Welcome to Year Three

1. Welcome to Year Three

2. Who is Who? • Mrs Dimbylow is the Year Three class teacher. • Mrs McCann and Mrs Whitney are also supporting Year Three children. All children receive Quality First Teaching, differentiated according to their ability. Mrs McCann and Mrs Whitney will support some children, sometimes individually, sometimes in groups on areas of the curriculum where they would benefit from extra help. • Mr Ault and Mrs Tucker will cover PPA time with PE and Music on Wednesday afternoons • Other adults in class – Mrs Miller for French.

3. Our Timetable • A copy of the timetable is available for you to take away. • Please be aware that this is not set in stone! • This is for the first term and as such includes one PE slot plus a swimming slot. Hence, we have literacy on a Thursday afternoon. Next term, PE will be Friday last session and Literacy will be moved to the Thursday morning. • On occasion, we may have a day of science, or a week of D.T. etc, depending on the tasks involved.

4. Class Organisation • SENCo Leadership and Management Time - What? When? Why? Who? • PE uniform – black or navy blue shorts, white top. Long hair tied up. Plasters for earings. • New homework will be given out on Thursday. Homework is due in on Tuesday. • Spellings and times tables / number activities will be issued on alternate weeks.

5. Homework • Reading to be done at least 3 times per week if possible. • Spellings and number work activities will be given on alternate weeks. This is not something to be completed and handed in – it may be a game, a website activity such as ‘Sumdog’, or a list of spellings or times tables to learn at home. • A more formal piece of homework will be set on a Thursday to be completed in the homework book unless otherwise stated.

6. Homework menu system • Some of the teachers are trying a new homework menu system this term. • Take-away style menu to choose an activity from – the activities range from ‘cool’ through to ‘extra hot’, depending on their difficulty or the time needed to complete them. • Children can chose an activity from the menu to complete each week, but must complete at least one from each section. • Occasionally I may set a piece of maths work to be completed to follow up work done that week, instead of a menu choice

7. Reading around The World • Each child has a ‘passport’ to record when they have read 10 minutes. • The dot can be coloured in by the child and initialled by an adult. • Not more than 2 x 10 minutes can be coloured on any one night. • The children read their way around the world and this will be recorded on a map in the classroom.

8. Our New Curriculum • Autumn Term 2014 – Stig Of The Dump; Stone Age to Iron Age Britain. • History, Geography, Art, DT will be covered through our theme • Literacy work will often tie in too • Guided Reading – as before • Groupings – maths, literacy and class places • Computing – staff training

9. Assessments • Teacher Assessment throughout the year. • Tasks and Tests only help to inform the Teacher Assessment. • Assessment in literacy and maths is ongoing through a system called APP ( Assessing Pupil Progress). • Personal Targets – • In literacy the children are set personal targets. These will reflect a whole class focus such as sentence work, and individual targets around punctuation or vocabulary. They will be kept in the front of their literacy books.

10. Self and Peer assessment • As well as us assessing the children, we encourage them to assess themselves. • Each lesson or group of lessons has a Learning Objective e.g. Can I add two 2-digit numbers? • The children are then given the steps, or ‘Success Criteria’ that they need to achieve to be successful in that lesson. • At the end of each lesson, the children tick the success criteria that they think they have achieved, and when I mark it, I do the same.

11. Reward Systems • Team points given in Red, Yellow, Green and Blue teams. These will be given for good work, answering in class, being kind etc. • Each child will keep a record of their own points through a sticker on bookmarks system. This will feed into individual rewards of bronze, silver, gold and platinum for collecting a certain amount of team points. Prizes will be given when these milestones are reached. • Whole class reward system – Class points! When the class as a whole work hard, line up well etc, they will earn points. 60 points earns a class treat.

12. Behaviour • A high standard of behaviour is, as you know, expected at all times. • Behaviour system – red, amber, green, gold • Be assured that incidents that happen between children in school will be dealt with as we feel appropriate. We will usually not involve parents. • More serious incidents may require a brief meeting with parents. • Please remember that there are two sides to every story!

13. How can you help? • Support with homework and spelling activities, revisiting spellings over the week. • Aim to hear your child read at least three times a week. • Let us know if there are any significant changes at home. • If your child is sick please do not send them into to school for 48 hours after the last time of being sick. • Medication- you need to complete a form from the office. • Encourage your child to be independent – taking responsibilitiy for own uniform, water bottle etc

14. Dates for your diary: • Swimming starts this Thursday – costume, towel, goggles (if needed). • Friday 26th September: Macmillan Coffee Morning • Residential visit to Burwardsley – 9th/10th February – provisional date

15. ....and finally! • Water Bottles – water only please! • I am, of course, available if you have any worries or concerns. However, 8:45 is not a good time, as I am usually greeting the children and may not have another member of staff with me. Please see the office staff who will pass a message to me and I can call you to discuss it, or arrange a time for you to pop in. • Email – messages can be sent to me on edimbylow@sandiway.cheshire.sch.uk This is fine for small bits of information – eg a doctors appointment next week etc, but I would always prefer to have a conversation if you have a worry or issue!