08 January 2016
For all children in Year 1 to Year 6, the homework this week is Talk Time and is due Wednesday 13 January.
Which two charities should we support at school and why?
It’s time for children to think about our next two school charities. In 2014 and 2015, we have supported St Gemma’s Hospice and Cancer Research UK raising a total of £4370.02. We’ve helped these charities for two years now, so it’s time for a change.
We need you to have a discussion at home about which charities would be best for us to support. Following a class discussion next week, each class will nominate two charities to be considered by the School Council, who will make the final decision.
Once your child has decided on two charities, make sure they have clear, powerful reasons to support their views.
You might want to discuss whether we support…
- a local charity
- a national charity
- an international charity
- a children’s charity
- an animal charity
- a charity which helps a vulnerable group in our community
- a charity that has helped our learning, like Heart Research UK, NSPCC, RNLI
Our new school charities will be announced on Friday 15 January.
It’s Christmas…
There are no homework tasks or spellings during the holiday period.
Instead, support your child in other ways. Make sure they take part in family events, encourage them to relax and catch up on some reading at home, encourage them to send thank you notes (emails are fine, too!) – all these things will help their English skills of speaking and listening, reading and writing.
Plenty of maths skills can be practised, too – planning some top telly and considering times and durations of programmes, working out what half price is when the sales start… could your child even help with some cooking to use various measures?
Whatever they do, make sure your child, and you, have a happy and healthy Christmas break.
27 November 2015
Following our Health themed week, this week, our whole school homework is creative and is due on Wednesday 02 December.
I make healthy choices.
Each class has taken part in a variety of learning this week including a range of visitors to support our teaching of keeping healthy (please see our Class News pages).
Your child could present this creative homework in a variety of different ways:
- a quiz which tests the knowledge of other children
- art work
- poetry
- a poster
- writing: diary, story, letter, instructions, report
- a rap
- a mindmap
- your own creative idea
We look forward to seeing your creative ideas to demonstrate how to keep healthy and this homework will be the focus of our open afternoon, next week.
Homework open afternoon, 2.40pm on Wednesday 02 December – parents/carers of children in Years 1 – 6 are invited into the classroom to help you to be aware of the standards of homework in your child’s class; it will also give you an insight into how we give feedback to your child even if the homework does not appear to be marked.
It’s half-term…
…so there is no homework this week.
Please make sure your child spends some time most days reading – books, comics, newspapers… Why not visit the library or a book shop this week?
To support writing, your child should review their spellings from the last few weeks. You could test them on words from all the lists, and ask them to use the words in sentences or a story, or create a comic strip with a word used in each speech bubble.Perhaps you could set a challenge (for you as well as your child!) of using spelling words in everyday conversations! Practising handwriting by joining up is a useful activity, too.
In Maths, children in Key Stage 2 should definitely practise times tables – including the related division facts. Can your child respond within five seconds (not counting up to work it out) to questions like ‘What’s 7 times 8?’ and ‘What’s 42 divided by 6?’
Of course, make sure your child is happy and healthy over half-term, too! A walk and play at Roundhay Park, a bike ride, a conker challenge, a trip to the art gallery… Enjoy!
10 July 2015
This week’s whole school homework involves completing the pupil health questionnaire sent home with your child.
I can share my views about health.
This annual questionnaire has been compiled in consultation with our school council and helps us to find out pupil views on some of our key health issues at school. Please support your child to complete the health questionnaire by discussing these issues. The questionnaire should be returned to your class teacher by Wednesday 15 July.
Time to learn your times tables
Practising times tables at home is really important. Knowing times tables facts really helps your child to feel confident in Maths, and enables them to make progress in areas such as calculating, fractions… even shape work can involve times tables – when we think about angles, for example.
The National Curriculum sets out expectations for times tables knowledge:
- Year 2: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 2, 5 and 10 multiplication tables, including recognising odd and even numbers
- Year 3: recall and use multiplication and division facts for the 3, 4 and 8 multiplication tables
- Year 4: recall multiplication and division facts for multiplication tables up to 12 × 12
If your child is in Year 5 or 6, they need to know all the tables facts so they can start thinking about prime numbers, factors etc. Knowing the tables facts (including division) means having rapid recall – being able to say the answer within about five seconds, not counting through the times tables to work it out.
Each week, your child is asked to learn a particular times table. We might also work on a pair of tables which are related, such as x4s and x8.
Please make sure your child practises as home: in the car, in the bath, on the way to school, straight after school as a matter of routine. Your child needs to know that something like this involves effort and there aren’t any easy solutions!
It’s really helpful to test them two or three times during the week to make sure their ‘score’ improves, and also try to build in some multiplication and division games and references:
- play ‘tables ping-pong‘, where you and your child counts through a times tables forwards and backwards, alternating the counting: 0, 4,8, 12, 16, 20…
- look out for arrays, where you see a grid of something: eggs in a carton is a simple 2 x 3 or 3 x 2 array, and there are arrays on your mobile phone (to log on to mobile phones, you might see a 3 x 3 array – a square number), on buildings (the window panes of a block of flats are useful for larger numbers), tiles in your bathroom, chocolate and other food products…
- download an app to practise on a phone or tablet (there are loads of free ones)
- talk about when you use times tables knowledge
Supporting your child’s maths at home
This article is a thought-provoking read, and might inspire you to support your child in different ways; in it, Professor Jo Boaler sets out this list of top tips for parents who want to support their child in Maths:
- Encourage children to play maths puzzles and games at home. Anything with a dice will help them enjoy maths and develop numeracy and logic skills.
- Never tell children they are wrong when they are working on maths problems. There is always some logic to what they are doing. So if your child multiplies three by four and gets seven, try: “Oh I see what you are thinking, you are using what you know about addition to add three and four. When we multiply we have four groups of three…”
- Maths is not about speed. In younger years, forcing kids to work fast on maths is the best way to start maths anxiety, especially among girls.
- Don’t tell your children you were bad at maths at school. Or that you disliked it. This is especially important if you are a mother.
- Encourage number sense*. What separates high and low achievers in primary school is number sense.
- Encourage a “growth mindset” – the idea that ability changes as you work more and learn more.
- For younger children, the ‘five-ness’ of five and then the ‘ten-ness’ of ten is really important: five fingers, five toes, five displayed on a dice, five split into 4 and one more, five split into three and two…
- For older children, if they are asked to add up 27 and 16, when they have number sense they can break the numbers apart and use them flexibly – take three from the 16 and add it to 27 to make 30, then add on the remaining 13 to make 43.
Number sense is not something you can get from simply being given an extra worksheet for homework – it develops from play, discussion and observation of number in the world around them.
More homework? No – more encouragement
We had a record number of parents / carers who attended parents’ evenings this week – thank you to all who showed up.
A small number of parents asked for more homework. Please bear in mind we asked your views about homework in the Annual Survey last year, and the findings were quite mixed: some thought there was too much whilst about the same proportion thought there was not enough. The majority agreed with us: the amount of homework we set is about right.
Taken from our Homework Policy, this is our rationale for giving homework:
Educational experience that a school by itself provides is limited; children benefit from wider, complementary experiences out of school. However, some prompts and guidance from school can direct these experiences and develop greater learning. We see homework as an important example of cooperation between teachers and parents / carers. An aim of our teaching is to promote independent learners; homework is one of the ways in which children can acquire the skill of independent learning.
We recognise the importance of quality family time; this policy should help to promote opportunities to be creative rather than labour over frequent worksheets or carry out activities that pupils and / or parents / carers may not understand.
Whilst homework develops children’s learning and independence, quality family time, play and free time are also important. Homework should not prevent children from taking part in wider activities such as those offered by out-of-school clubs and other organisations. Children develop their interests and skills to the full only when parents/carers encourage them to make maximum use of the opportunities available outside school.
Also in our Homework Policy is this statement:
We believe the frequency of homework set out here provides the right balance for pupils and meets the expectations of most parents (whose opinions we sought in the Annual Survey, 2014). Staff may occasionally provide additional homework; this will amount to two or three extra pieces across the year. As an alternative, staff will be happy to suggest to parents other ways they can support their child’s learning at home.
Please do not expect extra homework for you child to be set as a matter of routine. Governors want to protect teachers work / life balance, but – importantly – we believe extra homework would not be helpful for most pupils.
06 February 2015
For all children in Year 1 – Year 6, the homework this week is talk time and is due in on Wednesday 11 February.
I can prepare a speech (School Council elections).
or
I know the importance of voting.
It’s time for children to consider if they would like to stand for election for our new school council. With two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers, all children at Moortown Primary are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
Elections for our new school council will take place next Thursday 12 February with our polling station and ballot boxes at the ready. Candidates will have the opportunity to give their election speech to their class on Wednesday 11 February.
What makes a good school councillor has been considered by our current school council.
- ‘Communicating with others – pupils and adults.’
- ‘Having good listening skills to know what to contribute in meetings.’
- ‘Thinking of realistic ideas to suggest in meetings.’
Hints for your speech include:
- What skills and abilities would a good school councillor have?
- What are you particularly good at that would help you to be a great school councillor?
- What do you think would make the school better? What could you do that people would really like?
- Think of things that are realistic, maybe that you could do yourself, rather than having to ask other people to do?
Thank you to our current school councillors for all their ideas and contributions over the last year. We hope you have enjoyed this role and responsibility and you are welcome to stand again for election.
Good luck to all children who decide to stand in the elections. Results will be announced in our assembly on Thursday 12 February.
If you choose not to stand in the election then you should consider the importance of voting.
05 December 2014
The whole school homework this week is creative: children are invited to respond to something from either a cultural or spiritual perspective.
I can show what I know and think about something cultural.
We’d like children to present their responses about a recent book they’ve read, film they’ve watched, piece of art they’ve looked at, piece of music they’ve listened to – anything cultural in fact. We’re interested to read some sort of description (a summary, for example) and then your child’s opinions. This review might include pictures, an interview (your child could write a fictional script between himself/herself and the artist, for example), a letter (eg to or from a character, or perhaps even the author) – anything which might include your child’s responses!
However, your child might prefer to do the following:
I can show what I know about a festival.
Over the course of this term, some children in school will have celebrated a religious festival of some sort. This might have been
- the Muslim festival of Eid ul Adha, this year in October
- the Sikh and Hindu festival Diwali, also in October
- the Jewish festival of Hanukkah, coming up in December
- the Christian festival (of course, celebrated by many non-Christians, too) of Christmas
- the Chinese New Year festival which next year will be in February
There are lots of other festivals and celebrations which you and your child together might want to reflect on, from the anniversary of the crowning of Selassie (a festival which might be celebrated by Rastafarians) to the Winter Solstice (a Pagan festival). You can also research more festivals.
We invite children to respond to the sentence above – they might include a recount (like a diary entry), pictures, an interview (perhaps in a script). Your child might also choose to research a completely unknown festival, or they might even think about creating a brand new festival, one that everyone will celebrate.
Whether inspired culturally or spiritually, your child’s homework is due on Wednesday 10 December.
