Monday 21 st September 2015

Staff in Class 2 Morning and home time routines Year 1 overview Reading Spelling Marking Homework How can you help your child at home?

Miss Tait (Class Teacher) Mrs Watson (Teaching Assistant) …and 30 children! Mrs Wingate teaches on Thursday mornings and normally teaches P.E, Computing and Music.

The children have been really good at coming in independently and sorting their belongings out. Please remind children to hand in any letters when they come in. If you need to pass on a message then please pop in and see me or write a note and send it with your child. For a longer chat, we can arrange a mutually convenient time after school. Please arrange in advance with your children where and who is picking up at home time. They are usually really good at coming to tell one of us if there is nobody there for them.

Different curriculum with more structured routines and as a consequence children may not be ‘choosing’ and playing as much as they are used to. At the beginning similar structure to Reception (choosing time in the afternoons). Tables at a time working on a task. Eventually all working at tables.

We have P.E on a Wednesday and Thursday. We are currently working with the Newcastle United Foundation who will be delivering Multi-Skills and Football with us. Sometimes this may change and occasionally we have specialists who come in and do sessions at other times. Owing to this, we would like the children to please have their kits in school every day. Children can borrow books from the library. The library is currently ‘closed’ for borrowing while the system is being updated for the new year. Children will be able to borrow books soon though and when they return their books they can then borrow a new one! Achievers’ assembly is now on a Friday morning.

Children cover same topics as other classes, organised on a two year cycle to avoid duplicating work. KS1 teachers work very closely as a team and plan from the new National curriculum. At the beginning of the term, the main focus is on Literacy and Maths (scheduled for mornings). Eventually we will introduce a structured timetable to include all subjects.

The introduction to the new National Curriculum last year has brought about some changes. The main change is the shift from ‘Pace and Race’ to ‘Depth and Mastery’. There are less objectives to meet and the focus is on children having a much better understanding of what they are learning. There are no longer levels although there are still national assessments at the end of Year 2.

One of the most important aspects of primary education, particularly in the lower end of school. The skills of reading are explicitly taught during: Shared reading Guided reading Phonics sessions These skills are practised and reinforced throughout the rest of the curriculum and through Individual Reading practice. We try to listen to children at least once a week on an individual basis. This will be recorded in each child’s blue reading record. Individual reading at school supports reading at home. Children’s books will be changed on Tuesday and Friday.

Involves large groups of children, usually the whole class. Books, screen texts, posters etc. are read to and with the children. Children are taught to read with expression and take account of punctuation. Children are taught about the features of text types and encouraged to spot features from previous learning: time conjunctions, italics etc. Children are encouraged to respond to texts through discussion and drama.

Over the next few months, guided reading will begin during English lessons and at other times. Children are grouped in small groups, usually around 6, and they read the same text, selected by the teacher, usually relating to the current English topic. The teacher employs different strategies to teach the skills of reading. Children are encouraged to read the text and implement reading strategies which they have learnt during individual reading, guided reading and phonics sessions. Children work with the teacher to discuss the text. Any difficult words are defined and children’s comments and answers to questions are recorded to form part of Teacher Assessment for reading..

Reading for pleasure is such an important aspect of our Reading Curriculum and so I am happy for children to bring in books, comics and magazines from home to read during this time.

It is during these sessions that children are given the opportunity to practise the skills that they have been taught during Phonics sessions, Guided Reading and Shared Reading sessions. In school, we aim to have each child read once a week to an adult. For individual one to one reading, priority is given to those at the early stages of reading for whom this practice is most vital.

Myself and members of staff closely monitor children’s progress and will move children onto the next reading box when we feel that they are reading with sufficient fluency and understanding to cope with more difficult texts. Children in Class 2 are now changing their own reading books with close supervision. So far they have managed this very well indeed but, inevitably there are sometimes hiccups. Please keep in touch!

Children complete phonics assessments and are placed into groups for their daily phonics sessions. Children will complete a phonics session with one of the KS1 teachers, but possibly not in their own classroom. Children are usually placed with their year group but we have intervention groups for children who may need extra support at any time. Those children who did not meet the threshold for the Phonics Check at the end of Year 1 will re-do the check again at the end of Year 2.Through our own assessments we will ensure that their individual needs in Phonics are met.

Spelling is a huge part of the new National Curriculum and it will be taught explicitly in class. We have to decided to have a spelling focus each week and to monitor children’s progress in school. Occasionally, we may send spellings home to learn but this will usually be linked to our phonics learning. Common errors will be taught as class targets throughout the year. In previous years we have sent spellings home, however we feel this works best and puts the onus more on us rather than you at home.

In Year 1, children are often given verbal feedback, therefore the feedback in the books is perhaps not as detailed as it will be later on in the school. After a piece of work we normally put an ‘S’ for success. This means that the learning objective has been achieved. This is usually followed by an ‘NS’ for Next Steps where the teacher writes what the child needs to do next to make further progress. Pink is used to ‘make you think’, and if children need to respond to our marking then it is usually signalled by a pink highlighter pen. Marking / notes in green indicates that the comment has been written by a TA or helper. The children have purple ‘Polishing Pens’ to edit their own work.

The children are given homework once a week on a Thursday. We please ask that where possible, homework is returned to school on Monday so that books can be marked and new homework can be set. The first homework is the ‘Get Active Challenge ‘books! The children will also have handwriting homework. Please ensure that it is completed in pencil and encourage children to start their letters in the correct place. If your child is finding a task difficult then please give them as much support as you think they need. Please indicate in their books if they have struggled as this will help us to plan future activities. Alongside homework, we might include a ‘Tricky Slip’ for your child. This will let you know if they have found something particularly difficult in class and would benefit from some extra reinforcement at home.

Regular (and brief) reading practice including discussion and questioning to develop comprehension Regular practice of phonics Support with handwriting homework Completing the weekly homework tasks whenever possible Maths (telling the time and dealing with money)  Please return all homework books each Monday even if it is not completed so that a new task can be set.

With a degree in Spanish and time living abroad I hope to give the children a good start to the language in Class 2 over the next year. Any worries or concerns about anything, please come into school to speak to me. I will always listen and try to help! If you have any free time and you would be interested in hearing readers then please come and see me. Thank you all so much for coming this morning. I really value all of your continued support…and keep in touch!