We have another busy and hard-working month where we learned lots of new concepts, celebrated our successes and hosted a very successful and well attended Meet the Teacher event.

For any parent who was unable to attend, here are a few of the issues discussed:

• Homework – whilst this remains optional, I strongly advised parents to complete the tasks set and in particular, listen to their child reading their book each night as this will help ensure that their child can become a more successful learner.
• Attendance – this is an area of priority for the council and school and as such, we ask parents to ensure that their child attends school each day unless extremely unwell.  Letters of concern will be sent out when attendance falls below expected levels. Remember that your child will miss crucial learning and may not cover aspects of learning taught and there may be insuffucient time to go over these at a later date.
• Communication – please keep the school updated on any changes or difficulties at home including bereavement, separation, change of living situation so that we can best support your child in school and offer extra attention in these situations.
• Positive Mindset  – please speak about school positively to your child in order that they make the most of their school experience and if there are any issues that you want to discuss, then please email me at nlcookh@northlan.org.uk or telephone the school to make an appointment.

Literacy

We are continuing to focus on personal recount in storywriting where have expllored the importance of covering lour core targets of using full stops, writing neatly on the line, using finger spaces and starting sentences with capital letters.  You can focus on these in the homework tasks set too which will support the work being done in class.

In reading, we are trying to read smoothly and with expression.  There is a marked improvement in the reading capabilities of children who have practised at home as they have increased confidence in reading at their level.

Numeracy

We have covered mental maths strategies and place value in September and have moved on to Handling Data.  You will see that the homework tasks set, give your child the opportunity to practise the skills of collecting, presenting and interpreting data.  We have covered Pictograms, Tally Marks and Bar Graphs and Charts.

Continue to practise skills such as counting on and back, saying the months of the year in order and reciting how many days are in each month rhyme.

(Thirty days has September, April, June and November. All the rest have 31 except February alone, which has 28 days clear and 29 in each Leap Year)