Spelling

Your child’s Spelling Bee lists will be sent home at the start of each term for them to practice at home. Where possible, time will be given in class but practice at home will be key for helping your child to pass their Spelling Bee and be awarded their certificate in our celebration assembly. 

Swimming

Consent letters must be returned by Monday 15th September.

They should bring with them a bag containing their swimwear, a towel and goggles if consent has been given to wear them.

Should your child be wearing goggles, they must be confident in putting them on and adjusting them independently. 

Your child is not to bring any armbands or other floatation devices. Earrings are not permitted in the swimming pool nor are earring coverings (plasters etc.) Children's earrings should be removed before they come to school, or can be removed before the lesson if they can confidently remove them independently. 

Parents are welcome to come along and watch from the cafe. 

PE

Term 1: Wednesday's

On PE days, the children should come to school wearing black or navy bottoms with a white or house coloured polo and their school jumper/ cardigan over the top. Earrings should be removed or covered with tape for your child's safety.

Reading

Listening to your child read is really important, as well as discussing what they are reading with them. You should aim to listen to your child read at least 3 times per week. If your child forgets their school book please feel free to read any books they have at home. All reads should be written into their reading record, regardless of whether they have read their school book or a home book. 

Please make sure you send your child’s reading book and Reading Record with them every day so we too can listen to them and see how well they’ve been doing at home. 

Accelerated Reader

Accelerated Reader (AR) is our current why of tracking and developing readers at KS2. This web-based platform allows children to guide pupils to suitable books, and then will give them a short quiz at the end of each book to test their understanding.  Before children get assigned  a book they undertake a baseline test, which will test their word power and text comprehension.  From this they are assigned a ’level’– usually from 2 to 14.  So, if your child comes home saying they are ‘3.2’ this the level of books they should choose from in the library. Each book also has a points value, and the children accumulate points as they go

Once the book is read (and we recommend it being read twice), the children will take a quiz.  80% is a pass, and they can then choose another book.  Each successful quiz means an increase in points, and it could mean that the systems algorithms also tell them to move on to a different level of book.  It’s easy to se ewhy a second read is good!  We might also ask younger children / lower levels are asked to read a book 3 times. Moving to twice as confidence, skills and ability are proven in tests as well as thickness of book (once confidence establishes).

The class teacher will get details of the number of successful quizzes, number taken and all sorts of other data to help with your child’s reading.  Your job, as always, is to help them by encouraging reading at home.

AR have graded thousands of books and take into account vocabulary, length, content, themes and maturity when grading the books.  This might mean a quite think book is 5, but a thinner book is 6.2.  Don’t judge on thickness!  We try to tell the children to steer away from massively-chunky texts, as by the time they have finished a book, Chapter 1 could have been 6 weeks in the past, the quiz suddenly becomes that-much harder. A second read is also a bit of a bind!

Accelerated Reader can be accessed from home, using the login details that are on the inside of your child’s reading record, or on the ‘Important Information’ page of your child’s class pages.

I hope that this gives a bit more detail, and helps with the overall understanding of how reading, changing books and the whole process works.

General instructions:

Your child has been provided with log in details to access their Accelerated Reader account, these details can be located in the front of their Reading Record. 

1. Click on the following link: Renaissance Learning Login
2. Input log in details
3. Click onto the Practice icon 
4. Input the name of the book or the reference code, which can be found on the front cover of the reading book (not the Reading Record)
5. Click on the 'Take Quiz' icon for the appropriate book title
6. If given the option of 'literacy skills' or 'vocabulary skills,' please click 'literacy skills'
7. Take the test

Children should aim to be achieving either 4/5 or 8/10 at a minimum - this shows a good level of understanding.

Term 1 Topic Homework Idea's: 

• Find out about the clothes Ancient Greeks wore. You could draw and label a picture showing a typical Ancient Greek outfit, or create one which you could wear!
• Make a Spartan helmet or design a shield.
• Create a Greek temple, like the Parthenon, using a range of materials.
• Make a travel brochure about Ancient Greece. Where would you travel to? Where would yous stay? What could you do while you were there? 
• Design your own Labyrinth. 
• Research Greek food. How is it different to traditional English food? You could recreate your own Greek dish and write a recipe for others to follow. 
• Create an eye-catching, informative fact file or poster about a Greek God.
• Create a leaflet for people visiting Greece including important information. Where is it? What is the weather like? What is the currency? What is the language?
• Turn a myth into a cartoon using lots of pictures and speech bubbles.