What a lovely first term

Dear friends and families,

It’s been a great start to the school year, we have loved getting to know all the children and are enjoying learning about them and their interests. The children have settled in quickly and have formed a cohesive and inclusive group. It has been exciting to watch their learning this half term and we cannot wait to see where their creativity, resolve and interests take us this year.

In maths, Year 3 have been busy practicing their numeracy skills, working with place value, rounding, shape, time and word problems. As always, they learn while having fun; either working in pairs, small groups or as a whole class.  The children enjoy learning with the interactive board; one example of which is our Abacus interactive programme that proposes different interactive ac­tivities. It is an excellent resource that stimulates prob­lem solving and group discussions whilst teachers can check for understanding and provide immediate feedback.

In Literacy, we have been focusing on writing adventure stories. The children have been working hard at character development and have even created their own superheroes! Using these characters as inspiration they have created elaborate plotlines which they have turned into beautifully illustrated comic strips. Alongside this, they have been thinking carefully about setting, plot, main idea and supporting details of a story; skills they will continue to develop next half term in their creative writing task. We have been working hard establishing class routines, in reading rotation each child reads in a small group with the teacher while the rest of the class work independently on different tasks. This way every student is responsible for his or her own learning. Furthermore, they have been learning more about grammar and practicing their spelling skills. We would also like to congratulate the children for their amazing performance in their spelling tests. We are very proud to see so many perfect scores! Keep it up guys!

In IPC, we kicked off the year with the topic Brainwave; a journey into how we learn and the skills we need to support and develop our understanding. We talked about how having a positive attitude to learning and belief in ourselves helps us to meet the challenges we may find ahead. We also did a second mini unit this half term; Learning Effectively Online, where the children were encouraged to think carefully about what the internet is, how it works and how to use it safely and responsibly. The unit ended with a bang with the 2 Middle Primary classes working together to create a Halloween obstacle course for the Beebots to navigate through. This was the start of a week of fun Halloween activities which ended on Friday with our annual school halloween celebration. The MP classes designed and made bats out of a range of materials which they threw out of the window in a competition to see which one travelled the furthest! There were also some lovely moments with our buddy classes (the pre primary classes) - the children throughly enjoyed spending time together!

It was lovely to touch base with many of you for our parent teacher conferences, we hope they were helpful and informative and that we addressed any concerns you may have about your child or our routines in school. Needless to say, our door is always open and we can be contacted after school or via Seesaw to address concerns or queries. We thank you for your continued support and co-operation.

Last, but by no means least a huge thank you to our wonderful classroom support teacher Ms Alba- she has been an amazing help these last months and both the kids are enjoying getting to know her and grateful for all the help she provides and the warmth she brings to the classroom.

We wish you all a lovely Autumn break and look forward to seeing the children on our return to school! Happy holidays all!
 

Ms Erica, Ms Anelda and Ms Alba