoying the change of season. There’s lots of opportunities to describe the colours of the leaves with your children and the beautiful sunsets. We’ll be going on an Autumn walk very soon!

Here are next week’s spellings. I’ve picked many of these words from misconceptions that have arisen in Literacy. Your child will know which list they are practising. 

Have wonderful weekends!

Name
 Spelling List A2 W1.docxDownload
Showing 1-1 of 1

Finger spaces, full stops and fact families!

Friday 11th October 

It’s been a busy week – we’ve made some great progress with our Maths this week in using a part/whole model to present our knowledge of addition. The model shows a whole number and 2 numbers which it can be split by (2 numbers that add together to make the total ‘whole’ number). We’ve used lots of repetition of the vocabulary ‘part’ and ‘whole’ and picked apart the position of varied addition sentences and what each numeral represents. The homework this week is linked to this work, so hopefully your child will be able to explain it to you! A fact family shows the varying ways the same addition sentence can be written. There are 4 ways.

In Literacy, we’ve been writing in full sentences against some picture prompts. The children have focused on self-checking their sentences to make sure they includes the following features: A capital letter at the beginning, finger spaces and a full stop. We’ve also been focusing on our letter formation, particularly ‘b’ and ‘d’. We’ve been using the word ‘bed’ to help us. If our word begins with the same sound as bed – we use the picture prompt (see photo) to write the correct letter. Some children have been challenged to use some conjunctions in their sentences: and, because and so. And we’ve focused on the correct spelling of tricky words by using our tricky word mats.

In our Science work we have labelled the human body and in our Topic work we have explored the countries of the United Kingdom and their capital cities.

Congratulations to Reuben for being our Star of the Week. He has shown fantastic focus and worked really hard on his weekly spellings!

This year we are promoting a Christmas card competition – mentioned on the Newsletter. If your child would like to take part, please could they produce an A4 brightly coloured drawn or painted picture and bring in to school by next Friday 18th October.

Next week, we’re going to be working systematically with number bonds to 10 and continuing to structure our sentences so we include all of the features!

Enjoy your weekend!

Phonics fun!

Friday 4th October

We’ve had a really busy week in Robins!

I asked them what they enjoy in Year 1 and Phonics had really positive feedback, which is fantastic! The children love going into their small groups and they’re enjoying learning and repeating the phrases and rhymes for each of the sounds.

In Literacy we’ve been writing some simple sentences, describing some of our favourite character, we’ve been punctuating sentences with full stops, reading simple sentences and matching them to character descriptions, relating sentences and planning a story from a picture prompt.

In Maths, we’ve been ordering objects and numbers, learning about ordinal numbers (first, second, third, fourth, fifth) and securing our knowledge of the number line to 10 and beyond, making sure we understand ‘the number that is one more that 5… one less than 9 etc..’ We also ordered ourselves in height order!

Ordinal numbers was quite tricky for some of our Robins and they weren’t used to using the language so you could try giving the children instructions at home, starting with these words - first, second, third etc.

In Topic, we have sketched a map of the hall and our classroom, labelling items in the rooms and describing their positions and what side of the room they are to us. In Science we have started to classify animals into the groups: Herbivore, Carnivore and Omnivore.

Well done to Eli this week for showing us how to learn best! His attitude is so positive and he really perseveres with his work.

Enjoy a lovely break this weekend!

Harvest Celebration

27th September 

We’ve spent time this week reflecting on what Harvest is and what we are thankful for in our lives. To celebrate all that we love about Autumn, we learnt a poem which we performed in church this Thursday. Thank you for all the generous food donations.

In Maths this week, we’ve continued to look at the value of number, by making up amounts with different resources and comparing 2 numbers together. We learnt that there are symbols for greater than, less than and equal to and used them in our comparisons.

In Literacy we’ve been using adjectives to describe characters in a story, sequencing a well-known traditional tale to understand the beginning, middle and end of a story and story mapping a new story called ‘Anything is Possible’. Story mapping is a process of drawing symbols and pictures to represent words so that we can record it easily and retell it.

In our Topic lessons, we’ve been using compass directions to navigate a route on a map. The children studied a compass and learnt the four basic directions; North, South, East and West.

Congratulations to Oscar who is our star this week. Oscar is such a kind boy and a really positive influence in our class. He has worked really hard on his reading and now really enjoys picking new reading books to take home.

Next week, we’re going to be ordering numbers and looking at ordinal numbers; first, second, third. We’re also going to be practising our sentence structuring to start writing our own story. And in Topic we’ll be designing a map of the school.

Have a lovely weekend.

Flying high!

20th September 2019

This week the Robins have produced their first piece of independent writing. We’ve been building up to it over the last week and a half and learning all about the different components of a full sentence. We’ve learnt about nouns and adjectives and practised our use of capital letters and full stops. The children had a fun lesson labelling a selection of my shoes with adjectives on Tuesday! And before we wrote our best piece, we planned our story using a text map – full of symbols to help structure our sentences. Then we edited it with post- it notes to change the adjectives and turn the story from a sad one to a much happy one. The children wrote a descriptive piece about the setting of a magical clock tower.

In Maths Robins have been have practising ‘one more’ and ‘one less’ and the skill of subitising (recognising numbers without counting them). They struggled a little more with ‘one less’ so we practised counting backwards and physically jumped backwards along a number line drawn out on the carpet.

We had an exciting Topic lesson where Mr Wortley, a very kind volunteer, brought his drone into school. He explained how it works and then we all went into the playground to watch it take off. The purpose of this was to enable the children to understand ‘aerial’ view before we started some map work. We then studied a map of Greens Norton and the surrounding areas and the children used a key to find features like schools, churches, wooded areas and public houses!

I have sent home the first piece of Literacy homework this week, stuck into homework books. Please ask the children to look around them at home and in their surrounding area for different nouns.

New spellings have also been stapled into Reading Records although next week, there will be a spelling folder in book bags.

Please remember to contribute to our Harvest Festival if you can. Our church service is this Thursday morning. If you can help escort the children down to the church, we would be ever so grateful.

Enjoy the sun again this weekend!

Robins love learning!

13th September 2019

Robins have completed their first full week and I’m so impressed with how they’ve settled in and adjusted. I am so proud of how hard they have tried in lessons and how much learning has taken place. We’ve focused quite heavily on our school values and leaning behaviours and we praise children who demonstrate them. On Monday the class wrote out their target for the year with Mrs Musson and told us which learning behaviour or value they wanted to work on.

In Literacy this week, we’ve been learning about the basic structure of a sentence and the types of words that are in them – nouns and adjectives. Ask your child if they can think of some examples this weekend.  We’ve practised writing out all of our capital letters too so we know how to start our sentences.

In Maths we’ve been grouping objects, counting them accurately by touching each one, representing numbers with pictures and objects and counting forwards and backwards. See if your child can count forwards as they go upstairs and backwards as they go down, starting from any number (not just 1).

In Science we’ve been learning about animal classification; mammals; birds; fish; insects and reptiles and talking about what each type of animal have in common.

Please practise the weekly spellings that have been stapled into the reading records as we will do a ‘quiz’ on Monday morning. The children have had a little bit of practice in class today so they know what to expect.

Also, please make sure your child is bringing in their reading record daily as we have some volunteers that can hear children read throughout the week and we’d like to keep a record.

Next week, we’re going to practise reading and writing some sentences with a conjunction (and, because, so) and continue to focus on capital letters, finger spaces and full stops and we’re also going to recap Adjectives.

In Maths we’re going to learn about ‘one more and one less’, one-to-one correspondence, e.g. are there enough bowls of porridge for the bears?’ and comparing objects.

Congratulations to Harrison who is our Star of the Week – he really has shone and the Robins have helped him settle in so well.

Have a wonderful sunny weekend!

Wrens return as Robins!

6th September 2019

What a great start the Robins have had. They’ve made us so proud with their independence and confidence in coming into their new classroom in the mornings and demonstrating their readiness. We’ve recapped our school values and discussed what makes a good teacher and a good learner so we have a harmonious year ahead. During the last 3 days, the Robins have partaken in a few formal style English and Topic lessons which have been really successful. Our Topic this term is ‘This is my land’ and we’ll be learning all about our local area, our country and the world. On Wednesday the children enjoyed an i-spy around Greens Norton. They found lots of different buildings in the village. We also enjoyed designing our own village using collage for our new topic book covers. On Wednesday afternoon we worked in groups to be 'village planners'. In our teams we had to use the building materials to create our own villages. We used the Lego, blocks and drew pictures of what we wanted the different buildings to be like!

It’s clear that lots of the children have continued to read and write over the holidays. Everyone has been issued with a new reading book from our new selection of books that are linked to our new Phonics scheme, Read Write Inc. You’ll find out more about this at the Year 1 Parent Information Evening on the 19th September.

Please remember to bring in reading records and reading books every day so we can read with children at any point. We’re very lucky to have two parent volunteers this year who will help to read with children.

10 spellings will be issued every Monday and tested the following Monday. These will be printed and put in spelling folders for you to use at home and I will also put them on the blog.

Welcome to Harrison who is our new starter. Robins have been so welcoming! Harrison has come all the way from Wales!

We’ll have PE on Tuesday afternoons and Friday mornings so please remember to bring in kit which can be kept in the children’s lockers.

Please come and see me if you have any queries about this year.

Enjoy a restful weekend!