8/11/2019 Learning and Teaching Update

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Raising

standards in

Learning &Teaching

October 1st2014

Literacy: New Handwriting StyleThe teachers have had some concerns for a

time about the style of the handwriting we

have been teaching in recent years. Their

biggest concern being that as the children have

progressed through school many of them do not

manage to develop a legible, joined-up style ofwriting before they move

onto secondary school.

For those children who

learn to write easily, it

doesnt really matter so very much which style

of font they are taught, as they will learn to

write well and easily anyway. However, for

those children who find handwriting (especially

the joining and capitalisation) more of a

challenge, the font we were teaching wasntasstraight-forward as it maybe could have been.

You may be already aware from your children

that over the last few weeks we have been

trialling a new style of handwriting in school

called Penpals. Any decision to change a

handwriting scheme across a school is quite a

big one. For those children who are already on

their way to joined and legible writing, a

change well might lead to some confusion. For

this reason, we are dripping in the new style

with our older children, although in Foundation

Phase Penpals letters are being taught

explicitly.

Please be assured that no child will findthemselves corrected for using the previous

handwriting style as we appreciate there has to

be a transition process especially as for many

older children their style is now probably set

and as long as they are meeting the expected

standards of the National Curriculum and

Literacy Framework, that is fine.

Now that we have decided to use thePenpals materials, we are currently

preparing some guidelines for parents/carers

to help you support the children at home and

will get these out shortly.

Thinking Skills WorkshopWe are planning to hold a Thinking Skills

workshop for parents on Monday October 20th

at 3.30pmwith the offer of free childcare for

those parents who would like to attend. We will

be sending home invitations in a few days to

assess numbers but wanted to give someadvance notice of this. Lots of

parents are aware that we are a

Thinking School but are not familiar

with how this looks in the classroom

so this will be an opportunity to look at how our

Thinking Curriculum works in practice.

Big MathsLast Friday we had a staff training day in this

maths strategy based around understanding thefunctions of number and are about to start

using it with the children.

It has some catchy songs and fun characters

which I am very sure the children will soon be

sharing with you. We are just awaiting delivery

of the teaching materials and we will begin

using them across the school.

Parental/Carer QuestionnaireMany thanks to all of you who have already

completed it we have had a very goodresponse. If you havent yet done so, could you

please access it through the school website or

Facebook page? We are beginning to work

towards Investors in Families in order to

improve how we work with our children and

their families and the questionnaire will provide

us with some really useful information to make

sure we get it right!

As ever, if you have any questions about anyof these matters please just contact the

class teachers or the office - we are

pleased to help.

With thanks

Mrs Phillips - Headteacher