Curriculum evening

General 

Elliott had a good day at school, particularly enjoying PE and the fact that it was Mrs Davies's birthday today. Elliott was really good after school today. After yesterday I'd challenged him to get changed before and after swimming quickly and to listen extra hard to what his swimming teacher was saying during the lesson and he rose to the challenge. He was also really good after we got home so we used some of his pocket money to download the Lego Marvel Superheroes game on to the iPad as a reward. But we also had a chat about how it's good to concentrate and respond quickly all the time and how he won't get a reward all the time, but if he's naughty he might have things like the iPad taken away for period of time until he's been good again. 

Activities

After school we went to his swimming lesson which went really well and then rushed home for tea (toast and bear fruit) so I could head out to the curriculum evening for Year 3 while Andrea looked after him. He was really good for Andrea and read some more of his Horrid Henry school book and wrote in his reading record. I was home in time for bed time so he asked to play some guitar before bed (quickly) and then after brushing his teeth it was bed time. The curriculum evening was good and they are going to put the PowerPoint slides on the website tomorrow, but the main things I noted were:

• Every day will have an English lesson, a Maths lesson, some reading time for them, some time when they listen to a book being read out (lots of Roald Dahl, etc), grammar, spelling and punctuation every day and rotated other subjects like History, Geography, etc
• There will be themes each half term like last year and available to see in curriculum jigsaws on the website - Stone Age is big at the moment
• The National Curriculum assessment method has now changed and it will now be up to the school so they've devised new assessment methods where they have 3 steps for each year group in the different areas - "entering", "developing" and "secure" - so the idea, I think, is to get everyone into the "secure" step for Year 3 in the different areas by the end of the year 
• Some things will be really important for those assessments - ie being very fluent in 3x, 4x and 8x tables (out of turn, and dividing as well as multiplying) will be key for Maths and we can find out what those are in a document that will be on the website
• There will be some intervention groups set up for pupils like last year if there are areas where improvement is needed and if Elliott is in one we will get a letter in the next week (I'm guessing he might be in a handwriting group)
• There will be Maths and English homework each weekend designed to reinforce learning from the week and due in by Thursday the next week - he should be able to complete it independently but it's a good idea to look at it during the weekend so if he can't do it we can let Mrs Davies know in a note and she can help him remember what to do
• There will be several trips this year including a trip to the theatre, a trip to the cinema, a trip to ancient village, some kind of Roman themed trip, RE inspired trip to church and a trip to the Toby carvery to see how a restaurant works
• In the Spring Term they'll go swimming every Friday which will cost £37 for 10 sessions and in session 1 they'll be assessed and put into 4 or 5 different ability groups for teaching
• They are all going to be learning the ukulele this year and separate music lessons can be organised with Berkshire Maestros at any time - Elliott has been talking about wanting to learn guitar so I was thinking of maybe getting a ukulele for him to practice on at home and seeing how he gets on with it this year and if he seems interested and keeps it up thinking about some kind of music lessons next year, but if he's not that keen I don't want to push things on him
• Holidays during term time will only be approved under special circumstances and if we want to ask it has to be by asking the Head in advance - if he does go on an unapproved holiday the Council will fine parents