Phonics
Thank you to everyone who attended the phonics sessions last week. We hope you found them useful.
Following on from the feedback you gave, here are some captions and sentences your child can write at home. More will be added as we introduce new phonemes.
Phase 2 captions with tricky words: to, the, no, go
- socks on a mat
- an egg in an egg cup
- a hug and a kiss
- on top of the rock
- to the top of the hill
- get off the bus
- no lid on the pan
- pack a pen in a bag
- a doll in a cot
- sit back to back
Phase 3 sentences
- We can get the bus to the fish and chip shop.
- Gurdeep had a chat with his dad.
- Max and Vikram sail a wooden boat.
- Yasmin sits on a rock and looks for fish.
Phonics open mornings
We have three fun phonics sessions for parents this week. Don’t worry if you haven’t requested a session, just turn up on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday at 9am.
See you there!
Phonics mornings
Next week, we’ll be holding phonics sessions for parents on Wednesday 21, Thursday 22 and Friday 23 of January at 9 am.
During these sessions you will have the opportunity to see how we teach tricky words and long vowel phonemes. We will explain words such as ‘digraph‘ and ‘polysyllabic‘ and give you ideas for supporting your child at home in their independent writing.
Please let us know which day you wish to attend.
We look forward to seeing you next week.
New SEAL theme – Good to be me
Our new SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme for this half-term, Good to be me, focuses on three main areas of learning:
•Self-awareness – feeling good about yourself, taking risks.
•Managing Feelings – understanding feelings, and why and how they lead us to behave the way we do – particularly the feelings of being excited, proud, surprised, hopeful, disappointed, worried and anxious and standing up for yourself –assertiveness skills, standing up for your views.
•Empathy
This theme explores feelings in the context of the child as an individual, developing self-awareness and helping the child to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’. The theme is about understanding our feelings as well as considering our strengths and weaknesses as learners.
The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:
Building emotional resilience
Children need to become resilient if they are to be healthy and effective life-long learners.
Coping with anxiety and worrying
Worry and anxiety are major features in many children’s lives. Many children have good reasons to be anxious. Exploring worries is important.
Calming down
Although getting stressed, anxious or angry are important and useful emotions, sometimes these feelings can be overwhelming.
Assertiveness
The theme encourages children to become assertive – that is, able to recognise and stand up for their rights while recognising and respecting the rights of others.
Understanding feelings and how they influence behaviour
The theme explores the relationship between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ and the way each impacts on our behaviour. It looks at Flight or Fight rapid response to situations of threat and our responses to feeling threatened /under stress.
‘I respond to difficult situations in a positive way’ is the first SEAL statement for the theme of Good to be me.
Party Time
The party season has now officially started! Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 danced and jigged their way through the afternoon with a few games thrown in. It was a great way to finish off the term – looking forward to non-uniform day tomorrow with lots of fun things planned. Here are a few photos of the fun and games this afternoon.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Merry Christmas!
We’re reaching the end of your child’s first term in Reception. We’ve loved seeing all the children gain confidence and make progress in their learning…
- Well done, Sakina and Leo, for your terrific handwriting.
- We’re really happy to see the increased confidence of Ethan, Jasraj and Rayn.
- Well done, Pollyanna: we’ve enjoyed watching you design and create amazing models and drawings.
- We’ve all enjoyed Noah’s enthusiasm for learning.
- Well done, Henka and Kashif, for making wise choices.
- Will and Albie have kept us amused with their great sense of humour.
- Hifza, Musa, Jessica and Olivia have shown concern and care for their friends.
- We’re all impressed with Taha for eating healthier foods at lunchtime.
- Well done to Felix, Harris, Raima and Jemima for great learning in maths and to Phoebe, Liam, Emma, Emily and Sami for their progress in reading.
- Thank you, Safiya-Mishal and Yusayrah, for helping everyone in the class.
- Everyone has been impressed with Maya and Georgie for their great manners and Isabella for always trying her best.
Have a great holiday and happy new year from everyone in Reception!
Christmas Party
It’s that time of year again when we get our party dresses out and our posh trousers on and dance the afternoon away at the Christmas party!
KS1 and Reception will be having their Christmas party on Thursday 18 December in the afternoon. Your child can bring their party dresses and/or posh trousers (and anything else they want to wear) in a named bag so that they can get changed at lunchtime. Please make sure that all children come to school in their uniform as normal. You may think that they will not be able to get ready themselves – believe me, they can. However, there will be help at hand for zips, tights and any other difficult item!
Please do not send any food – there will be a party snack provided.
Thank you.
Phonics
We’re coming to the end of Phase 2 of our phonics programme, ‘Letters and Sounds’. Next week, your child will begin Phase 3 with the last of the single letter phonemes. The purpose of this phase is to:
- teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example: ‘oa’ as in boat
- practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example: fizz, chip, sheep, light
- learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly (so please help your child to learn these: talk about letters using their correct name as well as the sounds they make)
- read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
- read and write words in phrases and sentences.
CVC words containing graphemes made of two or more letters
Here are some examples of words your child will be reading: tail, week, right, soap, food, park, burn, cord, town, soil.
During Phase 3, your child will learn more ‘Tricky Words’. These are the words we’ll learn in Phase 3: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, said.
Keeping our teeth healthy
Year 1 and Reception have been visiting Year 2 to learn about how to keep their teeth healthy. The children had great knowledge on what they needed to do to have healthy teeth and we tested just how well they were brushing their teeth by using a plaque disclosure tablet. We found the parts of our teeth that we needed to brush most and then brushed for two minutes until they were squeaky clean. We did look a little odd with our purple mouths though!
Several times on purpose
Alongside our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds themed week it has been national anti-bullying week.
Our school definition has been discussed by the School Council and has been amended, 10.11.14, to incorporate the stop message.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
Following a whole school assembly, Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team have delivered Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and in class children have discussed these aspects of bullying:
- Our revised definition of bullying (above)
- Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
- What to do if children experience bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
Bullying resources can be found at…
- http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying
Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied ‘…I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’
All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
