Home Learning and Supporting the Curriculum at home

We have attached a selection of Knowledge Organisers, for you to use to support your child’s learning at home. These set out clearly what we expect children to learn and remember in that subject. Please use these at home as conversation starters to reinforce and help embed your child’s learning.

Please encourage your child to log into TT Rockstars as often as possible. This will help alongside the dedicated sessions we do in school to boost their fluency at times table recall. Children should be fluent in tables up to 12x12 by the end of Year 4.

You have also received log ins for Sumdog and Spelling and Maths Shed. We are now using a new spelling scheme of work that is built on progression of sounds and builds on children’s prior knowledge. Please continue to use Spelling Shed for practise.  

PE

This half term, we will be doing hockey and archery during PE lessons.

Sparrows: Tuesday PM

Starlings: Wednesday PM

Swifts: Wednesday PM

Please ensure your child is wearing their full PE kit into school on the correct day:

White polo top or t shirt with their usual school jumper or cardigan, navy blue shorts or skirt (jogging bottoms for winter), black plimsolls or trainers.

Reading

In school, children are encouraged to read daily. They take quizzes on Accelerated Reader about the books they have read and earn points for this.      At the end of the half-term, we will be giving certificates to every child who reaches their own individual target for points earned. To support passion and progression, we expect children to read daily at home for at least 15 minutes. Please support and encourage your child in this by listening to them read aloud often and talking about what they have read to help develop comprehension skills and develop an inquisitive nature about books.

School Value

This half term, in our Class Assemblies and PSHE lessons, we are learning about the value of Teamwork and what it means to be able to work in a team.

British Value

We will be learning about tolerance and linking this to the skill of teamwork. Tolerance is a key skill for life in Britain.

Our Curriculum

Children in Key Stage 1 and 2 will enjoy a long and short enquiry each half term.

Long Enquiries

A long enquiry typically lasts five weeks and allows us to teach a subject, such as history, in depth. Clear expectations of what will be learned, is shared with parents and pupils through a Knowledge Organiser.  At the end of the work, we plan to use Enquiry Quizzes on our iPads to see how much each child has remembered.

Short Enquiries

A short enquiry can last anything from one to three days and adds breadth to our curriculum.

In our long Learning Enquiry this half term we are learning about mechanical systems and creating moving picture books with working levers and linkages. We will be ensuring our designs meet the design criteria and moving towards evaluating the designs during the making process.

The short Learning Enquiry will focus on healthy eating and seasonality of produce.

Maths

We are continuing to learn multiplication tables, focusing on 4,6,7, and 8 times tables. Please support your child to practice their fluency in these at home by asking them questions in and out of order. We are then looking at the links between multiplication and division and how they are inverse operations, before moving on to the more formal written methods for calculating with 3 digit numbers.

Literacy

We will be writing instructions based on the text ‘Until I Met Dudley’ by Roger McGough, which looks at how electrical objects work. We will also write a narrative story based on ‘The Paperbag Prince’ by Colin Thompson.

Dates to remember

Last day of term—Friday 8th April

First day of Summer term—Monday 25th April

Remaining balance payment deadline for Year 4 Residential—Monday 25th April

Messages

Please continue to contact the school office by email admin@preston.torbay.sch.uk or phone 01803 607075 with any questions or queries. There is also lots of useful information, as well as event dates and term dates, on our school website  https://www.preston.torbay.sch.uk/

School App

Our school app is the best way to get information about dates and events going on in the school. Search for ‘School News’ in your app store.