1. Welcome to Class 4’s Information Evening C onsideration, A spiration, R esponsibility, E njoyment

2. Highfield’s Curriculum Highfield believes that teaching children creatively provides all children with a greater understanding and interest in what they are learning. Highfield’s Creative Curriculum therefore is topic-based, which means that wherever possible, subjects will be linked in to the theme work.

3. What’s for Dinner? Literacy: The Shopping Basket Story structure, instructions Science: Balanced diet Keeping healthy - medicines Changing Materials Bread/Chocolate – Melting/Freezing History: Alexander Fleming Edward Jenner Art/Music: Food songs Food pictures- Archimboldo Still life/food printing Maths: Place value and ordering numbers Addition and subtraction facts Multiplication and division Real life problems Organising and using data Geography: Food Journeys Fairtrade Food from around the world DT: Food – Fruit salad Food Tasting (exotic fruits) Making Fruit kebabs ICT: Creating a powerpoint Changing text size, inserting images. Taking digital images Using VLE

4. Read, Write, Inc Learning to read is one of the most important things that your child will learn at school. Everything else depends on it, so we put as much energy as we possibly can into making sure that every single child learns to read as quickly as possible. We want your child to love reading – and to want to read for themselves. This is why we put our efforts into making sure they develop a love of books as well as simply learning to read. As we all know children progress and develop at different rates. Our aim at Highfield is to ensure that children are always learning and are challenged at the right level. Each day we therefore mix the children across the infants for phonics. Children are assessed on a half termly basis and the groups will change to match the progress that they make.

5. Phonics Children are taught to read the sounds in words and then how those sounds can be written down. Hearing the sounds is extremely important. (counting sounds on fingers is something that the children enjoy and find helpful) Frog talk – sh – o – p s –m –ar- t -er The children also practise reading (and spelling) what we call ‘tricky words’, such as ‘once,’ ‘have,’‘said’ and ‘where’. The children practise their reading with books that match the phonics and the ‘tricky words’ they know. They start thinking that they can read and this does wonders for their confidence.

6. Reading Children will also take part in a guided reading lesson every week. Guided reading is where a teacher works with a small group of children and draws out particular elements of a text. Your child will also be heard read on a 1:1 basis by a parent helper, teaching assistant or teacher each week. Confidence and Comprehension – As children become more fluent readers it is increasingly important to ask questions and discuss a book to clarify understanding.

7. Reading Your child will always have a reading book. All books are now book banded by colour. “You can find magic wherever you look. Sit back and relax, all you need is a book.” - Dr. Seuss Your child will also have a library book from the school library. This provides an opportunity for children to read a greater variety of books, choose books that are more challenging and choose books that stimulate their interest for example non-fiction books.

8. Maths Throughout the year the children will experience a lot of practical activities that will encourage them to develop their understanding of addition, subtraction, multiplication, division, fractions, money, shape & space and problem solving. Mental Maths

9. Key Stage 1 SATs SATS include a reading comprehension paper, spelling test, writing task and maths paper as well as teacher assessment. We would appreciate it if you could please try and avoid taking your holidays during term time especially in May and June as this will be when the children are doing their SATs. We try to make the process as stress free as possible for the children. To enable your child to achieve their best please read regularly and help your child with their literacy, numeracy and theme homework.

10. Homework Homework will be sent home in a homework book on a Monday. The homework will be either Literacy, Numeracy or theme and will support the work we are doing in class. Please ensure that homework books are returned on a Friday.

11. Basic Skills Each morning, between 8.35am and 9.00am, children are given basic skills activities. These include maths, handwriting, grammar, punctuation, spelling, theme, thinking skills and so on. These activities are really important as they provide additional consolidation, challenge and start your children’s brains working!

12. Rewards Every child has a Teacher’s Award card and tries to earn stickers for this. Stickers are awarded for hard work, excellent presentation, extra work completed at home, sporting achievements, politeness spotted by a teacher, etc Every half term, we also have a school focus linked to our Pupil Profiles and again children try to earn stickers in relation to the focus. This half-term’s focus is presentation. I look smart in my uniform. Star of the week

13. Highfield Online Each class has their own webpage on the school’s website. You can find this at: http://www.highfield- primary.trafford.sch.uk/ and negotiate using the pencils on the left-hand side.http://www.highfield- primary.trafford.sch.uk/ Welcome to Class 4.... The class webpage will be updated regularly with information about upcoming events, learning activities at school and photos or videos of the children..

14. Expectations The Home:School Agreement lays out many of our expectations as to behaviour, attendance, homework, etc. Please ensure you read this carefully with your child. As a child I will do my best to: Enjoy myself. Always try my best. Follow the Golden Guides Ask for help when I need it – if I don’t understand something or if I am upset. Always do my homework and bring it back into school. Be smart and wear my uniform with pride. As well as the ‘Golden Guides’, the children have written a code of conduct for our class which they have all signed.

15. The Triangle of Success At Highfield we believe that children make the most progress when school, children and parents work together! School Home Child

16. Thank You! Thank you very much for attending this meeting. I hope it has been useful to you. I am available after this meeting as well as after school on a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday & Friday. “Tell me and I forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I learn.” Benjamin Franklin “Children are likely to live up to what you believe of them.” - Lady Bird Johnson Reach for the moon, even if you miss you will land among the stars…