Friday 13th October

It has been another busy and fun week in Canute Class, culminating in our super Harvest Festival celebration at St Saviour's church. We're sure you will agree that the children did a fantastic job of retelling their harvest story, The Giant Turnip, and they sang with lots of enthusiasm and pride. We were delighted to see so many of you there to share the event with us.

As part of our enquiry, we have been learning about the four countries that make up the United Kingdom and their capital cities. We began this geography unit by exploring some of the famous monuments and buildings around London on a make-believe bus driven by Paddington Bear. The children then had fun building their own versions of Nelson's column, St Paul's Cathedral and Tower Bridge. This geographical knowledge is being built upon in their English lessons: Year R are retelling the story of a family touring famous London sights on a bus and Years 1 & 2 will be turning their adventure story about a lion in Paris into a story about a lion in London. We have also posted our letters to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall and are keeping our fingers crossed that we might get a reply in due course...

In Maths, Year R have been exploring numbers 1, 2 & 3. They have learnt to recognise the numerals, accurately count out that many objects, find 1 more and 1 less and to subitise, which means being able to quickly recognise how many objects are shown without having to count them individually. Years 1 and 2 have begun their units on addition and subtraction by revising and developing their understanding of number bonds to 10. Year 2 are  applying what they know about number bonds to 10 (eg 6 + 4) to help them find number bonds to 20 (eg 16 + 4) and beyond, up to 100 (eg 60 + 40). 

Thank you for continuing to send the children in to school wearing their PE kits on Thursday. It makes the day work so much better and it seems they enjoy having a day off from wearing their uniforms! The children are going to the village hall for their PE so please also send them in with a water bottle that they can take with them as PE is often very thirsty work! As the weather gets colder and wetter, can we also ask you to ensure that your child brings a coat to school so that they can enjoy their outdoor playtimes to the full.

We hope you have a lovely weekend,

Mrs Chasey, Mrs Fernie, Miss Taylor & Miss Talbot

We have had yet another great and busy week in Canute; as you are all aware this term our enquiry question has been all about me.

We started our learning by looking at ourselves. In art we looked at some key vocabulary like portrait and self-portrait and begin to create our own self-portraits. When drawing our self-portraits, we looked carefully at the features we were drawing, we experimented with different media and techniques and begin to express our own feelings about our own art that we have drawn. We then look at other artists work and discuss and describe what we can see and like. We will particularly focused on the work by Andy Warhol and some of his Pop Art portraits and self-portraits. Following on with the bright colours Andy Warhol used we learnt to recognise and name primary and secondary colours, mix primary colours and this week in Outdoor Learning we started to organise and sort objects in nature by colour. We then had a go at creating our own Pop Art self-portraits and we cannot wait to share these with you.

In English the children have produced some outstanding writing over the past few weeks which culminate is them this week with them completing writing their letters to the Duke and Duchess of Cornwall where the children told them all about themselves and the village in which they live. We look forward to posting them this week & waiting eagerly for a reply!

In maths the children have work hard with Place Value and we have completed the units, so we look forward to a bit of addition and subtraction next week.

Just a couple of reminders

-          Each Monday afternoon we go up to the ‘Wild Tribe’ area for our learning so please could you if possible, ensure your child has a coat and some wellies in school. We have waterproof trousers for everyone.

-          On Thursday we will walk down to the church for our harvest festival at 9.30 so do come and join us. After the service the children are going to walk down to the post-box to post our letters that we completed as part of our English.

Have a great weekend and enjoy the sunshine!

Mrs Fernie, Mrs Chasey, Miss Taylor & Miss Talbot

How do we teach early reading in Canute Class?

We teach children to read and write using a phonics programme called Twinkl Phonics. Phonics breaks down words into their smallest units of sound eg the word cat is made up of 3 sounds: c-a-t. Children learn the sounds made by individual letters or groups of letters. Where 2 letters together make one sound, this is called a ‘digraph’. Where 3 letters make one sound, this is called a ‘trigraph’.

Every sound has an associated picture and action which helps the children to recognise and remember the sound. For example, the flashcard for the sound /s/ (hiss like a snake) shows an image of a snake and the associated action is holding your hands together and wiggling your hands and body like a snake.

Once the children recognise the sounds in a word they can read the word by sounding out – saying each sound aloud - and then blending the sounds together so that they say the whole word without any pauses between sounds.

When children join Reception, we start teaching them to read and write by teaching them the sounds made by the letters s, a, t, p, i, n. These sounds have been specifically chosen because they enable the children to make and read a large number of words immediately.


The Twinkl Phonics programme has 6 levels:

• Level 1 (pre-school) - prepares children for starting to learn to read and write in Year R

• Level 2 (Year R) – teaches the single letter sounds

• Level 3 (Year R) – teaches the most common digraphs and trigraphs

• Level 4 (Year R) – teaches children to blend adjacent consonants in words

• Level 5 (Year 1) – teaches alternative graphemes for sounds the children have already been taught

• Level 6 (Year 2) – teaches more alternative graphemes and spelling rules

The levels are roughly aligned with year groups as shown in brackets, but we teach to each child’s individual level and children move through the phonics levels at their own pace. Every level of phonics (except for Level 1) includes ‘tricky words’ that the children must learn in order for them to become fluent readers. These are words that the children cannot fully ‘decode’ using their knowledge of sounds. They simply have to learn these tricky words by heart. For example, in Level 2, the children learn the words: I, no, go, to, the.

Your child will have several opportunities to read in school each week:
• in their daily phonics lessons
• in their guided reading lessons (min 3 times per week)
• reading 1:1 with an adult – the frequency of this depends on each child’s needs but our intention is that each child will be heard to read by an adult at least once each week.

Your child will have brought home a Reading Pack. This pack contains lots of resources for you to share with your child to support them along their reading/writing journey. You can help your child to make faster progress by practising these things at home:

• Saying their sounds – use the parent information sheet and the sound flashcards
• Writing their sounds correctly – use the wipe clean letter formation sheet
• Recognising letters/sounds in their environment (eg when you are in a shop, walking along the street etc)
• Making words to sound out and blend using the sound flashcards
• Learning their tricky words by heart (we will send home a list of their words in the week beginning 2 October along with some suggestions of activities)
• Reading their mini book to an adult at home (minimum 3 times per week if you can please)

Your child will have 2 books in their Reading Packs each week: a mini book and a home reader. The mini book is directly related to the sounds that your child has learnt that week in their phonics lessons. The home reader may occasionally contain sounds or tricky words that your child has not yet learnt (they come from different schemes to our Phonics programme) but with your help they should be able to read this also. Sharing books with your child is a lovely way to spend special time together and your child will enjoy having the opportunity to show off what they can do!

When anyone hears your child read at home, please ask them to write a short comment with a date in their home reading record. That way we can easily identify when a child has read their whole book and needs to change it. If you have any further questions or specific concerns about your child’s reading, please speak to Mrs Fernie or Mrs Chasey. We will be very happy to help.

Friday 22nd September 2022

As you may be aware our enquiry question this term is ‘Why am I amazing?’ The children have been amazing all term but this week we have particularly noticed some great listening this week during story times, and they were amazingly patient when instead of just jumping into the primary colour playdough they listened and waited particularly when they were all very excited to get their hands dirty and explore the primary colours, this resulted in them all being able to make some beautiful shades. They also continue to settle well into school and have made me feel amazingly welcome very quickly.

In maths the Year 1s and 2s have continued to learn about place value. The year 1s have been focusing on numbers to ten finding one more and one less than a given number. The Year 2s have been looking at how number are made understanding that 56 is 5 tens and 6 ones but it could also be made in alternative ways such as 4tens and 16 ones. The Reception have been working hard looking at measures exploring and comparing weight, capacity and length.

In English the year 1s and 2s have continued with our letter writing and we have been very impressed with all their learning. The Reception have been working hard with making sentences about what they would like the world to look like in the future.

In RE this half of term we are looking at the story of creation. On Monday we looked at a Christians view of creation and what was made on each of the days, the children then had great fun making themselves out of clay and natural resources.

In art we are learning what a self-portrait is and how to draw them. We spent the afternoon looking at the artist Andy Warhol and is pop art portraits and learning about colours and how they are made looking at the Primary colours. I do hope some of your children have managed to get rid of the interesting-coloured dyed hands we had on Tuesday!

It was lovely to meet some of you on Tuesday at the ‘Meet the Teacher’ session. We had a chat about the class day starting at 8.45 and finishing at 3.15. The structure of the week will be that Mrs Fernie Teaches Monday and Tuesday followed by Mrs Chasey on a Wednesday, Thursday and Friday. Miss Taylor will be in every day and Miss Talbot will be in every day except Tuesdays. Book bag pouches which your child should come home with this afternoon and on them is a clear label about what should be in there. Please do read the mini book at least 3 times in a week and if your child wants to read more then do read the other book. There will be mini flashcards of all the sounds these are for you to use with your child to help make words or just to see if they can recognise the sounds. Please bring the try to ensure the pouches are in every day but please can you make sure they are in on a Wednesday as we plan to take them in on a Wednesday and send them back on a Monday.

Just a reminder that next Wednesday the 27^th October Mrs Chasey will be running a phonics session at 3pm just to help you understand all the words we use and show you how we teach all the children in Canute to read. It would be really beneficial for every child to have at least one parent attend if at all possible.

One final reminder is that every Monday starting on the 2^nd October we plan to spend the afternoon up in the woods, allotment or wild tribe area so please can you ensure your child has wellies and a waterproof coat and if it’s a particularly cold day then a spare set of warm clothes they can change into before we go.

We hope you have a wonderful restful weekend.

Mrs Fernie, Mrs Chasey, Miss Taylor & Mrs Talbot. 

Welcome back!

We have had a super positive return to school with lots of smiles, happy children and learning. 
Our first Enquiry is "Who Needs Change?". We are studying prehistoric Britain so finding out what life was like in the Stone age through to the Iron age.

We have had a go at replicating bronze casting to help us think about how people might have experimented with different materials to find the ones best suited to making tools. We used jelly and chocolate and filled this in our potato mold and discovered that jelly is fairly useless for tools but tastes great!.

It has been wonderful to welcome everyone back this week, and hear about all the exciting things that the children have been up to over the Summer. The children have enjoyed seeing and playing with their friends again, which has been lovely to see. Everyone has settled back in well, and we look forward to a busy term.

Our enquiry questions this half of term is ‘Why am I amazing?’ We will be looking at self-portraits in art and studying the artist Andy Warhol to create our own pop art images. In RE we are learning about a Christians view of creation and incorporating Harvest. Science we will be leaning about the body. In Maths we will all be looking at Place Value and in English we are going to start off with writing our own letters.

Reading books will be coming home next week, please do read as often as you can with your children ideally a minimum of 3x a week.

Mondays are going to be our Outdoor Learning days when we will head out to the Wild Tribe field, allotment or woods and complete some outdoor learning activities. Mrs Fernie will be sending more information out next week about what the children will need to bring in.

Thursdays are our PE days. On this day children are to come into school in their PE kits and trainers already for their PE session.

Please do not hesitate to arrange a time to meet should you have any issues you wish to discuss about your child. There will be an informal ‘Meet the Teacher’ session soon but any questions before then please do get in touch.

Have a great weekend.

Mrs Fernie, Mrs Chasey, Miss Taylor and Miss Talbort

We're back

It has been a very positive start to the new academic year. Our youngest children have settled in well and our older children have fallen straight back into their surroundings with confidence and positive outlooks.

Thank you to everyone for supporting us to implement the new earlier start. It has worked a treat and has helped make our mornings less rushed by giving us time to talk before the learning starts.

Thank you to Tregeagle class who ALL turned up wearing their PE kit for Thursdays lesson - it makes such a difference not having the usual kit-hunt. I am certain, we will have another full house next week too!

The children have embraced the learning with positive vibes and energy and they have helped our new members of staff feel welcome. What a great place to work!

Enjoy the weekend
Mrs Wills