YEAR 4 FAMILY LEARNING

Our year 4 families are invited to join our next 'Family Learning' event of the year this Tuesday 8th October from 9am - 10am in the school hall.  The event will include the opportunity to work alongside your child with some maths activities and we hope that this will give you the confidence to better support at home. We hope to see you there.

FUTURE FAMILY LEARNING EVENTS

For information the future family learning events this term are:

Tuesday 15th October, 9 - 10am: Y3

Tuesday 5th November, 9-10am: Y2

COFFEE MORNING

You will have already received a questionnaire for feedback from today's coffee morning. Louise Paynton, school nurse, has requested any parents/carers who attended to please fill in this survey.

YEAR 6 TRIPS

Our Year 6  have two exciting trips to look forward to next week. They will be learning a range of topics at a 'crucial crew' event on Monday which includes how to keep safe and healthy. The children will also be visiting St. Anne's Academy next Wednesday for a 'Creative Arts Day' delivered by the staff at the high school. I'm sure our year 6's will have a wonderful time and it is a wonderlful opprtunity to see what life is like at one of our local secondary schools. 

SCIENCE CLUB

We can confirm that we’ve had a great response to the Mad Science After School Programme and it will be going ahead as scheduled on Fridays from Friday 8th November 3:15pm-4:15pm. There are places remaining so if you want to book your child on please book online at https://northengland.madscience.org/parents-register-a.aspx or contact the Mad Science Team on office@madsciencenw.com or call 01772 628844

HARVEST SERVICE

Our annual Harvest celebrations are going to be taking place on Monday 14th October. The day will include an assembly and later on int he week Y2 and 4 will be visiting All Saint's and Martyr for a 'Harvest Experience'. On the day we welcome food donations that will be collected by The Lighthouse Project and sent to vulnerable families across Middleton. Any support is appreciated. 

EMILE SPELLING

We are aware that some parents/carers are having problems accessing their child's Emile account at home on a range of devices. The current issue seems to be with accessing the app on iPads. We are meeting with the company to discuss the issues shared with us and we will send out an update to all parents/carers when we have further information within the next week. In the meantime, all children have the opportunity to access the games and activities once per week in one of their three spelling lessons. We will continue to monitor children's progress and an update about this will be shared with you at Parent's Evening. 

Thank you for your patience with this.

PROSPECTIVE PARENT OPEN MORNINGS

Is your child due to start primary school in September 2025? Do you know anyone that has a child starting school in 2025? If so, we are inviting prospective parents into the school this Thursday 10th October and Tuesday 12th November from 9.15am. There will be a presentation from the headteacher followed by a tour of the school from our school councillors. Please contact the school office to book your place.

PARKFIELD MATHS DAY - WE ARE DRESSING UP!

Parkfield Math's Day will take place on Friday 25th October. Throughout the day children across school will take part in engaging and exciting Math's challenges and events. This is an opportunity for us to celebrate Maths as a whole school which will help to promote positive Math's mindsets for all of our children. As part of the Maths day, the children will have access to their Times Table Rockstars and Numbots accounts. Therefore, on Friday 25th October, children across the school can come to school dressed as a number, a robot or a rockstar. Please use materials/ clothing that is inexpensive, or use items  that you already own. Costumes can be crafted from old t-shirts, boxes, tin foil, fabric pens etc. There will be a certificate for the best dressed in each class, so get creative!

CLASS DOJO FOR COMMUNICATION

We are trialing the use of Class Dojo as a communication tool over the next few weeks across Year 1 and 2. It will be used to promote the phonics videos that children can watch. Please ensure you have the dojo app on your phone so you can follow what is happening. You can sign up by clicking here.

AFTER SCHOOL SPORTS CLUBS  

Please can your child come to school in their PE kit if they have a place in the After School Sports Club.

Monday - 7/10/24 -Year 3/4 Football

Tuesday - 8/10/24 - Year 5/6 Football 

Wednesday - 9/10/24 - Year 5/6 Multi Sports

Thursday - 10/10/24 - Year 4/5/6 Cross Country

KS1 READING

Thank you for all of the reading support you are providing with your children at home. Reading is fundamental to children accessing the whole curriculum and has a significant impact on their future success. Your child will be reading every day in school during their phonics lesson. This reading will no longer be recorded in their diary, but please be reassured that reading in school is happening daily. If your child reads with an adult in addition to the phonics lesson, this will be recorded in the reading diary.

Please encourage your child to read their Read Write Inc. book with you at home every night, this does not need to be the whole book and can be a few pages at a time. Once you have heard your child read please sign their diary to let us know they have read at home. 

A reminder that your child needs to bring their reading diary and reading book into school everyday. 

SPELLING

This academic year, we will be using the Emile spelling scheme to teach spelling to all children from Years 1-6. Emile has proven success for improving children's spelling abilities and over 15% of UK Primary Schools have used the scheme to make spelling lessons and practice fun and engaging. 

 Emile is very similar to Times Table Rockstars. The children will have a login to the web page (the same as their Times Table Rockstars login) and they can practice at home on the games and activities. They will also take part in regular 'Class Battles' tailored to their own spelling abilities. 

 Now that we are moving to this new approach, weekly spelling tests will no longer take place. Instead, children will have 2 spelling lessons per week and 1 'practice' session when they will use iPads to play the games and activities on their Emile account. Your child will still receive weekly spellings that have been taught that week, but there will be no written test in class for these. Spellings will be stuck in diaries as usual. 

 The 'Class Battle' will replace the spelling test and will take place every three weeks. Teachers will then be able to access reports that show which spellings each child needs more work on. The children's Emile account will then be automatically updated so they will be given spellings that they need further work on to practice in the games and activities. As parents and carers you will be able to see this information when you work on Emile with your child. When the children complete the Class Battles, Emile produces heatmaps showing the spellings the children are confident with and those that need some more work. These heatmaps will be shared with you at parent's evening and throughout the year if necessary. 

 Some children work on differentiated spellings (different to the rest of their class and matched to their ability). These children will still receive the weekly class spelling list based on the rule/pattern they have learnt in their class that week. This is to give all children the opportunity to access their year group spellings. However, when the children play the games on  Emile, these games and activities will be tailored to their own ability and work with their strengths and weaknesses.

 The day that your child will bring home their spellings will be shared with you on the 'Welcome to Our Class' presentations which will be emailed out to you next week. You will still find a spelling page each week in your child's reading diary which is there for you to use if you would like to practice with your child at home. 

 Along with this newsletter, you will find a letter detailing how to log in to Emile from any device. 

Please contact your child's class teacher if you have any questions.

PUNCTUALITY

Poor punctuality can lead to your child feeling embarrassed in front of their friends, missing the beginning of vital lessons or missing important instructions for the rest of the school day. It is vital that children get into school on time.

A reminder that children from Y1-6 are to line up on the play ground before 8.45am so that when they are collected there is a prompt start to the morning. Doors will shut soon after the class lines have entered into school and any latecomers will have to come through the main entrance. 

Please note that we will be asking parents and carers to sign their child into school at the front office if their child arrives after 9am. This is for safeguarding reasons and ensures school registers are correct. A reminder that for any child that arrives after 9.30am this is classed as an unauthorised absences for the morning session. 

CLASS DOJO 

Would you like to see how well your child is doing at school? We award Dojo points for pupils that go 'above and beyond' in the classroom and these can be seen by parents if you download the app. We have over 75% of our families signed up already! If you click this link to set up a parent account we will then approve it. This acess will provide you with the opportunity to see how many Dojo points your child has earnt and what for. Please note that we are only using the app for Dojo points, not messages or photos, therefore you do not need any of the subscription options you might be offered.