Friday 13th June 2025

  Dear Parents

Happy Friday! It seems like only yesterday that we were enjoying our trip to Barleylands. The children were fantastic and we had a great time.  Be sure to take some time to look at all the photos on this week's newsletter. 

Gentle Reminder

We have loved the sunshine this week and hope it will continue so could we please ask that you make sure children wear hats and sun cream when the weather is warmer and drink bottles are brought in each day.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

Upcoming Events

• Monday 16th June - Book Fair begins (after school)
• Friday 20th June - Sports Day Click here for the letter from this week)
• Tuesday 24th June - Years 3 & 4 Essex Food & Farming Day
• Friday 18th July - PTA Disco
• Monday 1st September - INSET Day
• Tuesday 2nd September - Children return to school

Year 3/4  Homework Tasks -

Year 3: English - Keep practising spellings on spellingframe Maths - Keep practising times tables. A sheet on 'Time' will be given out on Monday

Year 4: English - Pages 96 + 97 - Homophones Maths - Page 64 + 65 - Finding Lines of Symmetry / Completing Symmetrical Shaped

Spelling Frame Rule 25 - https://spellingframe.co.uk/

This week we would like the children to focus on: Spelling Rule 25. Your child has their login details glued into their reading diaries. They will be tested at the end of every week on these spellings so PLEASE practise at home. These have been stuck in your child's little blue book. If your child did not have theirs in school, they were given the spelling list.

Year 4 Multiplication Tables Check

Year 4 have completed their MTC check and should be very proud of themselves as all their practice paid off and they did themselves proud. Very well done to everyone! 

Reading: 

Remember 15-20 minutes everyday is super important but we understand this is not always manageable. Make sure you are reading as much as you can - at least 3x a week and recording what you read in your child's reading record. These will be collected by teachers and checked regularly.  When you have finished your Accelerated Reader book, you can take a quiz at school. Remember that you need 3 100% scores to move up a level.

Times table practice - Please log on to TTRS and complete your challenges.

Can Do
Continue logging on to TTRS and Sumdog -  your logins are stuck in the front cover of your reading records. 

Reading Skills

Every week we encourage you to keep up all your reading at home as this makes such a huge difference. We wanted to spend a little time this week speaking more about reading skills.

Understanding what they have read (or comprehension) is vital for the children  and we support this through our VIPERS reading skills. This stands for:

Vocabulary    Infer    Predict    Explain    Retrieve    Summarise

You can explore these ideas with your child after reading using some of the following question prompts:

Vocabulary - have a good range of vocabulary in order to understand the text

• What does the word _____ mean in this sentence?
• Find a word that means _____ on this page.

Infer - understanding reached through reasoning about what you have read

• Why was _____ feeling _____?
• Why did _____ happen?
• How do you know?

Predict - what you think will happen based on what you have read

• What do you think will happen next?
• How will this character's action affect what will happen next?

Explain - what your thoughts and opinions are about the book

• Who is your favourite character? Why?
• Would you like to live in this setting? Why?

Retrieve - discuss the characters, events and setting of the story

• Who did _____?
• Where did _____?

Summarise - pick out the key events

• Retell the story in your own words.
• Pick out the important parts.

We hope this helps you discuss the books your child reads at home as the more they practice these skills the more fluent in comprehension they will become.

Have a lovely weekend.

Miss Harvey and Mrs Devlin