Class 1 Newsletter Spring Term 2021
Welcome back to school and a Happy New Year!
I hope you all had a restful Christmas break.
The start back to school beginning our spring term is not as it is supposed to be. We are starting this term learning from home and what I had planned will now need to be adapted.
I have already provided many messages on Teams giving details about Teams logistics and Class 1’s learning. I will recap over these elements whilst also providing further details about the curriculum for Class 1 for this term.
Remote Learning
The timetable for remote learning will include online sessions in the morning and offline, varied independent activities for the afternoon. There is a dedicated channel on Teams called ‘Online Lessons’ where all the lessons will be run from. The first session commences at 9:30am lasting up to 1 hour. This will be Phonics and English based. Please join the meeting no earlier than 5 minutes before. You will enter into a ‘lobby’ area before I admit you into the meeting. Following a break, the second session starts at 11:00am lasting up to 1 hour. Please rejoin the same meeting session as the first session. I will invite all participants into the meeting prior to the lesson. During these sessions, I do try my best to sort any technical issues out. However, should you have ongoing connection problems to the meeting, please contact the office in the first instance, so that the lesson can run on time.
Please be aware that different devices do change the look and feel of how Teams operates. It seems to be that using the Teams App is better than using Teams through a web browser and tablets don’t always support all the features compared to a laptop or computer.
Please ensure you have the latest update of Teams. This can be checked by going to your profile icon at the top of the Teams App, clicking it and selecting ‘check for updates’. Teams will run in the background while it does its checks and updates.
During these online sessions, whilst your child is completing some independent work, I will be on the channel to provide support and feedback.
After the online sessions, there will be set offline activities to complete. This will include independent phonics, handwriting and spelling activities, time for independent reading and activities linked to Science, DT, Geography, RE, PE and PSHE.
I have created a Remote Learning folder on our Class 1 Teams. I will place ALL the learning for the week in this folder. It is organised into English, Maths, Phonics and Science and Topic folders and further organised by week. Should for any reason you miss some or all of one online lesson, your child will still be able to access the learning from the day and complete activities. In addition, many of the activities will be set and posted to your child’s personal assignment area. There will be a timeframe set for work to be completed and handed in or posted back to the assignment area on Teams. This is the only way I am able to see your child’s work and provide feedback including praise and next steps.
Feedback will be provided in a variety of ways. During online lessons, feedback will be verbal or visual representations using technology to help progress learning. Feedback will also be in response to completed and submitted work. I will endeavour to provide at least one detailed item of feedback for English and for Maths per week. This will include areas of success and next steps to improve. Feedback will also take the form of brief comments and brief next steps such as small corrections. For example, corrections and answers to Maths, corrections to spellings and grammar reminders (full stops and capital letters). There will be items of returned work that I will simply acknowledge without leaving a comment. Please note, I look at all pieces of work. Feedback for other areas of learning such as topic or science will be provided when it is appropriate and beneficial to your child to do so.
Remote Learning Timetable
| Time | Activity |
| 9:30am – 10:30am
online
|
Online Session
Registration Phonics and/or English |
| 10:30am – 11:00am | Break |
| 11:00am – 12:00pm
online |
Online Session
Registration Maths Explanation of offline activities |
| 12:00pm – 1:00pm | Lunch |
| 1:00pm – 1:30pm
offline |
Independent Reading
Story Time (hear a story – supported at home) |
| 1:30pm – 2:00pm
offline |
Handwriting / Spelling / Phonics activity |
| 2:00pm – 3:00pm
offline |
Topic / Science / Art / PE activity |
Although there are changes to the way we learn, the curriculum offer remains unchanged but some areas will be adapted.
| English | In English, we shall be exploring different kinds of traditional tales and looking at their structure and what themes they have in common. Traditional tales will include the Rainbow Fish, Rapunzel, This is the House that Jack Build and Dear Mr Postman. Linked to these stories, we shall also look at improving sentence structure and applying correct punctuation. We will also focus on writing character descriptions, letter writing and narrative writing in the style of a traditional story. |
| Phonics | In phonics, we will be consolidating all the Phase 3 and 5 sounds already learnt and moving onto alternative pronunciations of many graphemes (letters that denote a sound) and alternative spellings for certain phonemes (sounds). |
| Maths | In Maths, we will consolidate place value, addition and subtraction with numbers 1-20 before moving onto numbers 1-50. We will focus on 2-digit numbers and tens and ones along with counting, ordering and comparing numbers. This will progress to counting in multiples of 2, 5 and 10. Further on, class 1 will be introduced to the units of measure for length, mass and weight. |
| Science | Our science topic is all about everyday materials. Class 1 will explore and investigate different types of materials and objects that are made out of these materials. They will also investigate the varying properties of materials understanding why using one material over another is better. |
| Topic | Our Geography topic will explore our 7 continents and countries of the UK. This will include their capitals and key characteristics. |
| RE | Our topic is ‘Special Symbols and Objects’. We will explore what items are special to us and how animals can resemble us. We shall also focus on the image of Buddha and the Wesak/Vesak festival. |
| DT | In our DT topic, we will be focusing on researching, planning and making a fruit kebab. We shall also explore making puppets. |
| PSHE | We will focus on understanding privacy and behaviour that can negatively affect others. We shall also focus on what it means to belong to a community linking this to caring for others and for the environment. |
| PE | For this term the focus is on dance and team games. |
Finally, I would like to add that while we are using technology in a positive way to help us learn, the use of online devices will be more regular and thus it is important to ensure that your child is safe whilst accessing online content particularly if they are accessing this with minimal supervision. Should you like any further advice, please visit Childline or Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command for more advice.
https://www.ceop.police.uk/safety-centre/
Should you have any queries or questions, please do not hesitate to contact the office and I will return your email or call as soon as I can.
As always, thank you for your continued support.
Kind regards
Mrs Carlisle
