Welcome to Year 1.

Miss Huffey, Mrs Davies and Miss Sekhon

Autumn term 2015As the children return smartly dressed for a

new academic year we welcome you, as parents, to join in and help us to ensure your child has the best learning experience.

Please keep up to date with information and important dates that will be displayed on your classroom door and on our school website.

http://www.stjohnsprimary.kent.sch.uk/

Important weekly information:-Monday- Homework collected, spelling tests, outdoor

PE (class 5)Tuesday- Homework given out, outdoor PE (class 4)Wednesday- Class 6 library, class 5 (indoor PE)Thursday- Class 4,6 indoor P.E. (please ensure all

jewellery is removed), class 4 libraryFriday- Class 5 library, outdoor PE (class 6)

Reading- Your child will be allocated a set reading day. Please ensure that you read with your child every evening and comment accordingly in their reading record book.

Maths New curriculum has more emphasis on written

calculations – school’s calculation policy is being updated and will be available on the website to refer to and support your children at home with the methods taught in school.

More emphasis on deeper understanding, pupils being able to explore, reason and problem solve

Problem Solving and Reasoning All lessons have been adapted to include problem

solving and reasoning opportunities to enable pupils to apply their knowledge and explain their work for deeper understanding.

We will now have additional problem solving lessons covering five different problem types.

‘Problem Solving Homework Packs’ will be sent home regularly so the children can apply their skills at home…..please support and ‘play’ these games with your children at home (a home/school record book is on order for teacher and parent to record observations)

Website

The Maths page of the school website will have links to:• The updated calculations policy (by half term)• Year Group Guidance / Programmes of Study• Links to games and activities

The Year Group pages will have information on the skills being covered in each term.

Rapid•Rapid is a new intervention programme being implemented across the school. The programme is designed to support children struggling with concepts in the new curriculum in Literacy and Maths.

•The programme is designed to support pupils to make 'rapid' progress in clearly identified areas and intervention could last from 1 to 6 weeks.

•Children in need of this intervention will be identified by the teacher and is reviewed regularly.

•For those children placed in a rapid intervention on occasions the activities may include a short homework activity book to consolidate the learning or some online activities. The class teacher can provide more details on this if relevant at the time.

Rapid – Reading & Writing

• After ongoing teacher assessment, it be necessary for your child to enter the reading and writing intervention scheme.

• Based on their reading age.• Programme lasts 6 weeks.• Books, for reading, will be sent home and also

available as e-books online.

Assessment Without Levels

Information for Parents

Why do we need a new Assessment system?

With the introduction of the New Curriculum, the DFE announced the removal of levels, stating that they were no longer a reliable method of assessment and reporting. Against the new Teaching and Learning regime. Their ‘Core Principles of Assessment ‘ document stated that ‘effective assessment systems’ should:-give reliable information to parents about how their child, and their child’s school, is performing-help drive improvement for pupils and teachers, and -make sure the school is keeping up with external best practice and innovationHowever, they announced that it was up to schools to devise their own methods of Assessment based on these principles.

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4b was the expected average for a year 6 child. The floor target for combined RWM level 4 + 65%.

Children should be reported as EMERGING, EXPECTED or EXCEEDING the standards for their year.Floor target of 85% of year 6 children to reach ‘Expected Standard’ for year 6 in Summer 2016.

Levels:• 1c 1b 1a• 2c 2b 2a• 3c 3b 3a• 4c 4b 4a• 5c 5b 5a• 6c

Age Related Standards• Year 1• Year 2• Year 3• Year 4• Year 5• Year 6

2014-2015 What Assessment system should we use?

2015-2016 New Assessment system embedded.

Formative (ongoing) Assessment and Summative (End point) Assessment

Kent Learning Pathways (FORMATIVE)

• Use of Kent Standards Assessment to track children’s progress against the EXPECTED standard for each year.

• -Year group standards will be called BANDS. Year 1 children ‘expected’ to be working on Band 1, year 5 on Band5 etc.

• The majority of children will begin on the BAND for their age group. They will be described as EMERGING in the band and will work through achieving targets to achieve EXPECTED by the end of the year.

• Children with gaps in their learning journey may work through achieving objectives on ‘lower’ bands if appropriate. More able children will work on mastering the objectives for their year group band and will be described as ‘EXCEEDING’ by the end of the year.

• All children will have their own learning pathway,. Achievement of targets will be evidenced and will be updated regularly by the class teacher . A child’s progress along the pathway will be shared with parents and form a basis of the dialogue at parents consultations.

• IMPORTANT to note the raised expectations for each year group- e.g. in maths, to achieve ‘EXPECTED’ by the end of year 4, all times tables up to 12 x 12 must be known!

• Copies of blank learning pathways are available in the year 1 booklet.

GL Assessments (SUMMATIVE)

• Summative end of year test to supplement the ongoing tracking system.

• Children’s scores are measured against national attainment and standardised scores and will reported to parents.

• Individual report of test results and next steps for learning will be given to parents as part of the end of year report- helps validate formative teacher judgements

• More information will be provided at the end of the year on how to interpret scores.

Reminders:-School dinners- School dinners are free for all children in Key

Stage 1. Please let us know in the morning if your child is having a school dinner.

Medication- a formal consent form must be filled in and signed by the parent prior to any medicine being administered by the teacher.

Absences- if your child is unwell and not attending school, please ring/ email the office on the 1st day. A note MUST be given to the class teacher on the return of your child to school.

School uniform- please ensure ALL items of clothing are clearly labelled with your child’s name- this makes the teachers’ job much easier when ensuring that clothing can be returned if necessary. Winter Uniform to be worn from 28th September.

Dates for your diariesSchool photographs- 20th October.Parents’ consultations will be held across 2 weeks from

the week beginning 9th November and week beginning 16th November. Your child’s progress will be discussed with you at this point.

Friendship Week- 16th NovemberBook Week- week beginning 19th October. Children to

dress up as their favourite story book character on Friday 24th October.

Nativity- Friday 11th December.

We very much look forward to meeting you again then.Thanks for listening.

Useful websitesMr Thorne does phonics – YouTube and app.http://www.phonicsplay.co.uk/ http://www.letters-and-sounds.com/http://www.ictgames.com/resources.htmlhttp://www.topmarks.co.uk/