Primary 6 have been very busy in all areas of the curriculum. We have just finished our class modelling novel Kensuke’s Kingdom by Michael Morpurgo and it was great to look back on some predictions made at the start of the book to see what we first initially thought was going to happen, to discovering what the book was all about through various reading strategies and summarising the events together as a class. We have now moved onto working in our groups and receiving our new novels and working very hard throughout our reading comprehension strategies. Marvellous Matilda’s have received a book called Tribes by Catherine MacPhail and Fantastic Foxes have received the book The Queen’s Nose by Dick King-Smith.

Within numeracy and maths, we have been working on place value, rounding, estimating, and now we have been working with addition and subtracting. They have been focussing a lot on reading questions carefully so that they have a good understanding of what they need to do to solve the problem. We have also been applying a variety of strategies such as using a number line, recognising doubles and near doubles and looking at patterns within number, and using friendly numbers that can help them. We will continue to apply a variety of addition, subtraction, multiplication and division strategies to help us with us our computational skills. We have been continuing to use some mental agility games and activities throughout our lessons and at home in memorising and practising our times tables.

Our first topic, The Titanic, has been a great topic so far and we have all been enjoying finding out all about the people on the Titanic and what their jobs were, who travelled on the Titanic, and also the difference in social class. We are currently creating dioramas at home of what each of the rooms looked like and identifying important features to distinguish the difference between each room. Our class display is coming along greatly with class work and homework projects.

Within Health and Wellbeing, we have recently started learning about the first cog within Emotion Works, ‘Emotion Words’. This is an educational programme within Scotland and very well aligned to the Scottish Curriculum and related policies such as GIRFEC. We have been focusing on building emotion word vocabulary which helps develop and deepen emotional understanding and we look forward to learning more about each cog and becoming more emotionally literate.

We have also been busy in carrying out the Choccy Challenge with Scotland’s Enterprising Schools and Young Enterprise Scotland which they have created a fantastic resource designed to allow pupils to work collaboratively, be creative and solve problems, which we all have been busy doing within the class. We have been working in groups creating a product, giving it a name, creating a logo and slogan, as well as creating packaging and adverts for each of them.

Furthermore, Primary 6 have been preparing for our First Friday Mass that we are hosting on Friday, 6^th of October.

Have a great week everyone!

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Primary 3 Learning Update September

October 3, 2023 Mrs Cook Leave a comment

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)

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Primary 5 September Update

October 3, 2023 Ms Preston Leave a comment

Primary 5 have had a fantastically busy and productive month of September. We have been growing and learning in all areas of the curriculum, striving to become successful learners, responsible citizens, effective contributors and confident individuals.

It was lovely to meet some of you at our ‘Meet the Teacher’ event and I look forward to getting a chance to speak with you regarding your child’s progress on our Parents Evening on Thursday 12^th October. Please log on to the parent portal and book an appointment if you have not done so already.

Over the last month the pupils have made excellent progress in Math’s and Numeracy, they have been exploring Addition of larger numbers and learning a variety of strategies that they can apply to help them solve these problems. They have been focussing on reading questions carefully so that they have a good understanding of what they need to do to solve the problem. Children are encouraged to apply a variety of strategies such as adding in chunks using a number line, recognising doubles and near doubles and looking at patterns within number that can help them. We will continue to apply a variety of addition, subtraction and multiplication and division strategies to help us with us our computational skills.

In Literacy we are making good progress with our spelling programme and the children can identify and use the most efficient strategies to spell increasingly difficult and tricky words. We have come to the end of our modelling block and pupils will now apply the skills they have been using to help them explore individual and group novels. I would encourage that when children do not have a book home to read that they are encouraged to read for pleasure. We have a class and school library with a wide variety of books that children are free to borrow any time.

We have been learning about the life of Jesus and the children have worked together in groups to collaborate and research some of the miracles performed by Jesus. They were able to define what a miracle is and were able to ‘teach’ the rest of the class about the miracle that their group, researched using the bible. This was a good opportunity for the children to get used to using the bible and finding the relevant chapters and verses.

We continue to attend Sir Matt Busby every Tuesday for our Swimming sessions. The children are making excellent progress and enjoying this very much. In the sports hall the children are learning a variety of new team games learning skills of co- ordination, pacing, positioning and indeed communication effectively in a team.

IDL

We have been learning lots about the Titanic and the people on board. We are looking forward to participating in some science-based learning using this topic, such as exploring buoyancy, density, water displacement and temperature.

Please continue to check school website for any updates.

Thank you

Mrs Preston and Primary 5.