It was fantastic to see so many parents at the workshops on phonics yesterday. We hope you found the session informative and a useful insight into how we teach children to read in school.

All parents of children in Reception and Year 1 have been sent an email today containing the information shared at the workshop. The powerpoint presentation gives more information about what phonics is, how we teach phonics lessons in school and the Year 1 phonics screening check. It also shares helpful tips to support parents in reading with their child at home. 

The presentation contains this link https://parents.fft.org.uk/ to the FFT Success for All Parent Portal. Here you will find further helpful information, videos demonstrating how to pronounce all phonemes and be able to access the Shared Reader e-library of books that children use in their phonics lessons every day. The school’s passcode to enter the portal is vyd5iy. 

We also included in the email some helpful handouts that support answering some frequently asked questions by parents. We hope you will find the sound cards, alphabet strip and list of alliterative and formation phrases useful at home.

If you have any other questions or queries, please do not hesitate to speak to your child’s teacher.

Thank you for your continued support,

Mrs Kendrew-Jones

In case study one of our current expedition we have been reading the story Dogger by Shirley Hughes. As Dogger was first published in 1977 the children have been discussing the similarities and differences between the pictures in the book and our modern day world. We have particularly enjoyed playing with some of the old toys you see in the story including dolls, yoyos, flip books, cup and balls and spinning tops. It was great fun!

Last week the children in Reception were getting better at controlling a ball. They worked with a partner and as a class crew to pass, roll and kick the ball between them. It was great fun in the sun!

The children in class 4 love books and read regularly at home. As a reward, they enjoyed their treat:hot chocolate, biscuits and some extra golden time. Well done everybody.

On Tuesday we had an amazing day taking on the roles and jobs of people that lived and worked in castles:

We visited knights training school, a castle kitchen, an entertainment room and also took on the role of cleaners. We also made and tasted bread and vegetable soup. We all had the best day and are now using this day as inspiration for our writing in the coming days.

What a great day! Everyone made such a great effort with their costumes – it’s very much appreciated grown ups – thank you.

We then spent the rest of the day moving around four different classrooms completing different workshops. We did a health and hygiene session, an entertainment session, Knight training and a food tasting and prep room.

Great job, Mrs Parsons xx

You all worked so hard class 5,