Badgers – Mr Roe

Welcome

January 2023

Dear Parents/Carers

Happy New Year!  During the year we have parents’ evenings that give us the opportunity to discuss your child’s progress, however our door is always open and if you have any comments or concerns please do not hesitate to contact us.  Now that your child is in Year 5 or 6 there are some routines that we follow to help develop their independence. Within class, children will be encouraged to question and research topic areas that interest them, take responsibility for their own learning through provision, challenge learning, making them a more confident, independent learners.

PE: PE is on a Friday with a coach and once a week with their teacher. However we ask that your child brings in a full indoor and outdoor PE kit, including outdoor trainers, on a Monday morning and leaves it in school for the week. Please ensure that all of your child’s clothing is clearly labelled as each year we seem to have more and more stray clothing. If it is labelled, it is easier to find and return to the owner.

Homework: Each week your child will bring home spellings. These will be spellings that are appropriate for your child’s ability and will be tested each week. Please help your child to learn their
spellings. The New Curriculum puts a great emphasis on spelling, punctuation and grammar and the children will be tested on this through-out the year and at the end of the learning cycle (3 times a year).

As well as this, the children are expected to read at home at least 4 times a week. This is to help them with fluency and understanding of what they are reading. All of the books that your child
brings home are suited to their ability. Children who regularly read at home make more rapid progress with understanding as their fluency does not slow them down. As the children are getting
older, it is still important that they read to an adult. However, we do understand that they like to read independently and, if they wish to, they can do this if you don’t mind just asking them a few
questions about their reading to ensure that they are gaining a good understanding. We ask that you record when you have listened to them read, so that we can monitor this at school too.
To support children with their maths, we ask children to practise their times tables, using hit the button, as this has become a key focus for the government in the last few years. Children can also
practise their maths skills by logging onto prodigy maths -a maths game we sign them up to in school.

Key Stage 2 children are able to go home alone at the end of the day (please inform us if this is the case). If there are any changes to collection, please notify the office so that we can let the children know as soon as possible. We do appreciate that things often change at the last minute but for your child’s safety please contact us and not other parents, as often messages get confused.

We also ask that any correspondence with school including dinner money/reply slips are handed to the class teacher in the classroom. The children are now old enough to be responsible for their own things and this is a good lesson for them to learn in preparation for secondary school. It also helps to relieve pressure on the office, so that they can deal with the important issues that arise at busy periods.

We hope that this helps you to understand some of the routines that take place on a weekly basis. We look forward to working with you this year to ensure that your child makes maximum progress and continues to have a love of learning.

If you are interested in learning more about how we plan and the national curriculum please follow the Useful links tab on the Teaching and Learning Tab.

Please follow the link to our class Knowledge Organiser – Badgers Curriculum letter – Maya Civilisation

Welcome Chester – our School Dog

From time to time Chester the Dog visits school to work with the children.  A full risk assessment has been completed which will be available on our website. Chester is nearly 2 years old, a labradoodle (hypoallergenic) and belongs to myself (Mrs Owens).

There has been extensive research about the many benefits that can be seen by having a school dog.   

• Dogs teach children about responsibility – by children having to remember to feed and give water to the dog it can give them a sense of importance and satisfaction that they may not get from other responsibilities.  
• Dogs teach children patience – they do not always do as they are told first time!  
• Dogs teach children compassion – just like us dogs feel pain and emotion.  
• Dogs teach children about socialisation – by the children learning how to interact with a dog they can better learn how to socialise with other children.  
• Dogs are fun – they greet you with a wagging tail every day and put a smile on your face, even on a bad day. 
• Please follow the link to the Risk Assessment for this activity:-  Risk Assessment – Dogs in School- Sigg

Please follow the link to the letter which was circulated to parents/carers:-  School Dog letter