Curriculum evening

General 

Elliott was good after I picked him up from Sarah's and said he'd had a good day at school.

Activities

After picking him up we dropped by Sainsburys on the way home and he was really good. Then we had toast and honey for tea before bath. Andrea finished off his bath and he read his school book "Camping" to her afterwards as I popped out to the Year 2 curriculum evening at the school. When I got home he was fast asleep and had been really good. The curriculum evening was really interesting / good and the main points were:

• He needs an art apron and some outdoor PE kit (jogging bottoms, sweatshirt and maybe outdoor trainers) as well as indoor PE kit
• To send notes in put them in his book bag but don't use his reading record for notes as it might not be checked every day
• If other people are picking him up to normal routine let his teacher know (using a note if not dropping off)
• They said home learning should be done at the weekend and is mostly discussion based each week (though may involve making things) as home learning supports topics for the week ahead
• They said homework will primarily be Maths and should be done by Thursday each week (so a bit longer to get that done)
• They said reading often is really important but doesn't have to be lots, could just be a few pages, and make notes in reading record as this year they'll get house points for reading at home if parents have written in reading records
• They said the key to Maths was getting them to understand how different techniques he's learning work not just about them using the technique - they then explained the "tortoise" technique for adding and subtracting as an example (also called "number lines") and gave us a hand out explaining it - I picked up extra copies of the handouts and will post them through your door tomorrow morning
• They also mentioned that when they do Maths homework they should know how to do it using the right technique and if they don't not to teach them a different technique from our childhood, but to make a note on the homework saying they didn't know how to do it and let them know early in the week if possible
• Other Maths techniques they mentioned that are ok are using fingers and using the "number square" (a square of numbers in 10s from 1 to 100, again have a handout for you)
• They suggested also doing 2, 5 and 10 times tables out loud sometimes
• They talked about SATs and said they aren't a big deal and teacher assessments are more important and more accurate often and that when they do SATs tests they don't even know their doing them
• However also said SATs tests are in May so no unauthorised holidays then please - and they also asked that there aren't any holidays during term time if possible because even missing 1 week of teaching can have a big effect - and apparently parents will be fined for unauthorised holidays
• They said we can log in to the LearnAnywhere section of the school website (link top right and login in reading record) and it'll have a copy of home learning each week and spellings - but please don't change login details as they use them at school and if they can't remember the changed details it can cause problems
• They also talked about school trips for Year 2 and planned trips are Joesph and Technicolour Dreamcoat (in High Wycombe in November), a travelling theatre coming in to do 2 shows at the appropriate them times (one about Great Fire of London and one about Florence Nightingale), a star lab in the school in April (recreates the night sky in the hall) and hopefully a trip to Windsor Castle in the summer - altogether they said these will cost about £50.00 and there are Joesph letters and forms in his book bag already (£21.50) so I'll pop those in with the other handouts
• Mr O'Shea also asked if everyone possible could have hot dinner next Thursday in particular as this is when a census of numbers will be taken and some funding is tied up with how many are having free hot school dinners
• Finally there's a questionnaire to fill in about his living arrangements, etc so again I've got an extra copy and will put it the bundle for you and will do one for here and put in his book bag

Those were the main points but the whole presentation will be on the school website as well so might be worth looking at.