Junior Jottings Number 11

Dear Parents and Caregivers

I hope you all had an enjoyable break with your children over Queen's Birthday holiday weekend.

CROSS COUNTRY
Thank you for your patience with the postponement of our Cross Country. We will be having it on Tuesday June 21st at Bishop's Park with a postponement date of Thursday June 23rd instead. We hope the weather and especially the condition of the fields will be better by then. A letter will come home about the event closer to the date. Thank you very much for all the offers of transport. We really appreciate your support with this.

STARTING SCHOOL AT FIVE INFORMATION EVENING
There will be an information evening for parents and caregivers of preschool children in the staffroom next Wednesday June 15th at 7 p.m. Please inform your friends and neighbours, especially if they have children who attend preschools out of the Eastbourne area.

RESEARCH
Thank you to those parents who have signed permission slips for the research. If you would like your child to take part please return your form by Monday.

WANTED

Can you help? Miss Jones in room 6 is collecting clean, plastic takeaway food containers (like the one shown) which she needs to take to the SPCA to use as part of their feeding programme for the new kittens and puppies. If you have any to spare can you please send them along to her in room 6.

HEADLICE
Please continue to check your child's head as we still have some children with nits. Nitsy Pixies, owned by parent Lisa Daniels, has a new method for eradicating these pests. If you would like to learn more, you can collect a brochure from the office.

MATHEMATICS
Each week I am going to explain different aspects of number, which are important for development of numeracy and how you can support this at home with your child. The children progress through stages over their first two years at school. The focus goes through the numbers 1 to 5, then 1 to 10, then 1 to 20, then 1 to 50, then 1 to 100 and beyond.

Counting - We emphasize counting forwards and backwards in each of the above ranges of numbers as well as from different starting points e.g. from 24 or 12 not just 0 or 1.

The number before or after - We say a number and expect that your child will instantly recall the number that goes both before and after it e.g. we say 15 and we would like your child to say 14 or 16 without them counting all the way from one. We do this both orally and by recording.

Skip counting - This is when we ask your child to count in two's, fives or tens both forwards e.g. 0, 2,4,6,8,10 and also backwards 10,8,6,4,2,0.

Each of these aspects are part of the written report on your child's progress which you will receive later this term together with their portfolio showing samples of their work. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to ask.

Best wishes for a great weekend.

Kind regards

Maureen Buckley
Deputy Principal