Junior Jottings

Dear Parents and Caregivers, 

The term is certainly racing by and it is hard to believe that the holidays are already just around the corner. We are delighted that Miss Jessica Savage will be returning to us from Britain to join our Junior Team. She will be teaching our next New Entrant class straight after the holidays in room 16 now that Room 2 is full.

PARENT INFORMATION EVENINGS

Thank you so much for attending the information evenings about writing, spelling, handwriting and reading. The mathematics one will now be held on Tuesday July 31^st in room 3. I am repeating the first session (handwriting, spelling) on Friday July 27^th at 1.30 pm in room 3 for those of you who were unable to come. I would also appreciate any feedback or if you have any other questions, please let me know.

REPORTS AND LEARNING JOURNEYS

Next Friday afternoon (June 22^nd) the children will be bringing home their report, which will be found inside the front cover of their Learning Journey. The report is designed to show you where your child is at currently and in particular what their next learning goals are in Literacy and Numeracy. Your child will receive a mid year progress report or an anniversary report if they have been at school after one or two years.

There are four parts to the reports. The inside pages show the subjects taught within the New Zealand Curriculum Level 1. Children will work towards achieving Level 1 by the end of their  first two years at school. On the back cover, there are areas which include interpersonal skills and attitudes and a National Standard judgment in reading, writing and mathematics. The comment box shows some of your child’s achievements and their next learning steps which would benefit from support at home.

The curriculum areas and attitudes are 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 taught a particular skill yet, but will have by the end of their first two years at school or they have been at school for only a short time. 

An example of this under ‘Written Language’ is where one indicator in the 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 some of the curriculum indicators can take a child until the end of their second or third year at school to fully achieve. 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 your child is in.

Mathematics

Due to the power cut I have had to postpone the Information evening about Mathematics until next term. The radio said the power would be off for three hours so I apologize for any inconvenience that this may have caused.

When reading your child’s report the following information will help you to see where your child is working in mathematics. The indicators correlate to the mathematical development stages. A brief synopsis is as follows -

Stage 0 and 1 – Emergent where a child is unable to reliably count objects to eight.
Stage 2 – the child is able to solve problems by counting all the objects. They need to use materials, blocks, fingers etc to work out the answers.
Stage 3 – the child is able to solve problems without using materials, often called imaging where children mentally picture or imagine objects.
Stage 4 – the child is able to count on or back to solve problems. We expect the children to have completed this stage at the end of two years at school.

Stage 5 – some of our children in year 2 are working at this stage already which is Level 2 of the National Curriculum.

We place a strong emphasis on counting – both forwards and backwards. The development for 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. Counting forwards aids strategies involving addition while counting backwards aids subtraction strategies.

Year 1 work on identifying numbers to 100 and beyond whereas the Year 2 children should know this and instead be learning to skip count e.g. 2,4,6,8 forwards or 8,6,4,2,0 backwards up to and from 100.  Please note - There is a huge amount of number knowledge for your child to learn over the first two years as they move through the four stages.

Basic Facts Knowledge
When the indicator 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

The children 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 like this, e.g. ? + 1 = 5 or 4 + ? = 5
 

For Your Information - Language used in the reports include:

* Using 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 for our reading and spelling rockets. They also need to be able to transfer these words into their daily writing. 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 using a variety of strategies but their reading may not flow or even make sense or they may not understand what the word means.
* 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, e.g. 2 + 2 + 2 + 2 = 8 which helps them understand it is the same as 4 x 2
* 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 Room 2 who started school this term will not have a written report as they will have a conference with Mrs Mills instead. They will receive a report at the end of term 4. 

The National Standards information is divided into 'well below', 'below', 'at' and 'above'. As an example, in reading ‘after one year at school’ your child should be reading at Level 12. If they are at level 11, even though they have made huge progress, they will be below, if they are at level 3 they will be well below but if they are at level 15 they will be above.

By the end of their second year at school, they should be reading at Level 17 so if your child is reading at level 10 or less they will be well below, if they are level 15 they will be below and if they are at levels 18 or more they will be above. It is important to remember that each child learns at a different rate and often just needs more time to develop.

Please read the report alongside the samples of work in the Learning Journey (previously called the Portfolio). Sit down with your child and ask them to explain each part of their Learning Journey to you. Ask them what they enjoyed, found hard, are working on, etc. Please praise for their efforts and complete the enclosed parent form.

We hope you can see a big improvement in achievements 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 June 27^th and Thursday June 28^th so please make sure you have made your appointment time. School finishes early on both these days at 2.15 p.m. with interviews starting at 2.30 pm. Go to School Interviews, put in the code WGFAJ and follow the prompts to ensure you choose a time that suits you.  Alternatively, see Sue or Carole in the office to make an appointment.

SCHOLASTIC BOOK FAIR
The Muritai School Scholastic book fair is nearly here. Scholastic provide a fantastic opportunity for parents to view and purchase some of the books they have on sale, where you can make a direct purchase, rather than waiting for your order. The book fair will once again run in conjunction with the parent teacher interviews, on both Wednesday the 27th, and Thursday the 28th of June. The library will be open from 2:15 until the end of parent interviews for each evening, so you can come and browse  through what is on sale at your leisure. Any purchases made help the library directly, with a percentage of profits going right back into the library with new books for our children to enjoy.

We are in need of volunteers who can give an hour of their time to help behind the counter at the book fair on either Wednesday or Thursday. If you would like to help or would like to know more of what is involved, before committing to helping please get in touch with Jo Salisbury. Email salisburyjo@gmail.com or give her a call at 589 8090

DISCO – DISCO – DISCO

This great event is next Friday June 22^nd in the hall from 5 to 6pm. Your child needs to go home after school and return by 5 pm.  The children are all excited and are really looking forward to coming. You are very welcome to come along and watch or even join in dancing with your child. The cost is $5 payable at the door. The disco ends promptly at 6 pm and parents need to come and collect their own child. Children will be waiting inside the hall for you and will not be allowed to leave with anyone else. Please be on time in collecting your child as we need to prepare for the next disco.  


Home and School are looking for parents to help set up the disco in the afternoon (between 2 and 3pm) and during the evening helping with ticket sales.  If you are able to help, please contact Narelle at ferrier@vodafone.co.nz

READING EGGS PROGRAMME

The children in Rooms 1, 2 and 3 have been trialing the ‘Reading Eggs’ programme and have really been enjoying it. The trial expires shortly and we need to know if you are interested in continuing with the programme at home. The cost has been reduced by 90% and I have been given a deal which I hope you will take advantage of. It is now $10 per child to purchase right through until February next year.  A notice was sent out on Friday and if you would like your child to continue with Reading Eggs, please complete and return along with $10. This will be due into the office as soon as possible.  If your child is in Year 2 or above or you have a preschooler and you would also like to take up this offer please do so. If you have any queries please do not hesitate to ask me. 

  

WANTED – Can you help?

We always need clean, ice cream containers, boxes, plastic supermarket bags and magazines so if you have any to spare please drop them off to the Rainbow Room (room that goes between rooms 2 and 3.) They would be much appreciated. 

Have a lovely weekend. Keep warm.

Kind regards

Maureen Buckley 

Deputy Principal