Welcome to Owls.

I’m Miss Moore, the Owls class teacher. I’m supported in class by Mrs Fearn, Mrs Feasey and Mrs Sherwood . Mrs Fearn will teach the class on Wednesday and Friday mornings. Year 1 is an exciting year for the children as they move from the Early Years Foundation Stage to the first year of the National Curriculum. Some children can understandably feel a little apprehensive about how learning will change but we ensure that change is introduced gradually and there is still lots of opportunities for practical, play based learning. We are very lucky to have an outside area attached to the Owls classroom to enable us to provide a range of activities outside too.

PE

We will have PE on Mondays and Tuesdays. Please ensure that children have their PE kits in school each week. All items should be labelled. Long hair should be tied back, and earrings should be removed before school, please. As the weather gets colder you may like to send in jogging bottoms/leggings and sweatshirts. Please send a pair of socks in if your child wears tights.

Homework

Homework will consist of several different tasks to be completed over the half term. A grid will be sent home at the start of each half-term with a range of activities to complete. These tasks will be closely related to the work we will be doing in class that half term. We hope that this helps the children to develop fluency and confidence and also gives you a chance to see the things we are covering in class. If you have any questions about the homework that has been set please do not hesitate to email me. Your child will have the whole half term to complete the work which we hope will enable you to have more flexibility over when each task is completed. Sometimes a Maths task will be set on Mathletics or Numbots. You can find your child’s login details in their reading diary. If you need support with this or lose your login details then please let me know.

Reading

We place great importance on reading and would love all children to develop a love of reading. Reading a wide variety of books to your child will provide rich reading experiences that help promote a love of reading. Please support your child to read their school reading book at least x3 and make a note of the pages they have read in their diary to get a dip in our prize box. They will need to bring their reading book and diary into school every day and place it in the reading box. We also encourage the children to be able to talk confidently about the characters and main events in a story. We ask them to make predictions about what will happen next in the story and we look for interesting story language together.

Sounds Write

If you would like to learn more about Sounds Write, you can do a free online course, aimed at parents. There are 2 courses and each lasts about 20 mins. Go to https://www.udemy.com/course/help-your-child-to-read-and-write.

Spellings

Children will bring home spellings every Friday. Please practice reading and writing these words with your child. They can also try using them in a sentence. There will be an informal test each Friday. Practising the words throughout the week helps the children to become more confident when using them in their writing.

Mid-morning snack

All children will be offered a piece of fruit at break time. Children are also welcome to bring in their healthy snacks e.g. fruit or cereal bars. Please also send your child in with a named water bottle.

If you have any questions or anything you would like to share about your child at any time please email me: at amoore@linton.derbyshire.sch.uk or ring the school office and I will get back to you as soon as I can.