Pixie
PIXIE CLASS
| JUNE | JULY |
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3rd – First day back |
2nd-3rd – Class swap (transition) sure all books are back) |
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WELCOME BACK! Welcome back everybody! I’m still trying to get over the fact that I’m writing the final newsletter of the academic year - it has flown so quickly! I am so proud of every single Pixie in the class, they have all matured beautifully over the year and all have an amazing attitude to their learning and work. I hope you’re proud of them too! Our last topic of the school year is going to be ‘Vikings’ - this is a whole school topic and there are lots of fun activities planned for both children and parents! It’s with sadness to inform you that Miss Cotterill has just one week left of her teacher training placement in Pixie Class. The children have really enjoyed her fun lessons and creative ideas. We will miss her very much and wish her the best of luck for her future in teaching.
PHONICS SCREENING CHECK Phonics screening checks begin next week (WC Mon 10th). If your child is absent for the week or misses their window for the check due to absence they will sit it during the following week (WC Mon 17th). The children have been working really hard at school and this week we will be playing lots of phonics games. We do not pressure children in the class to get it right and we don’t make a big deal about it if they are incorrect. Please do this at home also, they’re only 5 and 6 and should not be worried about it at all. On another note, you may have noticed that your child has been practising sounds rather than the usual reading they do at school. This may not always be noted in the reading diaries, but we try our best to remember. This is to help them with the phonics check. Each child is still reading at least once a week with an adult at school. After the check, reading activities will resume as normal. Please continue to read with your child as it really does make a difference. If you have any questions/concerns regarding the check please see me.
PREPARATION FOR YEAR 2 As the Pixies are very soon transforming into Unicorns, we will be adapting the year 1 classroom to help them adjust to new surroundings next year. Lesson inputs will be done with children sitting at the tables instead of the carpet, as this is the style in year 2. The year 2 classroom is a converted ICT suite and is the smallest classroom in the school. For this reason, I ask that parents do not enter the pixie classroom in the morning or after-school. Children are more than capable of putting their own things away or finding lost cardigans/jumpers (they do this multiple times during the day with no issues). Obviously there are exceptions, for example, if you need to speak to me (please do this after-school only). I am doing this now only to help the children transition into year 2 more smoothly.
GENERAL REMINDERS
If you have any queries, concerns or questions, please come and see me after school. Thank you, Miss Sutton & Mrs. Lester |
DATES TO REMEMBER
| APRIL | MAY | JUNE |
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23rd – First day back 23rd – Library bus at school |
2nd – INSET day 6th – May Day (bank holiday) 21st – Library bus 22nd – Class photograph day 23rd – School closed (polling day) 24th – Last day of half-term |
3rd – First day back w/c 10th – Phonics check week 1 |
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WELCOME BACK! Welcome back everybody! I can’t believe we’re now in the final term, it has flown so quickly! I hope that everybody has had a wonderful Easter break and there were not too many sugar-rushes from all of the Easter eggs! This half term our topic is going to be ‘Into Space!’. We’re going to be investigating our solar system, the moon landings and answering the pixie’s questions, such as “Why is the sun so hot?” “Do aliens exist?” “Are there flowers in space?” and “How bright are the stars?” This half-term, Miss Cotterill will be teaching for the majority of the weeks as she is on her teacher training. Both she and the pixies are excited to blast into space with our learning! |
PHONICS SCREENING CHECK
With the phonics screening check approaching, please make sure you read with your child as much as possible. Encourage reading whether it’s books or on the iPad, TV, car number plates, shopping lists and everything else that can be read!
The PPT slides from the phonics screening session are uploaded to the Pixie class page if you would like to go through them again.
If you have any questions or worries about the check please come and see me any day after-school.
HOMEWORK
From this half term, there will be homework going out each Friday. Part of the homework will be 10 spellings they need to learn. These are from the common exception words that all year 1s need to be able to spell. Most of the children know how to spell these anyway but just to be sure - a spelling check will be done each Thursday checking the previous Friday’s words.
Extra activities to support the learning we have been doing at school will also be going home. I ask that this be in the following week.
All homework is optional, but everyone will be taking part in the spelling check each Thursday morning at school.
Any questions please ask me after school.
GENERAL REMINDERS
- PE will be every Tuesday afternoon and most Friday mornings (weather permitting). Please send your child with an outdoor PE kit too (tracksuit bottoms, plimsolls/trainers).
- Please keep labelling everything you send your child to school with! Please remember to label water bottles, white polo tops and PE kit, as these go missing too!
- As the weather is getting warmer, please remember to send children in sunblock and sunhats to school. You can also send children with their own sunblock if you would like them to reapply it during the day (please label and put in bookbag/schoolbag)
If you have any queries, concerns or questions, please come and see me after school.
Thank you,
Miss Sutton, Mrs. Lester & Miss Cotterill.
PixieClassPhotos
Below are some photos from our school trip to the National Emergency Services Museum. All of the children had a wonderful time! The children were very well behaved and enjoyed being firefighters, police officers and paramedics for the day! Our Great Fire of London workshop was good fun and the children wowed the presenter with their knowledge of the Great Fire!
National Emergency Services school trip
PIXIE CLASS
Dates to remember
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FEBRUARY 26th– Mobile library bus. |
MARCH 7th– World Book Day 11th-15th– Science week 19th– Parent’s Evening night 1 20th– Parent’s Evening night 2 26th– Mobile library bus 27th– Bunny Bounce 28th– Phonics Screening Meeting 29th– NESM trip |
APRIL 5th– Last day of term 23rd– First day back |
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Welcome back!
Welcome back everybody! We hope you have had a nice week off.
I am really excited to start our new topic “The Great Fire of London”. This term we will be learning all about the capital and how life was in 1666. We will be using the money raised from the snowmen sales to make bread and cake recipes from the 17thcentury. If you have any books or interesting items at home that relate to our topic we would love it if we could look at them and share them with the Pixies – we promise to take care of them!
This half term and next half term you may notice a new face in Pixie Class. This is Miss Cotterill, she is doing part of her teacher training in our class and is very excited to work with the children J
National Emergency Services Museum trip
On Friday 29th March, year 1 will be visiting the NESM in Sheffield to look at how they fought fires in 1666 and to do a workshop about the Great Fire of London!
A separate letter about this is attached.
Reading
Reading is now more important than ever in year 1. Please encourage your child to read as much as you can. We have just finished learning the major sounds in year 1 and consolidating reading skills at home will you’re your child read more fluently.
I know it’s sometimes a lot to ask when you’ve both had a long day at school/work but just 5 minutes benefits the children greatly with their learning and also has huge impacts on their writing. Try encouraging them to read ingredients, menus, short stories on an iPad/tablet, road signs, grocery
items or writing and then reading shopping lists when at the supermarket.
Maybe even ask them to read part of this newsletter!
Phonics Screening Check
Those of you who have had children in year 1 before, you will already know that there is a statuary assessment in June that assesses children’s reading capabilities. This is called the ‘Phonics Screening Check’. It is designed to give teachers and parents information on how your child is progressing in phonics. It will help to identify whether your child needs additional support at this stage so that they do not fall behind in this vital early reading skill.
I am holding a meeting after school on Thursday 28thMarch that will thoroughly explain what the assessment entails and what the children will need to learn and do in time for it, please come to this meeting it should take less than 20 minutes.
Some important information to know now about the check:
- The check takes around 5-10 minutes and is 1:1 with myself.
- The two-week window is Monday 10thJune – Friday 21stJune 2019
- Any child absent for the whole fortnight will have to sit the 2020 check.
- Any child that does not pass will have to sit the 2020 check.
General Reminders
- PE will be every Friday morning and every Tuesday afternoon. Children will need their indoor and outdoor PE kit.
- Please keep labelling everythingyou send your child to school with, including PE kit and white polo tops!
- During science week, children can bring lab coats or old white shirts to wear when doing any experiments.
If you have any queries, concerns or questions, please come and see me after school.
Thank you,
Miss Sutton and Mrs. Lester
PIXIE CLASS
Welcome back!
Welcome back everybody! We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas, a Happy New Year and have made lots of lovely memories. Myself and Mrs. Lester would like to share our warmest gratitude for such thoughtful cards and Christmas gifts, we appreciate them very much, thank you!
We’re all excited to start a fresh term with our new topic ‘Paws Claws and Whiskers’. This term we will be learning about the animal kingdoms, habitats, food chains and we are even having some animals come to visit us! If you have any books or interesting items at home that relate to our topic we would love it if we could look at them and share them with the Pixies – we promise to take care of them!
PLEASE READ/RESPOND - ZooLab visit
Last year in Pixie class we had the pleasure of ZooLab coming to visit the school and bring in some animals. Thanks to the wonderful work of the PTFA, we have been able to invite them again at no cost to the children.
A presenter will come and bring some animals for the children to look at. I have heard there will be tarantulas, scorpions, cockroaches, snakes etc. The children will have the opportunity to handle the animals, if you do not want your child handling the animals please let me know. On the day, each child has the choice whether to hold each animal or not as it comes around.
If you have any questions or worries, please let me know!
Reading
I am so proud of all of the Pixies for their fantastic reading, both at home and at school. You should be very proud of them too! Please carry on reading as much as possible with your child this term. It makes such a difference to their learning and their attitude to reading when they see the people they love the most enjoy reading with them.
From now, children will be doing guided reading instead of individual reading. The children should know how to swap their own reading books to take home.
General Reminders
- PEwill be every Friday morning. Children will need their indoor PE kit.
- Please keep labelling everythingyou send your child to school with, including PE kit!
If you have any queries, concerns or questions, please come and see me after school.
Thank you,
Miss Sutton and Mrs. Lester
PIXIE CLASS
Dates to remember
SEPTEMBER:
27TH – Back to school disco
28TH – (3pm) Macmillan coffee afternoon (any cakes appreciated)
OCTOBER:
10TH – School photograph day
16TH – Flu vaccinations
25TH – (9:15am) Harvest Festival KS1
26TH – Last day of term
5TH – First day back
Dear Pixie families
Welcome back to a new school year! I hope you have had a wonderful summer holiday and are excited to start the first term back. Your little Gnomes are now fully fledged Pixies and I am looking forward to getting to know them better over the next few weeks.
This year myself and the Pixies are lucky to have Mrs Lester helping us each morning throughout the week. I know we’re going to have a fantastic first half term and our exciting first topic is Spain! We will be learning about the seaside, tapas (mmm J), holidays, weather and the Spanish royal family.
We are aiming to make the transition from reception to year one as smooth as possible. Play will still be a very important part of the Pixie’s learning however we will be slowly moving into a more formal learning environment which reflects the national curriculum as the year goes on.
In Pixie class we encourage the children to be very independent, this includes coming into the classroom and putting their things away by themselves. For the first week back, please feel free to come into the classroom with your child (if you think they may need some help adjusting to a new environment). If your child is already independent and feels confident coming into the classroom, then please leave them at the door, there will always be a grown up in the room to greet the children and help them with our morning routine J.
Reading
Reading in year one is more important than ever. Children are encouraged to read daily to prepare for the phonics screening check in June (more information will be given out closer to the time).
Children will be given a book/s to read at home along with a reading diary for you to fill in and return to school. When children can read the book easily then it will be swapped for another.
Each Friday the diaries will be checked for comments, and how many times they have read, for every entry in their diary they will receive a Dojo point!
Behaviour
Behaviour ladder
Now that your children are Pixies they will be using the behaviour system that is used all the way up into year 6. Each day the children all start on “Ready to Learn” and can move up the ladder for demonstrating Gateford Park’s values. However, they can also move down the ladder and face consequences of any wrong choices they may make. Children can move up and down throughout the day. At the end of the week any child that has made it to out of this world more than once will get a prize from the prize box!
Star of the day chair
Each day a child will be chosen to sit in the star of the day chair! Children can earn this reward by behaving well, doing good work, being a good friend and/or following the school rules. They will assist in special jobs all day, such as taking the register to the office with a friend of their choice and standing at the front of the line.
Pixie Prizes:
When the whole class are behaving well and following the school rules they can earn a pixie prize. Once the pixies have earned 10 pixie prizes they can have a treat of their choice (film and popcorn, playing games, ice lollies etc).
General Reminders
- Please label everything! So many cardigans and jumpers end up in lost property each year because the children’s clothes are not labelled, it must cost a fortune to replace! If you do not have permanent markers, come and see me because I have plenty!
- PE is on Tuesday afternoons and Thursday afternoons. Children will need their indoor and outdoor PE kit in school at all times.
- Children should bring in their own water bottle from home (please label this clearly).
- A polite reminder to stand at the fence (on the top playground) when collecting your child from school, this is for the safety of all children in Pixie and Gnome class.
Finally, if you are interested in becoming a parent helper (listening to the children read or help with spellings) please let me know as soon as possible! Even if it’s just an hour, we would really appreciate the help. J
If you have any queries, concerns or questions, please come and see me, either briefly before school starts or come and see me after school, my door is always open.
Miss Sutton and Mrs. Lester J
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