10th Decemeber

Apologies to everyone for the lack of a blog last week. Mr Finch, who takes care of the blog, was off sick and didn't manage to get to the job. He must try harder.
First of all I have to say just the most enormous well done to Beech Class for their performance at the Carol Concert on Thursday night. Your lovely singing brought a tear to my eye. Luckily it was raining so no one would have known it but you really moved me.
Thank you.
It has been another busy week of fun and learning in Beech Class. I enjoyed reading their thoughtful science work thinking about the different properties of materials. Look at this great work from Frankie.

IN maths a lot of the children have been focussing on improving their counting - something you can do which will help your children enormously is practicing counting daily. From zero to twenty and back down again is essential and you might be surpised when you listen carefully how many children get a little bit woozy somewhere in the middle of the teens. If your child is confident in this bit of counting, are they equally confident counting from fity to seventy? From ninety to one hundred and ten?
ALl our children should be practicing counting every day - skip counting twos perhaps or counting in increments of one tenth from 1.5 to 2.5 and back again! There's nothing that builds familiarity with properties of number like a daily counting practice. Speaking of properties of number, I loved seeing children today using our Numicon equipment to investigate 'teens' numbers. A ten and a four to make 'fourteen'. A ten and a six to make 'sixteen'. Numicon is great stuff - you sometimes see a cheap 'knock off' version in Tiger in Exeter - if you spot it snap it up it's a wonderful tool for early mathematical investigation.

This week has had a bit of a focus on assessments - we've been seeing how far the children have come along and trying to spot what gaps we've left that need addressing. Mr Finch has been taking the children for a phonics check and has been blown away by their positive 'have a go' attitude and the progress that they have made over the first term of the year - their parents should be very, very proud of their children. I am very very pleased with the progress from every child but I particularly wanted draw attention to the wonderful raised standard in handwriting in Year One and Two. Look at this great work from Eva, her lovely even letter formation is laying the groundwork for beautiful handwriting. Well done Eva!

Thanks to everyone who has helped make this week a success - have a wonderful weekend everyone.