St. Brendan's Primary School and Nursery

Dear Parent/Guardian,

We hope you all had a fantastic Easter holiday and it was lovely speaking to you all at Parent’s Night.

We would also like to take this opportunity to congratulate the children on making their Sacrament of Confirmation. It was a beautiful service and the children, along with their families, worked very hard to prepare for this sacrament.

This term will be particularly busy for our Primary 7 children as they head off to Kilbowie and continue their preparation for high school and planning their leavers’ events.

Once again this letter will provide you with a brief overview of the learning that will take place this term in Primary 7/6.

Literacy
The children will continue to follow North Lanarkshire’s Active Literacy programme for Spelling, Reading, Writing and Listening and Talking. This programme will help to develop further their literacy skills and provide exciting and new challenges.
The children will take part in a group novel study with a text suitable for their age and stage. This will be an opportunity for the children to apply all of their prior learning from Term 1, 2 and 3 and demonstrate their ability and understanding of the Active Literacy Strategies. The novels will be read at home by the children and there will be reading homework on a weekly basis. The children should be encouraged to complete all reading homework on the allocated nights as the classwork will coincide with the reading homework. Some of the novels for this term are ‘Wonder’ and ‘The Silver Sword’.

This term the pupils will further develop their narrative writing skills with a focus on up levelling their writing by making use of similes, alliterations, metaphors and ambitious vocabulary. As well as this the pupils will also use the discursive and information genre.

Numeracy
This term Primary 7/6 will explore decimal fractions, patterns and relationships, angles, symmetry and transformation, as well as number and number processes and ideas of chance and uncertainty. The children will have the opportunity to learn these skills and concepts through a mixture of both active and written tasks. This will enable the children to apply their learning across contexts and see a real purpose to their learning. Children should continue to regularly practise their times tables at home to help support ongoing classwork.

Health and Wellbeing
Health and Wellbeing will be taught across the curriculum. This term in Physical Education the children will develop their athletic skills as we look forward to the end of term sports day. Hopefully we will also be able to take advantage of lovely weather which will allow the pupils to be outside to play striking and fielding games to enhance their team skills.

This children’s Health and Wellbeing topic will link to Religious Education this term as the children will explore God’s Loving Plan. This programme helps children to develop healthy and respectful attitudes to their bodies and to relationships with families and friends.

Interdisciplinary Learning
The children of Primary 7/6 will be exploring ‘Diversity’ this term. This theme will allow the children to examine our rights and why we have them. They will also research examples of historical discrimination and key figures who promote equal rights such as Civil Rights Activists, Suffragettes and Suffragists and Sectarianism in Scotland.  The children will apply their learning across the curriculum with a particular focus within the curriculum areas of Social Studies, Expressive Arts and Technologies.

Religious Education
Religious Education will be taught through the ‘This Is Our Faith’ programme. This term Primary 7/6 will explore the theme of suffering and examine suffering in the bible and the meanings of these passages along with making clear links to suffering in our own lives. Additionally, they will explore Mary and the bible passages associated. They will examine the Rosary and learn about the many titles of Mary. The children will also continue with God’s Loving Plan covering the core learning for Primary 6 and Primary 7.

Science

Our science topic this term is ‘Scientists – Past and Present’. The pupils will learn about scientists life, their discoveries and how their work impacts on today’s society. As well as this, the pupils will research and present to the class about a scientist’s life which is of interest to them.

Homework
The children’s homework will help to support their on-going classwork and I would appreciate your continued support in ensuring the children keep up with all homework tasks.

Many thanks,
Mrs. Williamson and Mrs. Colton