Curriculum Letters for Summer Term 2007

Reception, Year 1 and Year 2
 

 Classes 1 and 2 will continue to work together as a Key Stage 1 / Foundation stage unit. The learning objectives and most of the teaching activities for Year 1 children in all subjects will be common to both classes.

The main focus for many of our activities will be our local area. We will be studying the location of Brent Knoll and looking at where children live and how they get to school and the route taken. We will be looking at the history of Brent Knoll including an investigation into early settlers on the Knoll and in the surrounding area. Changes in land use and transport will also be examined. As part of our study the children will walk around the village and adjacent footpaths and we will be asking parents to accompany us.

In the first half of the term children will be investigating materials and experimenting to find the best materials for particular purposes. After half term we will be investigating sound and hearing.

Our ICT will again be closely linked to other curriculum areas. We will be using the computers to produce electronic books about the local area, store and sort data gathered in science and design our adventure playgrounds. We will also be using a range of web sites to obtain information in science, history and geography.

In art we will be looking at the work of Picasso and in particular the way in which he was influenced by African art. We would be grateful if children could bring in any examples of African art or sculpture for us to look at. In technology we will be designing and making model adventure playgrounds.

Maths and English will continue to be determined throughout by the National Numeracy and Literacy Strategies.

Please continue to hear your son or daughter read as often as possible, preferably daily, and help them to learn to read and write the spellings on the appropriate lists. Years 1 and 2 should continue to work on their number facts. Year 2s will additionally be given tables to learn.

Year 2 children will be taking Statutory Assessment Tests during the first half of term. The tests and accompanying tasks, which are used to inform teacher assessments, will be well spaced out and past experience suggests that the children are more likely to find them enjoyable than stressful. Teacher assessments will be reported to parents after half term. They will not be discussed in class.

Work in all areas will be differentiated with reference to age and ability. If you would like any further information or clarification please ask.

H. Scourse & C. Laney
Class Teachers

Year 3 and Year 4

Dear Parent,

I hope you and your family had an enjoyable Easter holiday, we can look forward hopefully, to continuing warm sunny days from now on!

Your child is now entering the last term in either Y3 or Y4 and should be producing their most productive work in this school year. I would appreciate that you continue to encourage your child to continue to work hard at school and monitor his/her homework. This half term your child will take Non-Statutory SATs, (a series of set tests in literacy and maths) during the week beginning 14th May 2007.  Below is a brief outline of this terms work…

Literacy and Numeracy will follow the appropriate frameworks, during the term work will include; number properties, addition, subtraction, shape, angles, measurement in Maths. Literacy work will include; non-fiction texts, poetry writing, information text and writing instructions.

Science this term will look at Changing Circuits and Solids & Liquids .

For Humanities, we will study Local Geography this topic will cover the locality in and around Brent Knoll, map and compass skills, weather & climate etc.

Miss Davidson will study Christianity with your child in RE.

Class 3 are studying simulations in ICT for the first part of the term and then all the skills you need to be able to e-mail. Your child will be asked to e-mail me at school from a PC at home!  In PE your child will be developing Athletics and outdoor adventurous games skills.

Homework will begin again next week. For the next few weeks we will be making a real push to learn times-tables, your help in ensuring your child learns their target times-table each few days would be most helpful.

 If you have any concerns or would like further information please do not hesitate to contact me.

K. Roberts
Class Teacher

Year 5 and Year 6

Dear Parents,

Welcome back to our last term of the academic year.  This will be a particularly important term for all pupils in class 4.  Year 6 pupils will complete their SATs during the week beginning May 14th and years 4 & 5 will take non-statutory SATs on or around the same dates.  Much of our literacy and Numeracy work will therefore focus upon these assessments, although after half term much of our literacy work will be topic based.

Geography this term will focus on a study of the county of Somerset and much of our artwork will involve looking at famous landscape artists and creating our own local landscapes.

Musically we will continue to follow the Somerset Wider Opportunities scheme with our clarinet playing.

Mr. Roberts will cover life cycles and the earth, sun and moon in science, plus of course revision for SATs.  In ICT the class will follow a ‘control’ unit and also develop the use of search engines.

In RE the pupils will study a unit of work on ‘What it’s like to be a Christian’ and in PSHE a unit on ‘Protecting the Environment’, which will link well with our geography studies.

In PE we are hoping to have some assistance from the Somerset Area Sports Partnership (SASP) to work with the children on multi-skills.

I hope to develop our French considerably in the second half of term when we will combine French and D&T and organise a French café.

As you can see a very busy and exciting term lies ahead and as always I hope that we can all work together to provide the very best education for your child.  Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.