Welcome to Butterflies! Parent Information Meeting – September 2014

1. Welcome to Butterflies!Parent Information Meeting – September 2014 Mrs Maguire-Blue Butterflies Mrs Painter and Mrs McCarthy-Red Butterflies

2. Morning routines • Phonics- Letters and Sounds • Keywords • Handwriting • Observations and Learning Journeys • Wow Books • Snack and Special Snack • Behaviour and expectations What we are going to cover:

3. Say “Goodbye” to whoever is dropping off at the door. • When the children enter the class they have to complete a number of morning tasks, which will settle them into school routines: • Hang their coat on their peg, this helps them to recognise their name and promotes independence. • Put their water bottle in the water bottle tray. • Put their book bag in the book bag box. • Match their name to their photo on the self registration board. • Choose to play with the activities set up in the classroom. • If your child arrives later than 8:50 they will be marked as late and will need to be dropped off at the school office. In the mornings if you have any dinner money or letters, please give them in to an adult on the door or put in the letters box by the water bottles. Morning Routines

4. We will start learning letter sounds once the children have started full time on. Currently we are working on Phase 1 of ‘Letters and Sounds,’ which works on discriminating different sounds, rhyme, rhythm and oral blending and segmenting. • When we begin teaching Phase 2 of ‘Letters and Sounds,’ we use the ‘Jolly Phonics’ scheme to support our phonics teaching which teaches children an action and a song for each sound. This helps them remember the sound (called a phoneme) by linking it to an action. (There will be a phonics workshop at a later date) • We also use the online ‘Phonics Bug’ resources to support our phonics teaching and as we begin teaching the sounds, we will set children books on the ‘Bug Club’ website. The books on ‘Bug Club’ complement our phonics teaching and help children recognise the different sounds and give them opportunities to read simple words with the sounds that they know. • We will begin by learning the following set of phonemes s a t p i n m d g o c k ck e u r h b f, ff,l, ll(four sounds each week). The next set of phonemes will be j v w x y z zz qu. After this they go on to trickier phonemes for example ch, sh, oa, ee or. • Your child will have a sound/phoneme book to practise the sounds at home. This will be sent home daily and please return to school the following day for the next sound. We will then assess the children’s understanding each Friday by writing the sounds on a whiteboard, without picture clues because this helps them to recognise them in books, around the classroom and out of school etc. Phonics - Letters and Sounds

5. Alongside phonics, the children will begin to learn the first one hundred high frequency words. • These will include sounds they have previously learnt and they will get progressively harder leading on to words that they will not be able to sound out phonetically. • The first words they will receive will be easier to sound out for example, an, can, at, dad, mum etc. • Children will receive the keywords on posters to practice at home. When the children are practising their key words, they need to work towards reading them by sight. • We will test the children at the end of the week to see if they know their keywords and are ready to move on to the next key word poster. Keywords

6. This encourages children to join their letters earlierand helps with spelling. • We will model letter formation as part of our daily phonics session. • We will send home cursive letter sheets for you to practice with your child. This will really help improve their writing! • The children will also start to learn and practise their name as part of an early morning task. Cursive Handwriting!

7. Each child has a learning journey where all their observations and evidence is collected. We collect this evidence using I pads. • We do focused observations and incidental observations. We also collect photos and examples of children’s work to add to their learning journeys • When children have demonstrated a secure understanding of an early learning objective during child initiated tasks, we highlight the relevant section/statement of the ‘Development Matters’ record sheets. • Most of our evidence is collected during child initiated tasks • There will be opportunities for you to look at your child’s/ children’s folders Throughout the year. Observations and learning journeys

8. The children are all entitled to a free school snack, we have this in the morning. • When the children start full time it is up to you if they will bring a snack from home for afternoon snack time. • The snack has to be a piece of fruit. • We are going to start special snack when the children are in full time. • Please pay the special snack money which is £10 for the year. Snack Time and Special Snack

9. In Butterflies, we have very high expectations of behaviour and this is the same throughout the school. • We have introduced the ‘Golden Rules’ to the children and we are a ‘values-based school’. This means we focus on a different value each month which we work on with the children and promote in our daily teaching. • We give the children lots of praise, rewards and really focus on their positive behaviour. • If a child has misbehaved they will be given a reminder of the behaviour expected, if the unwanted behaviour continues the child will be given a warning. If the warning fails to change the unwanted behaviour then the child will have time out on the time out spot. Here they can calm down think about their actions and apologise. Behaviour, rewards and sanctions.

10. Today you will receive a ‘Wow Book.’ This book will ensure good links between home and school and celebrate the whole child. • The wow book is for your child(ren) to take home and decorate the front cover and back cover. You can decorate it in any way you choose to • The sort of things we are looking for in the Wow Books- • Photo evidence • Drawings • Certificates • Magic moments • Topic related work Health warning!!! • The purpose of the book is to get a wider picture of your child’s interests, achievements and learning steps so it should be informative but realistic! It also has to be manageable to look through and to share with the rest of the class. • We will show them as often as we can but please don’t worry if you don’t always have something put in it. WOW!! Wow Books!

11. Reminder The children will need a named PE kit and wellies in school next term.These are kept at school. Any Questions? Thank you very much for coming!