This school year we have had a focus on developing pupil confidence and seeing themselves as an active learner. I have been working with staff to help them to enable pupils to learn effectively by looking at latest thinking on how children learn and helping them to devise lessons which maximise learning for improved effectiveness.

Our staff have a curriculum which explains the skills and knowledge that we want children to have at particular points in their primary life. However, how we choose to implement that curriculum is evolving to ensure we use tools, schemes and techniques which have the maximum impact.

We know that knowledge is useful to our children when it is in long-term memory. In this part of the brain it can be built upon, connections can be made and skills enhanced. The skill of the teacher is to provide the correct amount of information in a memorable way and repetitively in order that it will be remembered meaningfully. Information needs to be presented in different ways so that it can be managed by a child independently and in different contexts. Skills need to be practiced in order to be mastered.

Although the school day seems like a long one sometimes, it is in fact a very short period to get the coverage and repetition needed for secure understanding. This is the reason why practice at home is key to success in schoolwork and particularly for learning facts. It is clear that the more we practice anything, the better we will get at it and with this in mind, I ask you to help us and your child as often as possible with embedding knowledge and skills into memory.

You can help by:

• Reading everyday with your child and discussing books you share together. These don’t need to be stories, you can use any form of age-appropriate literature
• Help with learning phonics and spellings
• Read around school topics online or through a visit to a local library or museum. You should know the topics being studied in school from the termly overviews
• Promote learning apps at home
• Get your child to show you what they have been learning at school and explain it to you or to demonstrate a maths calculation
• Support homework tasks by allowing your child to do these independently but by showing an interest

Please see class teachers if you have questions about what your child is learning and the methods we use in school.

Attendance 

Letters have been sent home this week with children who are classed as persistent absentees. These children have attendance so far this school year which is below 90%. Our aim is for every child to attend school for at least 96% of the school year.  This ensures they can make good progress in their learning and achieve the best they can academically. Please do your best to ensure your child attends school every single day so that we don't have any persistent absentees by the end of the school year.  

Thank you for your support with this.