Dear Parents,

Here’s hoping you all had a wonderful Easter break.  Thank you so much for the lovely Easter message – I loved it.  We were very fortunate with the weather which, I feel, has made isolation so much easier for the children and it would be lovely to see some of the things they have been up to, so please do send photographs. 

This term our topic is Gardens of the World.  I will attach our half-termly overview for you later this week although this will be flexible depending on how long isolation continues, as obviously some learning and activities are far more accessible for when we return to the classroom (which will hopefully be soon). 

Each week I will provide a daily literacy and numeracy lesson.  There will also be a range of other subjects including geography, history, art, science, RE, music and ICT, although these will not be set every week.  Indeed, for these subjects, I will often include two or three lessons together and you can choose whether you split it over the weeks or do it consecutively.  This is because the children are often very enthusiastic about these tasks and wish to maintain that momentum.  I also feel that this is more suitable for those parents that are working and finding it hard to complete several different lessons each day.  I hope, that by showing you the lesson progression, it may be easier to block them together when convenient so please do not pressure yourselves and remember they do not have to be completed by the end of each week.    This week I have set literacy and numeracy to be done daily but the ICT, geography and art can be spread out over 2-3 weeks.  As this week is a short week, I have included the following weeks plans as well. 

In addition, please encourage your child to regularly play any of the phase 5 phonics games on www.phonicsplay.com to maintain their phonetic knowledge.  I will also be posting out the results from the in-class assessment of reading and writing the first 100 High Frequency Words and it would be beneficial if your child could practise spelling and writing those that they found tricky. 

Obviously, physical exercise should be daily and I know Joe Wickes has appeared in most households!  What a fit bunch we will all be when we do return.   Cosmic Kids do wonderful themed yoga clips which really stretch and build core strength if you feel like a change.

A short email at the end of each week is fabulous to let me know how they are doing and the concepts they found tricky – this will allow me to identify specific catch up boosters for when we do return.

Please do only what works with your busy lifestyles and a day of home learning should take a maximum of two hours, as it is far more intense than within a class of 30.  Regular reading, phonics and some numerical activities are essential to maintain their knowledge and ensure progression but do not worry if not all activities get completed; I am well aware how tricky it is trying to juggle everything.

Good luck and have fun.