Dear Parents and Carers,

Please look out for this letter coming home in book bags from this week…

letter to parents about reading books

Many thanks,

Miss C.

Tricky word pots have now started to come home in your child’s book bag.

Please look out for them and use them to support your child’s learning at home.

Here is a copy of the handout (that you’ll find in the book bag) which explains more about the pots and what to do with them: word-pots

Many thanks!

Please look out for this letter and your child’s QR code coming home today:

Dear Reception Parents and Carers,

As you know, we collect observations of your child throughout the day as they play and learn in our Reception class here at St. Matthew’s.

These observations help us to build up a profile of their learning and development across the 17 areas of the Early Years Foundation Stage Profile.

We currently use an app called Seesaw to collect and file these observations.  Every half term, we plan to enable parental access to this app so that you can find out more about what your child has been doing at school.

We are sending home a QR code that is unique to your child’s Seesaw profile.  Please follow the included instructions to create a Seesaw account and view your child’s observations online.

Please note:

1. Seesaw access will only be open from Saturday 21^st October until Sunday 29^th October (i.e. during half-term).
2. Seesaw will be open again during parent’s evenings as well as during each half term and over the Christmas and Easter breaks.
3. At the end of the year, you will be invited to download a zip file of your child’s profile.
4. Any photos within your child’s profile that include other children from our class must never be reposted or shared on any social media account – thank you for your understanding!
5. Finally, we welcome your feedback and would encourage you to add comments to your child’s observations on Seesaw (for example, you could add to an observation if you child has followed up on their learning at home perhaps through a conversation with you or something they made or wrote).

Do feel free to ask if you have any further questions.

Kind regards,

Miss Cronin

Many thanks to those of you who came to the meeting today.  I do hope you will now have a clearer understanding of the end of year report.

Here is the powerpoint from the meeting for those of you who were unable to attend.

parent reports meeting july 2017.ppt

Do ask if you have questions.

Ms C.

A very warm welcome to those parents and carers whose children will be joining us in our Reception class from September.  We hope you will find this blog to be a useful resource both before the start of term and during the school year.

Please bookmark our blog and/or set up email notifications for new posts so you can keep up-to-date with what is happening at school.

Here is the presentation from our Welcome to Reception meeting that was held yesterday.

meeting for new reception parents 2016

And here is the ‘Off to Reception’ powerpoint which you might like to share with you child before they start in September.

Off to Reception powerpoint

Please remember to hand in all starting school forms to the school office before 14th July.

Finally, if your child has any allergies or special dietary requirements – you must let Mrs Morgan in the school office know BEFORE 14th July.  

Thank you!

Many thanks to those of you who were able to come along to the Phonics workshop last week.  We hope you found it useful and informative.

Please ask if you have any further questions!

Here is the handout from the session:

phonics booklet

And here is the list of high frequency words:

Please note, high frequency words are commonly occurring words that children should be able to read at the end of each phase including, but not only, tricky words.  Tricky words, which are non-decodable, can be found in the box in each column below.

The other words in each column are decodable (i.e. can be sounded out) but, as they occur so frequently within texts, children are encouraged to learn them so they can be read on-sight).

A handout that explains the C of ELs in more detail:

Characteristics of Effective Learning

Tricky word pots will be sent home in book bags from this week.

Please look out for them and use them to support your child’s learning at home.

Here is a copy of the handout (that you’ll find in the book bag) which explains more about the pots and what to do with them: word pots

Many thanks!

Here’s a handout from a website called Twinkl that I think explains quite nicely how phonics (letter sounds) are used when learning to read.  Hope you find it helpful!

Guide-For-Parents-How-To-Help-Your-Child-Read-Using-Phonics