Apologies for the delay in putting the newsletters onto the blog but this is due to short-term problems with the internet.
Newsletter Issue 6 Friday 14th October 2011
Dear Parent/Carer,
As I write, I can hear a beautiful rendition of ‘California Dreaming’ by The Beach Boys coming from our Year 6 class. Magical! I also had the pleasure of watching the same class do their Line Dancing routine – part of their America Topic – in the School Hall.
As many of you will have seen, our Big Draw last week attracted press coverage from the Yorkshire Evening Post as well as Calendar News. We are looking forward to another couple of news articles on the interesting things that our children have been doing recently in the forthcoming Rothwell Record.
Parent Consultations
By now you should have received your appointment time for our Parent Consultations next week. We have provided everyone with an appointment time. These are important meetings, please contact Mrs Smith if for any reason you are unable to attend your appointment time and we will agree an alternate meeting time. Please remember, consultations are of ten minutes maximum duration – we do ask you to respect this as we want all appointments to run to time. The quality of appointments is compromised if parents have been kept waiting and everyone is under time pressure.
Clubs
There are no Clubs, except the paid-for Clubs, next week. Information has already gone out about this to parents. This is been due to Parent Consultations. Clubs begin again as normal after the Half Term.
After the Half Term we will be extending our Clubs offer by launching a Spanish Club from 3.15pm-4.00pm. More details of this exciting opportunity will be announced soon.
Holiday Clubs at Friendly Faces
Holiday Club places are available at Friendly Faces both this Half Term and for the first week of the school Christmas Holidays, up until 23rd December. Full days are charged at £27.50 and half days £14.00. We have an Early Bird rate of £22.50 and £11.50, if booked a Half Term in advance. For Friendly Faces places, please contact Louise Parker on 07810071148.
Graduate Teacher Trainees 2012
The application round for 2012 Graduate Teacher Trainees is open once again. This is an ‘on the job’ teacher training programme that Robin Hood has had the pleasure to be involved with for eight years now. During that time, we have trained fabulous teachers like Mrs Steel, Miss Mees, Mrs Moore and Mrs Brook who have all then gone on to join our permanent staff. Potential applicants should visit http://www.b-nett.co.uk/?page_id=479 for further details and application packs.
Fantastic Staff
Mrs Smith certainly deserves to be this week’s star. Mrs Smith celebrated her twentieth anniversary at Robin Hood yesterday. For all of those years, Mrs Smith has been a fabulous servant to our school. ‘Front of house’ can sometimes be a difficult and challenging job but it is one that Mrs Smith always does with a smile and a brilliantly positive attitude. Parents and visitors often comment to me on how fantastic our Mrs Smith is. This was typified when a family that recently left our school saved their very special praise for Mrs Smith and all that she had done for them over the years.
Comenius Visit
We have had a number of staff out of school this week who have been meeting with European partner schools and visiting schools in the Czech Republic as part of the Comenius project. Comenius is fully funded by the European Union. Involvement in the project brings addition funds, resources and links to our school and provides new learning opportunities for children. It is our aim to build strong and lasting partnerships with our European partners and to build staff expertise and confidence that will enable us to offer future Comenius visit to pupils.
Unnamed Clothing
A final call on unnamed clothing for this Half Term. We have two cardigans, 1 size 28" and 1 size 30", two jumpers age 5 and 6-7, one pair of shorts age 5, a pale blue Pumpkin Patch raincoat age 8 and a brown leather H & M jacket age 5-6. Please help us to help you – ensure that all items are clearly labelled with your child’s name.
Have a lovely weekend.
Mr Wilson
Nursery Newsletter
ROUND UP!
We have had a fabulous week in Nursery, despite the unfortunate weather and the children should be very proud of their achievements. They have produced some beautiful artwork to decorate our outdoor area and some beautiful gifts for special people in class and at home! Can I also say a huge thank you for the incredible home learning that has been produced again this week. Please do take a moment to look at the display by the snack table in Nursery, it is stunning and definitely makes me feel happy!!
THIS WEEK
We have continued to work on the OURSELVES topic, and have been focusing on our feelings and emotions. We have been sharing stories and looking at photos, to encourage us to think and talk about different emotions, and how best to deal with tricky situations. In numeracy we have been practising counting backwards from 10 and counting up to 20! We have also been learning our number names, what numbers look like and how we count objects! Please continue to play games and sing songs with numbers at home too.
NEXT WEEK
We will round off our topic by sharing some stories about Elmer the elephant. The children will consider the ways that Elmer is different and will be finding out about his friends. They will be writing invitations to Elmer and will be using his super pattern to count different colours and learn about simple repeating patterns. We will also be practising ordering elephants by size. The topic activity will include creating a huge collaborative Elmer outside and we will be finding out how to mix paints to make our very own colours!
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· By reading daily with your child, encouraging your child to be involved in the book as much as possible.
· By practising counting at every opportunity e.g climbing stairs, fastening buttons etc.
· By ensuring your child can put their own coat on
· By practising putting on and taking off their own shoes and socks
DIARY DATES
Celebration afternoons are next week. We look forward to seeing you all then.
The first Monday back (31st October) is Halloween and Mr Wilson has agreed that the children in Nursery (and Reception) can come to school dressed for Halloween. However we will be accessing our full provision so please make sure outfits and shoes are practical and appropriate. Thank you
Home Learning!
To make your own Elmer the Elephant! (Images available on Google) You can be as creative as you like – make Elmer from card, 3D, using paints, create your own coloured pattern (spots, stripes, rainbow, hearts etc). A template is available should you need one please see the Nursery staff.
Reception Newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Well done to all of you for working so hard all week! We are really impressed with the children who have not only learned their keywords, but are spotting them in their reading.
Thank you too for all the fabulous home learning. Miss Abbey has uploaded them onto our blog at: http://mrssatrobinhood.blogspot.com/
THIS WEEK
We have continued to work on the OURSELVES topic, but have been focusing on our feelings and emotions. We have been creating artwork for a super display and we will be including the children's home learning outcomes too. In numeracy we have been practising counting backwards from 20 to zero which has proved a bit tricky(!) as well as learning how to write numbers correctly and thinking about the place value and how many tens and units are included in numbers. (eg 14 is one ten and four units)
NEXT WEEK
We will round off our topic by sharing some stories about Elmer the elephant. The children will consider the ways that Elmer is different and will be finding out about his friends. They will be writing invitations to Elmer and will be using his super pattern to count different colours and learn about simple repeating patterns. We will also be practising ordering elephants by size. The topic activity will include creating a huge collaborative Elmer in the hall and we will be finding out how to mix paints to make our very own colours!
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
By reading daily with your child for five minutes. All children should be ready to move onto PINK band books by the end of this half term
By practising the sounds and keywords of the week every day. New words for next week are: but, put, the, to, I, no, go, into. New sounds are: f, h and u
By ensuring your child can write their first and second names
By practising writing the numbers to 10 with the correct formation
DIARY DATES
Parent consultations are next week. We look forward to seeing you all then.
The first Monday back (31st October) is Halloween and Mr Wilson has agreed that the children in Reception (and Nursery) can come to school dressed for Halloween. However we will be accessing our full provision so please make sure outfits and shoes are practical and appropriate. Thank you
KS1 Newsletter
What a busy week Key Stage 1 have had! On Tuesday morning we waved good bye to Miss Oxley and Miss Mees who left on a Comenius visit to Prague. They were very excited at the thought of teaching in a different country and sharing their experiences of Robin Hood. We can't wait to hear their stories and see their pictures.
Parent Consultations
Thank you to Mrs Smith for organising the parent consultations, every parent now has an appointment to see their child's class teacher. We look forward to seeing you all at the parent consultations to share the experiences your child has had and our aims and aspirations for the year ahead!
Literacy
This week in Literacy the children have continued to develop their knowledge of having a Healthy Lifestyle. The children have been learning about 'Exercise and Keeping Fit' and have created a fact file poster to promote the importance of exercise. They have tried hard to include developed paragraphs, sub-headings, Did you know.....fact, CAPITAL Letters, full stops and text effects. The children added colour and detail to their fact file posters in order to make them eye-catching to the readers. You will find the fact files around school during the Parent Consultation week, so please make sure you have a read and see if you are leading a healthy lifestyle!!
Next week in Literacy the children will be concluding their block on Non-Chronological Report writing and will be writing about Robin Hood School. They will be including lots of information about school life which could include: their friends, favourite subject/lesson, classroom/playground and any other information they wish to include. Please support your child at home by discussing the things they have learnt since being in their new class.
Numeracy
This week in Numeracy the children have continued to deepen and test their knowledge of Place Value and Numbers and the Number system. The children have been partitioning numbers using the malteser system but also using numbers:
e.g 367
is made up of: 300 60 7
The children then progressed onto finding missing numbers:
e.g 67 = ........+ 7
The children partitioned the number first, then filled in the missing number. Why not support your child at home and ask them to partition 2,3 and even 4 digit numbers.
Next week in Numeracy the children will be showing off all their learning from this half term and explaining the progress they went through in order to get the answer.
Topic
In topic the children have drawn a self-portrait of themselves, looking closely at the shape of the eyes, nose, ears and mouth. They used mirrors to closely inspect the colour of their eyes and skin tone before using paints to add detail to their pencil drawing of themselves.
Next week the children will be learning about the Harvest Festival and what the celebration signifies. On Friday the children will be presenting their knowledge and understanding at Lofthouse Church on Friday at 10 o'clock. Hope to see you there!!!
LKS2 Newsletter
Well done to all the children on yet another fantastic week in year 3/4! We have been very impressed with the level of effort they have all been putting in to their learning. We are looking forward to seeing you at the parent consultations next week to discuss your child's progress so far this year.
Numeracy
In numeracy, the children have been doing some fabulous learning. We have been looking at venn diagrams, pictograms and bar charts, and learning how to read and interpret data from them. Not only this, but we have also had a go at constructing our own pictograms and bar charts. Why don't you ask your child to show you what they can do? Please ensure your child is practising their times tables with you at home as this will help them in their numeracy learning.
Literacy
As you know, we are learning all about the 'Vicious Vikings'. This week's learning has been focused around Viking battles, Viking weapons and King Alfred the Great. The children have been improving their note taking skills in order to gain some quality information to write detailed rainbow paragraphs. They have been including some super compound and complex sentences within their writing, as well as many audience engaging features that we have enjoyed reading! Well done year 3/4!
Topic
Over the course of this week the children have been continuing to make their moving mechanisms, weaving and Kar2ouche animations. We are so pleased with their super progress and we all think that they are going to be looking fabulous by the end of next week.
Reminders
Our school trip to Danelaw Viking Village in York is happening next week. Year 3s are going on Tuesday, year 4s on Thursday. Please ensure you refer to the letter sent home as this details what the children need to bring. As we are outside for most of the day it is vital the children have suitable clothing which will keep them warm and dry if it rains. A pair of wellingtons as well as trainers is advisable. It is a fantastic day and we are sure the children will really enjoy living like Vikings for the day!
UKS2 Newsletter
News Roundup
Congratulations to Shannon K, our Achiever of the Week, for the great effort and thought which she put into her mathematical explanations about our recent practical activity in Numeracy. Shannon expertly included mathematical language in her explanations. Shannon's depiction of an American icon in the style of Andy Warhol was also really impressive. Well done.
The first Times Tables Challenge will be held on Friday 21st October so keep practising your times tables.
Next week is Parent Consultations, for which appointments for all the children have been made. We look forward to updating you about your child's start to the academic year, our aims and ambitions for the year and your child's progress and targets.
Numeracy: This week, we have been finding fractions of shapes as well as focusing on mixed numbers and improper fractions. Finding common denominators is also a focus. These websites provide useful information and games to practise fractions- http://www.bgfl.org/bgfl/custom/resources_ftp/client_ftp/ks2/maths/fractions/index.htm
http://www.coolmath4kids.com/fractions/index.html
Numeracy Home learning:
Please continue to practise ALL of your times tables ahead of the Times Tables Challenge on Friday.
There is a fraction activity on I Am Learning ( via the Learning Platform) for the children to access at home.
Any additional resources related to specific strategies will be provided for those who wish to practise at home. These resources are NOT compulsory; however we hope that children will choose to use these to help them with their understanding of the units.
Literacy
In Literacy, we have been looking at newspaper reports and 'stealing' WOW words and phrases to use in our own reports about the recent Big Draw at school. There's a continuing focus on including our star criteria which include the correct use of punctuation, complex sentences, adverbials, quotes and personal opinions.
Literacy Home Learning:
This week’s spellings are recorded in your child's planner. Please practise these regularly at home!
Please read the next chapter of Stormbreaker. There are questions about the text which are also available on I Am Learning.
Other areas of the curriculum:
In Art, we have been representing iconic images of America in the style of Andy Warhol.
In PE, we have been rehearsing and finessing our performances of street dance, line dancing and Rock and Roll. Performances will be shown in assembly over the next couple of weeks.
In RE, we have continued to look at the religious act of pilgrimage to Lourdes. We have looked at the Catholic faith and have compared it with the Muslim faith.
Visit our Blogs!
5/6D http://robinhood56d.blogspot.com/
5/6G http://robinhood56g.blogspot.com
5/6B http://robinhood56b.blogspot.com/
