St Joseph’s School, Exmouth

2 September 2009

Dear Parents,                                                     

Welcome back to school for the Autumn Term. We hope that you had a restful summer. The children are happy to be back and have begun what we hope, will be a very successful year in Class One.  This year, Mrs Ponting and Mrs Sims will continue to share the responsibility for teaching the class.  Mrs Ponting will teach for four days with Mrs Sims taking over on Fridays.  The teaching assistant, Mrs Ellis provides support throughout the week.  

The purpose of this letter is to inform you about some of the work we will be covering this term.  Ourselves is an overall theme.  Links between different subject areas will be made where appropriate, as they are rarely taught in isolation.   

Religious Education: Our topics will be Families, Together and Waiting we will also spend a week on another faith, this term looking at Judaism. 

Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning (SEAL): The first school wide topic is called New Beginnings. Through circle time, discussions and fun activities the class will learn what they can do to make school a safe place for all to learn.  They will begin to recognise their feelings and interpret the feelings of others. We will then look at Getting on and falling out.  The children will recognise how to be a good friend and begin to see things from another point of view.  They will learn what is needed to work in a group and some ways to manage their feelings. 

English:  Language and literacy work takes place through role-play, speaking, listening, handwriting, reading, writing and phonics activities inside and outside the daily Literacy lesson.  The children will experience fiction and non-fiction texts.  These will include stories with familiar settings, stories and rhymes with predictable and repetitive patterns, signs, labels, captions, poetry about the senses lists and instructions. Your child will continue to take a reading book home from school each day. If possible, please read with them each night. This should be an enjoyable experience. At this point in the school year, you may find that your child will re-read some books from the early stages of our reading schemes. This is because your child needs to have a firm foundation, upon which he/she can confidently continue to make progress through the reading stages. 

Mathematics: Through daily maths activities we shall practise and develop oral and mental skills. The children will read and write numbers and count confidently to at least 20.  They will learn to recall addition and subtraction facts. We shall also be working with money, investigating 2D and 3D shapes and measuring.  This term I will be sending home a weekly mathematics activity.  I hope your child will enjoy sharing what they have been doing in school.  This ‘homework’ will be set on Thursdays to be returned the following week.

Science: Our first unit is Ourselves and the children will investigate and use their senses and learn how senses help us to explore the world. They also learn that humans and other animals move and grow.  They will be encouraged to observe and describe living things.  Next we will focus on Sound and Hearing.  The children will develop their understanding of a variety of sounds.  They will be shown how to begin to record observations and draw conclusions. 

ICT: Children will learn that a computer can be used to represent real and fantasy situations. They will use simple games and modelling software to create pictures and communicate information.  The children will begin to use ICT to label and classify information, to represent data graphically and to support all other subjects.   

History: The children will investigate the question How are our toys different from those in the past? They will describe old and new toys. They will learn whether something is new or old and recognise similarities and differences in artefacts.   

Art: The children will explore Self-portraits.  They will look at images of children in drawings, paintings and photographs and talk about artists’ self-portraits. They will use drawing and painting materials and techniques to communicate ideas about themselves. 

Design and Technology: The class will investigate one aspect of what our bodies need to be healthy as we try to eat more fruit and vegetables. Activities will include identifying fruit and vegetables, tasting and evaluating different combinations of fruit and learning basic food hygiene skills.  The children will plan and make a fruit salad, fruit juice ‘cocktail’ or fruit smoothie.   

Music: We regularly learn rhymes, sing songs and explore the sounds our voices and instruments make.  In addition the children will receive an hour of music each week from our specialist teacher, Mrs Jepps.

PE: The children will follow take part in daily physical activitiy.  We follow the Leap into Life initiative for Foundation and KS1 children. It is designed to help them acquire sound fundamental movement skills enabling them to access, enjoy and receive the health benefits from a wide range of activities in their KS2 years, adolescence and adult life. The children also have a longer P.E. lesson once a week, with our specialist teacher, Mrs Little. 

As in Reception class, water bottles are provided for the children to use in class and we actively promote a daily fruit/milk time. Could your child always have suitable clothing to keep them warm and dry then we can make the most of our outdoor environment. We are really looking forward to the new school year and hope that your child has a very happy time. If you need further information or we can help in any way please come and ask, we look forward to meeting you soon. 

Yours Sincerely  

Mrs K. Ponting   Mrs G. Ellis  Mrs K. Sims