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29 June 2012

This week’s homework is talk time. It’s due in on Wednesday 04 July 2012.

I know feelings that are involved with change.

You could talk about the change of class teacher next year and the feelings associated with that, and any other significant changes your child has experienced or would like to consider.

29 June 2012

This week’s spellings are verbs in the present and past tense. Your child will be tested on Friday 06 July 2012.

• find
• found
• teach
• taught
• steal
• stole
• buy
• bought
• wear
• wore

22 June 2012

This week, we’re returning to words which use apostrophes to shorten or contract two words into one word. The spellings will be tested on Friday 29 June.  Children will be tested on eight out of the ten words.

22 June 2012

This week, our spelling is words we use to join sentences.

Can you think of some more and use them in sentences?  To help your child, it’s a good idea to ask them to write the words in full sentences, practising their handwriting and punctuation at the same time.

These words will be tested on Friday 29 June.

22 June 2012

This week’s homework is creative. It’s due in on Wednesday 27 June 2012.

I can show what I know about the seaside.

Poetry

Take a look at our class kenning poem. Can you guess what animal it is?

A poisonous-spitter

A mouse-eater

A stealthy-slitherer

A camouflaged-rattler

A deadly killer!

Learning about levels

Learning about levels

Every term, teachers assess your child’s attainment inReading, Writing and Maths to ensure all children make good progress. Teachers do this through continual assessment: they observe who’s able to do things, who’s having a problem, when marking etc. Teacher assessments at the end of the year are even more important – we analyse the data in a lot of detail.

In Reception and Y1 teachers base their final assessment entirely on the children’s day to day activities and abilities. Reception children are not given a level. Instead, they are assessed against criteria and typically reach 6 points in each strand, such as reading or numbers for counting and labels. A point is given when adults observe a child securely showing a particular skill or activity. Reception data is reported toLeeds and the Department for Education.

In Y3 to Y5, teachers use some tests to help. The tests don’t replace the teachers’ assessment; they inform it. Teachers are aware that a test represents just a snapshot, whilst their continual assessment shows what a child can really attain. For example, if a child performed quite poorly in a test but well throughout the year, teachers would quite possibly ignore a test result. The assessments aren’t reported externally.

Reaching the end of a key stage (Key Stage One ends in Y2 and Key Stage Two ends in Y6) is most significant for the Department of Education (hey measure progress using Y2 and Y6 data) so slightly different procedures are followed.

In Y2, teachers must submit assessments to the local authority and the Department for Education. Miss Hewson makes the assessment based partly on some tests, partly on continual assessment (just like in Year 3 – 5, except her assessments must be reported). Recently, we had a visitor from Leeds Children’s Services to evaluate whether our end of KS1 teacher assessments are accurate and fair.  This moderation process went extremely well – we received some great feedback.

In Y6, teacher assessment and test data are also used, but treated separately.  The attitudes and behaviour of children in Y6 have once again been excellent this year.  We’re hoping we can match the successes in recent years in the Key Stage Two SAT results (we’re still waiting for the results).  However, the school’s performance won’t appear quite as good this year.  This is because there is a pupil in the class who has very specific special educational needs and therefore could not access the tests, so we can’t achieve 100% of children at Level 4 or more.

Soon, you’ll be receiving the end-of-year annual report about your child’s attainment, progress and attitude in school.  On the report (except the Reception report), teachers use ticks to indicate how your child is doing.  If you’d like to know their actual level, we’re happy to tell you – just ask me or your child’s teacher near the end of the year. Parents / carers of children in Y2 and Y6 receive a letter with the teacher assessment level on it; parents / carers of Y6 children will also be told the results of the SAT tests.

The table on the right shows general, national expectations for the end of each year.  Letters are used to indicate a higher or lower level eg 2A is a higher level of attainment than 2C, but a lower level of attainment that 3C.

22 June 2012

This week’s homework is practice makes perfect. There is some information about the seaside that the children have to read. The task is to then answer the questions. It is due in on Wednesday 27 June 2012.

22 June 2012

TThis week’s spellings are words ending in ‘ness’. Your child will be tested on Friday 29 June 2012.

• sadness
• darkness
• cleanness
• dampness
• dullness
• fairness
• fitness
• hugeness
• illness
• tiredness

22 June 2012

This week’s spellings all end with the suffix fully.

Last week we looked at the suffix ‘ful’. We can make these words into adverbs by adding ly. Notice how there is now a double l on the end, e.g. wonder + ful + ly = wonderfully