4 July 2011

Dear Parents and Caregivers

Kia Ora Koutou
This week is Maori Language week and the children will be learning some te reo and waiate. Sincere thanks goes to Arini Poutu for giving up her time to talk to the Year 2 students last week about Matariki.

Reports and Portfolios
Next Friday July 8th the children will bring home their report, which will be found inside the front cover of their portfolio. The format for the Year 1 and Year 2 reports is the same but the levels of achievement can be different between them in some areas. The report is designed to show where your child is at currently and what their next learning goals are in Literacy and Numeracy.

Each report is designed in curriculum areas from Level 1 of the New Zealand Curriculum, which children achieve over their first two years at school. Each report has key indicators of what we would like the children to be attaining by the end of this year and general comments including more specific goals that need to be attained and would benefit from support at home.

Each of these areas is marked with a tick in one of four columns. The columns are graded as NY - Not Yet, AT - At Times, M - Mostly and A - Always. Many children, particularly our younger children, will get Not Yet in many areas. There are many reasons for this including the fact that they have not been at school very long or have not been taught a particular skill yet but will have by the end of their first two years at school.

An example under ‘Written Language’ is where one indicator in both the Year 1 and Year 2 reports says ‘is able to sequence their ideas into a beginning, middle and ending.’ Year 1 children may get Not Yet or At Times because they are either not at the stage of writing even one sentence independently, let alone three or more that begin to show the structure. A Year 2 child may also get Not Yet or At times if they are only doing a beginning and an ending for example. They would get Always if they consistently wrote their stories using this entire structure independently.

Please note that this can take a child until the end of their second or third year at school to fully achieve this. The teachers in both year groups have met together and moderated for each of the indicators in the reports so that there is consistency across the year group regardless of which classroom they are in.

Mathematics
The indicators correlate to the mathematical development stages

Year 1:
Stage 2 - able to solve problems by counting all the objects where children need to use materials, blocks, fingers etc to work out the answers
Stage 3 - able to solve problems without using materials,often called imaging where children mentally picture objects.
Stage 4 - able to count on or back to solve problems. We expect te children to have completed this stage at the end of two years at school.

Year 2:
The above indicator is also on the Year 2 report
Counting forwards and backwards goes in the ranges of 0 to 5, 0 to 10, 0 to 20 and by Year 2 - 0 to 100 and beyond.
Year 1 work on identifying numbers to 100 and beyond whereas the Year 2 children know this and learn skip counting e.g. 2,4,6,8 forwards or 8,6,4,2,0 backwards up to and from 100.

Basic Fact knowledge
When it says ‘knows basic facts to 5’ for example, the child needs to know every combination of basic fact for each equation before ‘Always’ is given.

An example of just one equation is
2 + 3 = 5, 3 + 2 = 5, 3 + ? = 5, ? + 2 = 5,

5 – 3 = 2, 5 – 2 = 3 ? - 3 = 2, ? – 2 = 3
They then learn basic facts to ten and then in Year 2 basic facts to twenty. Many children know 4 + 1 = 5 for example but find it very hard when they have to learn change unknown and change, i.e. ? + 1 = 5 or 4 + ? = 5

We have set up the Basic Facts carriages as part of homework to help support the learning of basic facts. Year 2 children began this during Term 2 and Year 1 will start theirs in Term 3.

For Your Information - Language used in the reports include:
A high frequency words – these are the most common words that research shows children need to know for success in reading, writing and spelling. There are two hundred and ninety and we have used these words as a basis of our reading and spelling rockets. Children of course can read, write and spell lots of other words too.
* Decoding – this is where the child recognizes or can work out an unknown word by a variety of strategies but their reading may not flow or even make sense.
* Letter sound knowledge – children need to know all twenty six sounds of the alphabet, e.g. a very good understanding of the sounds and be able to apply them independently in all literacy areas. They may know the names of the letters but no sounds. The sooner they learn and use the sounds the faster their progress in all literacy areas will be.
* repeated addition to solve multiplication problems – This is where the children know, eg 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 which helps them understand it is the same as 4 x 2 (please note this has not been taught in Year 2 as yet but multiplication and division will be in term 3 so children will have ticks in the not yet column).
* share a set of objects out evenly to solve division problems is where for example 12 objects will be sorted to solve 12 ÷ 4 = 3 or 12 ÷ 3 = 4 or 12 ÷ 6 = 2 or 12 ÷ 2 = 6 or 12 ÷ 1 = 12
* double and halving is where children know the doubles 1 +1, 2 + 2 , 3+3 to 10 + 10 while applying the reverse is halving e.g. half of 14 is 7, half of 4 is 2 etc

Please note – Children in Rooms 3 and 16 who started school this term will not have a written report as they will have a comprehensive interview instead. You will receive one at the end of term 4.

Please read the report alongside the samples of work in the portfolio. Sit down with your child and ask them to explain each part of their learning in the portfolio to you. Ask them what they enjoyed, found hard, are working on, etc

We hope you can see a big improvement in what they have already achieved this year and where they need to go next in their learning. We look forward to meeting with you to discuss their progress at the upcoming conferences.

Parent Conferences
These will be held on Wednesday July 13th and Thursday July 14th so please make sure you have made your appointment time. School finishes early on both these days at 1.50 with interviews starting at 2pm. Go to School Interviews, put in the code LZ83V and follow the prompts to ensure you choose a time that suits you.

Scholastic Book Fair
Every year our school runs a Bookfair to coincide with the parent/teacher conferences. Any books you purchase can be taken home on the night and every purchase made goes into a prize draw. Eftpos will be available. Anyone who would like to volunteer some time to help in the library during the fair please do not hesitate to contact Jo Salisbury on salisburyjo@gmail.com

Vision and Hearing Testing
On Tuesday 12 July Jackie will be coming to school to test the vision and hearing of our youngest children. If they are tested during that day they will bring home a notice from her containing their result.

Orphans of Nepal
For many years we have been supporting the Orphans of Nepal as we believe it is extremely important that the students think of others around the world, who are less fortunate than themselves. This year we are having a ‘Book Character Dress Up Day’ on the last day of the term – Friday July 15th. This is an opportunity for your child to come to school dressed up as their favourite character from a book and make a monetary donation for the privilege. The money raised will be used to purchase library books for the orphanage. During the last week of school the children will be able to suggest titles that they think the children would enjoy and we will purchase those and send them over. Over the week we are also doing some other fun activities around books and reading. The library will be open during lunchtime for children to listen to many favourite stories being read aloud by different staff members. There will also be exchanges between buddy classes sharing books and related activities.

Have a great week and I hope you manage to stay warm.

Kind regards
Maureen Buckley
Deputy Principal