Dear Parents and children,
Many of you have asked for learning to be available to dip into over the summer holidays. The first thing you need to know is that despite this difficult year, full of disruption, the children have definitely risen to all the challenges they have been faced with. The combination of your help and support and our teaching, both face to face and online, has led them to make amazing progress. What a partnership! The children (and possibly you parents) definitely need a rest and need to recharge those tired batteries, and what better way than to spend some lovely time all together as a family, relaxing, having fun and hopefully enjoying some decent weather.
As a school we definitely do not want to set compulsory work to complete, however we know that six weeks is a long time and both you and the children may want to have some guidance. The best guidance we can give is to practise, practise, practise! Keep that love of reading active which will help that important vocabulary to grow, much needed for real success. Over summer children will be able to continue to quiz and I have a feeling many will keep trying to smash targets as they have been doing all year! Alongside this, every teacher will be providing guidance and activities for their specific year groups. These are overlearning, practise activities, which will help your child to keep their learning ticking over. You know your children best and you will know if this is something that would benefit them to do. You may decide to do little and often, you may decide to dip in and out or you may decide to use these activities the week before returning or not at all. As always we trust you to make your own decisions because you know what works best on the home front.
READING
Sustain that love of reading - nothing like getting lost in a book-“Reading is essential for those who seek to rise above the ordinary.” - Jim Rohn. the ACR remains accessible from home.
WRITING
Why not get involved in the Cards for Kindness project:
Cards for Kindness is an initiative which aims to reduce loneliness in our care homes by encouraging members of the community to send a card to a local care home. Press the link below to find out more.
MATHS
A little updated guided to TTRockstars and how to get the best out of it this summer. Alongside this is another guide to IXl for some more overlearning.
OAK ACADEMY SUMMER CLASSROOM - A very wide variety of lessons to take part in!
Please watch the film for a guide to the Oak Academy Summer Classroom! So many lessons to dip into!
HANDWRITING
Writing stamina and hand strength is key to enjoying the writing progress. This work part of the blog has been plucked from our Easter support blog - REMEMBER before you complete any handwriting get your hand all warmed up - this is a stage we sometimes skip - but as you do it with your child you will see just how important it is. Click on the warm up film to watch a warm up guided by an occupational therapist. This really helps strength and co-ordination. Now watch the Oxford owl guide for younger children.
Cursive handwriting is taught in school. For this we think about the letters in letter formation families. Here is a little film showing these letter families and why they are grouped the way they are.
Once you are feeling confident, practise sustaining your writing for 5 minutes. Grab a timer and see how much you write. Then write again the next day, and the next. You will be building up your stamina. A set of famous poems (twinkle models) have been attached for you to copy when you take on this handwriting stamina challenge!
Have a lovely holiday - we hope you are able to see friends and families please stay safe always.
God Bless all the teaching staff