Friday, 30 March 2012

Issue 26 2011-12


Newsletter Issue 26

Friday 30th March 2012


Dear Parent/Carer,

Golden Owls
We had a super time at The Golden Owls Awards, held at Leeds Town Hall last night.  Our film entrants and finalists had a fabulous time, along with teachers and parents, at what was a very glitzy event that featured red carpet and giant golden Oscar statues.  Robin Hood did incredibly well in having a film in each of the Primary School age categories… making the shortlist of three in each case.  We were not fortune enough to win an Award but the important thing certainly was the taking part and the experience of the awards ceremony for our young filmmakers and their families.  My thanks to Mrs Moore, the inspiration behind our involvement in the Awards, and my thanks to everyone who has been involved this year.  Mrs Moore is already plotting next year’s entries…

Easter Events
My thanks to everyone who attended our Easter Service today and to everyone who contributed to our Decorate An Egg competition.  It is lovely to end the term with a Celebration Friday event.  It is important that we share the fabulous learning that has been going on throughout school since Christmas.  I am certain that everyone who came to our Celebration Friday was suitably impressed with not only their own child’s learning, but the evidence of incredible learning that is on display throughout school.  Thank you to all parents for supporting our Parent Consultations this week.  Effective partnership between us is the key to your child achieving well in school.

Leavers
We say goodbye today to Miss Oxley and to Emma Ward.  We have had the pleasure of Emma working with us for the past couple of years.  Emma is, of course, an ex-pupil at Robin Hood.  I am delighted that we have been able to support her later in gaining valuable experience and help prepare her for the world of work.  Miss Oxley leaves us today to take up a new post with Wakefield Children’s Services.  Both Miss Oxley and Emma go with our thanks and best wishes.

Training Day
Just a reminder that the first day back after Easter is a staff Training Day.  Children return to school on Tuesday.

Have a fantastic Easter,
Mr Wilson

Nursery Newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP
Thank you so much for the support you have shown over the last half term with your child’s learning. We were very proud to be able to share with you the children’s successes at our Parent Consultation Open Evening on Tuesday. Thanks you to everyone who came along.

THIS WEEK
We have rounded off our topic on Traditional Tales with the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children have very much enjoyed the stories and have shown a great enthusiasm for reading. We have also been learning about the Celebration of Easter and the children have made their very own gifts and cards to share with you.
Within number we have been revisiting our counting out skills, and begun to learn how to write numbers.

NEXT HALF TERM.
The children will begin a new topic “Island Life” We will begin our adventures being Pirates, setting sail across the seven seas!! For the first week back we are asking that the children come dressed as pirates to really set the atmosphere for our learning!

Within number the children will be working with shapes, naming them, describing the properties and building pictures with them.

 How you can help us
·         Practise counting objects, saying the number name for each, and point out numbers in the environment.
·         Build your child’s awareness of the alphabet, naming and sounding out the letters, alongside writing them and thinking of words that start with that sound.   
·         Continue sharing stories over the holidays, pointing to the words and talking about the pictures events and character feelings.
·         Keep practising writing your child’s name, concentrating on letter formation.


Many thanks for your continued support

Have a wonderful Easter holiday.

Miss Bradshaw and the Nursery team

RECEPTION NEWS ROUND UP
This week we have had another amazing week in Reception. It was lovely to see you all at parent's consultations and to share all the amazing learning that has been happening! The weather has also been fantastic and all the staff have been volunteering to join the children in their outdoor learning!
We break up this Friday and the children are back at school on Tuesday 17th April.

THIS WEEK
We have finished off our Traditional Tales topic by sharing the story of the Three Billy Goats Gruff. The children have made fabulous puppet theatres and used their own props and puppets to retell the story to an audience. We have been thrilled at their use of story language and connectives as well as the way they are using their voice to portray different characters. Well done.

NEXT HALF TERM
We will be learning about Pirates and our topic starts with four whole days of dress up! Please come in your pirate costume during that first week rather than school uniform but please leave knives and daggers at home - thank you. We are hoping to transform the classroom ahead of the children's return so that they can totally immerse themselves in their learning. If you have any pirate books, DVD's, games or jigsaw puzzles that we can use to enhance the children's learning, please send them in when your child comes back to school. Thank you.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US
  • by completing the home learning task over the Easter holidays
  • by continuing to read with your child every day and to read and write the keywords and tricky words we have been learning (see home learning)
  • by coming back to school wearing a pirate costume
  • by bringing in a small plastic screw top bottle that we can use to send a message in
  • by saving your boxes, cartons and newspaper for our junk modelling activities
  • by checking the blog over the holidays for any new ideas and information
Have a wonderful Easter and thank your for all your amazing support!

KS1 Newsletter

What an amazing week this has been and a fantastic way to round up a brilliant topic.  The week started off with the children coming in dressed as Business people, they were eager to show off their ties, handbags, brief cases and mobile phones (which we stressed needed to be turned off at all times!).  The week also started with the outstanding Home Learning being handed in which showed how creative our children are. A huge thank You to all Parent/Carers who have supported us this half term in sending their children dressed up and creating an amazing learning atmosphere.
It has also been a sad week with today being Miss Oxley’s last day. Miss Oxley has worked so hard and will truly be missed.  Miss Snowden will become the Year 1 teacher and is very excited and keen to get started.

Literacy
Monday morning started with Miss Oxley leading the Key Stage 1 Assembly, instead of Miss Lambert, who shared her experiences of her time at Robin Hood.  When the time came for the children to go back to class Miss Mees decided to have a leaving party for Miss Oxley.  They were under strict instructions not to tell Miss Hinton (who apparently would not approve).  The children had to walk quietly down to their classroom then army crawl back to the hall to have the party.  However, Miss Hinton knows everything and was soon in the hall telling the adults how disappointed she was with their choice to go off curriculum and they must get back to class.  The children were quick to tell her it was Miss Mees’ fault and that she suggested they have the party.  Miss Hinton asked the children to write a report about what happened in order to find out all the facts.  The children have been fantastically descriptive and developed their paragraphs very well.
Next half term the children will be writing their own stories for our narrative block, they will be reading and watching the Disney films, Alice in Wonderland, Cars and UP.  Across the half term the children will be introduced to the story mountain which includes writing an Opening (introducing the character and setting), Build up/Problem, Climax, Resolution and Ending.  They will be introduced to story specific language such as ‘Once upon a time…’ ‘One warm, sunny morning…’ and how to use speech marks around spoken language.  Over the holiday please support your child in reading lots and discussing the use of spoken language, speech marks, text effects (bold text, CAPITALIZATION, …….., !!!) and how these affect the way the story is read.

Numeracy
This week in Numeracy the children have been continuing to develop their understanding of solving multiplication and division word problems. They have also been practising their doubling and halving skills of numbers, even up to the hundreds and thousands! These problems have included missing numbers (? X 5 = 40), having the answer and deciding the number sentence (Your answer is 50. What could be the problem?) and continuing to decide what operation needs to be used (multiplication or division) to solve the problem. The children have worked extremely hard on this unit and should be proud of their achievements!
Next half term the children will start by continuing to develop their understanding of word problems. This will include time spent on money problems and then learning about measure; capacity, weight and length. They will also continue to develop their skills of doubling, halving and times tables facts. The children have become very confident with X2, X5 and X10 so why not start looking at X3, X4 and even X6, X7 and X8! This unit of work will allow for many practical activities, so why not get making fruit cocktails (measuring in mls) making some buns (weighing in grams and kilograms) or measuring heights or lengths (in cms)

Key Stage One would like to say a huge well done and thank you for your support over the half term. It was lovely to be able to reflect on this years learning at Parent's consultations and talk about how much the children have achieved. Your children are all stars!

Have a relaxing and fun half term!
The Key Stage One Team

LKS2 Newsletter

This week the children have been collaborating within a group to present their learning about "World Mysteries". Throughout the half term the children have explored many different mysteries and we were amazed by the variety of ways in which they presented their ideas. The children used ICT presentations, Drama, Artwork, Games and other engaging methods to teach their classes many fabulous facts!

This afternoon we performed our Easter Service. The children used their beautiful artwork, that was created during RE sessions, and performed a variety of poems and songs to retell the Easter story. We loved the confident way in which the children displayed their learning.

We will be showcasing this fabulous learning on our NEW class blog. http://robinhoodprimaryyear34.blogspot.co.uk/ 

Numeracy
The week we have recapped the written methods for mulitplication and division, as the children have been finding and un-finding area of shapes.
Here are some websites to encourage your children to learn their times tables at home:

http://www.fieryideas.com/tnt-tables-46-c.asp (TNT Tables - an addictive activity to practise times tables)

http://www.mad4maths.com/multiplication_table_math_games/ (Mad 4 Maths - times table games for x3, x4, x5, x6, x7 and x8)

Next half term, we will be looking at fractions, time, and shape and space. We would appreciate it if you could spend time with your child over the holidays and check that they can tell the time to the hour and half past the hour.

Literacy
In Literacy this week, the children have published their favourite newspaper article from the last half term. The children have also used their time working collaboratively within a group to present ideas about their favourite "World Mystery".

Next half term, we will be using Roald Dahl's Revolting Rhymes as our stimulus for writing. We are exciting about the creative writing this will stimulate.

Reminders
The next Swimming session will take place on 27th April. Please ensure that your PE kit is in school EVERYDAY as due to Educational Visits, PE sessions may need to be re-arranged.

Have a Happy Easter

Year 3/4 Team

UKS2 News Roundup:

·         Our Achiever this week is Erin Surtees, for her fantastic effort when using figurative language and punctuation in her story of Mercedes. Well done, Erin!

  • Wow! What a very busy half term we've had! Our topic on Japan has been a great success. We've had the opportunity to read letters from children in Japan as well as sample some traditional Japanese snacks. We welcomed two visitors from Japan to our classrooms and had the opportunity to ask them questions about their life. We've followed instructions to make origami, created super animations of Japanese gadgets, painted plates based on artwork by Hokusai and designed kimonos. Thank you to Mrs Holland for her super sewing machine skills to help assemble these! The mall has also been brightened by our colourful Japanese flying fish. Have a look up when you walk down the mall... they're amazing!

  • All three classes have now visited Wagamama’s in Leeds city centre, as part of our learning about Japan. During the visit, the children were given a tour of the restaurant, made some fresh fruit juices and were shown by a chef the range of ingredients which go into the dishes. Some very tasty noodles were then served and eaten before we left the restaurant with our goody bags! We would like to take this opportunity to thank the children for their impressive and superb behaviour whilst on the visit to and from the city centre – you were truly wonderful representatives of our school. Well done!
  • Year 6: Children have a SATS pack to complete over the Easter holidays. SATs week begins on Monday 14th May. Please return any Robin Wood personal information forms to school as soon as possible to enable us to continue our preparations for the residential in June. Thank you.
  • Year 5: Children have been given a numeracy pack, containing information and activities based around our learning during the first 2 weeks back (addition, subtraction, multiplication and division). Please take some time to share this with your child and support them with the activities.
Numeracy:
  • This week in Numeracy, we have been focusing on fractions and percentages and applying our knowledge to solve problems.
  • Home Learning: We've held our Times Tables Challenge for this half term. It's always super to see new faces reaching the grand final and to see the children's score improving across the half terms. Why not use the Easter holidays to continue learning your times tables? Remember, there are now two very large, shiny trophies up for grabs- one for Year 5 and one for Year 6! This website has LOTS of interactive games available to practice! http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/maths/timestable/interactive.htm A thorough knowledge of times tables is extremely important as they help 'unlock' lots of other concepts in Numeracy.
Literacy:
  • This week, we've been redrafting our most successful paragraphs from our stories about Mercedes to create a class compilation for parents and carers.
  • Practise your punctuation, especially capital letters and full stops, to ensure its 100% accurate in writing. http://www.bbc.co.uk/skillswise/topic/punctuation has games to help your practice different forms of punctuation.
Other areas of the curriculum:
  • Our characters to promote safe technology use at Robin Hood have been completed. After the holidays, we'll choose a winning design to share throughout school.
  • Our Topic next half term will have a very ‘British’ theme. We would like to ask children to find and collect as many different images and pictures containing the Union Jack flag. These can be taken from the internet, magazines, newspapers, catalogues, etc. (Please ask permission before removing pages!!!)
Visit our blogs:

We also have a new addition to our blog list:

This contains some information around SAT’s, including tips and help sheets. Staff will continue to add resources to this blog during the course of the next few weeks.

Have a super Easter and enjoy the holidays!
The Year 5/6 Team