Click on the links below for further information:

2 – Model Participant Information Sheet – Parents Survey

2 – Parent Survey – Online consent form

Click on the link below to find out more:

Decembernewsletter2023

Over the next few weeks, P6/7 will be focusing on Scots Language as the children learn their poems. We will be practising our performance skills with Ms Casasola.

In writing this term, we will be learning about the structure of a story and will be exploring the link between setting, plot and atmosphere by writing our own imaginative stories. To finish off our Scottish Parliament topic, we will be creating our own manifestos and will be learning about persuasive language.

We will be starting a new class novel linked to our next topic, World War 2. We will continue to develop our comprehension skills, as well as our expression and pace when reading aloud.

In Maths, we are starting with Time this term. We will be revising reading analogue and digital clocks and AM/PM conversion. The children will go on to learn how to research and read timetables. We will learn how to calculate time intervals using the counting on method (see below).

We will then go on to learn about Fractions, Decimals and Percentages. We will be doing lots of practical and outdoor activities to consolidate the children’s learning.

In Health and Wellbeing, P6/7 are starting the term by focusing on Food and Health. We will be learning about diets in different cultures, and food intolerances/allergies, as well as how to prepare food safely.

In a few weeks, we will move on to our new topic: World War 2. If parents/carers have any suggestions on what you would like us to learn about, please do get in touch – we would love to have your input into our planning!

In numeracy this term we have been focusing on addition up to 20, 100 and beyond 100.  We have been developing different strategies to support us and have been strengthening our mental agility.  To help us we have played beanbag addition and challenged ourselves to see if we could add more than 2 numbers together.

In literacy we have been writing letters, focusing on the layout of a letter and seeing if we can use different openers.  We have also written persuasive letters to Mrs Strachan using ‘bossy’ language to convince her that their shop name and what is sold in our role play shop is ‘without a doubt’ the best option to go with!

We have also been developing our ICT skills this term.  Some of us had never worked with a keyboard before so we have been familiarising ourselves with the keys, signing in and out of the chromebook and have even started to type out our persuasive letters.

In health and wellbeing we have been speaking about kindness and what kindness looks like.  We have also been thinking about our bigger emotions we can feel at school sometimes.  We then developed a HWB ‘I feel… So I can…’ display where the children came up with feelings and what somebody could do if they felt that feeling.  This has been getting used very well in class so far.

We are continuing with our Fettercairn Countryside topic and have enjoyed a walk around the village.  Some of us captured our walk on camera while the rest of us completed our observation sheet.  We discussed the flood defence area and the purpose of it.

In technologies we have been learning how to use our chrome books to carry out research.  We had questions about the Fettercairn Royal Arch that we wanted to find the answers to and we worked with a partner to retrieve the information.

We also planned and designed how we would construct our own Royal Arch out of Lego.  We worked with a partner and a carefully constructed our arches.  The attention to detail was fantastic!

In literacy we are promoting and encouraging our enjoyment of reading in our classroom; ‘Be Excited About Reading’.  One of the children has illustrated our B.E.A.R while others helped to paint it.  As a class we have decided to name her Berry.  We are also developing our reading corner to create a more enjoyable, relaxing space to read.

In art we had the pleasure of a parent in to help us to design and create story stones.  We will place these in our reading corner so that we can tell our own stories to others.

We have been focusing on friendship in health and wellbeing and thinking about what qualities we think are most important to us in a friend.  The children then created their own ‘friendship recipe’, discussing which ‘ingredient’ was most important in our ‘friendship recipe’.  The recipe was a perfect blend!

P3 have returned to school and I am so impressed with the way the children have settled back into the school routine! We have been catching up with one another and working hard over the last week.

In Literacy, we have been focusing on instructional writing. The children have explored examples of different sets of instructions and have identified the important key features: title, equipment needed, method, bossy verbs etc. We then created our own set of instructions for growing sunflower seeds – which have now begun to grow!

Now we are back to school, we will continue to focus on a new sound each week. Our spelling words for homework will be uploaded to Google Classroom weekly, as well as a new spelling activity grid to be used for the remainder of the term.

Children will continue to read in class and will receive a book home each week. We will focus on different reading targets each week.

In Maths, we continued our topic we started during remote learning – Time. Some children are working on consolidating their understanding of o’clock and half past, whilst others have been learning about quarter past and quarter to on digital and analogue clocks.

We are revisiting our Multiplication topic we begun learning at home too. We have revised the 2, 5 and 10 times table, and we are starting to learn the 3 and 4 times table. The children are using different materials, such as Numicon and cubes, to aid their learning.

During the first week back in Health and Wellbeing, we focused on Mental Health and how we can keep our minds healthy. The children had lots of great discussions! We have been doing some daily mindfulness too, which is a big hit! Next in Health and Wellbeing, we will be focusing on Safety.

Habitats is our new topic this term! The children were very enthusiastic in sharing their ideas of what they would like to learn through our topic. So far, we have discussed what a habitat is and have looked at some simple food chains. We will learn about different habitats, such as: woodland, desert, artic and ocean!

Please click on the links below for further information:

3 – Teacher Survey – Online consent form

3 – Teacher-Consent-Form v2

3 Model Participant Information Sheet – Teacher focus and interviews