PARENTS’ CURRICULUM MEETING MONDAY 25TH SEPTEMBER 2017

Purpose of meeting To give parents information about what is to be learnt in year groups, how to keep in touch with us, who teaches your child’s class, what you can do to help your child, specific curriculum content and homework

English Strong emphasis on vocabulary development, grammar, punctuation and spelling (for example, the use of commas and apostrophes will be taught in KS1) Handwriting – introduced as part of assessment -is expected to be fluent, legible and speedy Spoken English has a greater emphasis, with children to be taught debating, recital  and presenting skills Maths Five-year-olds will be expected to learn to count up to 100 (compared to 20 under the previous curriculum) and learn number bonds to 20 (currently up to 10) Simple fractions (1/4 and 1/2) will be taught from KS1, and by the end of primary school, children should be able to convert decimal fractions to simple fractions (e.g. 0.375 = 3/8) By the age of nine, children will be expected to know times tables up to 12x12 (previously 10x10 by the end of primary school) Calculators will not be used at all in primary schools, to encourage mental arithmetic MATHS HUB – Even if supporting children with material, please don’t give the children the tests to do…these are our summative tests at the end of term that support our summative assessment!!

ASSESSMENT FOR GAYTON PRIMARY SCHOOL – SEPTEMBER 2017 • All assessment is now against age-related expectations. Curriculum content is shown in broad year group or Key Stage bands. • Progress against the objectives is measured against the above. September: all children are beginning to understand the range of year group objectives and will be at the ‘working towards’ stage. Some will be working below age-related objectives and may well still have elements of previous year group expectations to achieve. By the end of the year, a child that has a good grasp of the year group curriculum objectives will be ‘working at’ the age-related year group objectives and a child with a exceptionally strong grasp of the objectives and can demonstrate an ability to use them in different contexts will be ‘exceeding’ their age group expectations. E.g. A child being able to apply mastered skills in problem-solving contexts, consolidate and deepen their learning. At the end of Year Six, in SATs, the children will be given a scaled score and information on whether they have met the age-appropriate standards, as well as being teacher-assessed against set criteria. In Year Two, similar information is used to support Teacher Assessment. • Parents’ meetings discussions and summer term reports will focus clearly on your child’s progress and strengths with regard to the core areas of the new curriculum, as well as identifying their priorities for further development, how this can be worked towards and what you can do to help.

Rewards and Sanctions GTBG incentives Class rewards, sometimes negotiated with class (stickers, accumulated treat session) Use of cards (agreed pre-warnings, yellow if repeated more than once , red if continues or is dangerous/completely unacceptable behaviour) Dojos – behaviour-based – listening, work focus, lining up)

Communicating with staff First point of contact is always the class teacher (need to be kept informed and keep eye on situation) Early contact – don’t wait until problem develops If emailing/phoning, if possible please give us an idea of the issue so we can be aware as soon as possible; tell us a best time and number to get in touch. Staff will normally get back to you the same day but this may have to be in lunchtime/after school

Reasons why homework is normally given for completion by the weekend: It allows the children to have ‘family time’ at the weekend With five days for completion, this allows plenty of time for work to be done Staff sometimes use homework to help plan the following week’s work Homework can be adapted on the basis of children’s work done during the previous week (which may be marked at the weekend) Spelling and basic maths homework can be dealt with through ‘quickfire’ five minutes per day Extensions can always be asked for if the work cannot be completed by Friday It gives the children a good routine and ties in better with the work they have studied In Y6, maths homework is the only exception to these arrangements, following the week’s work

Curriculum content overviews can be found on the school website, (http://www.gayton.wirral.sch.uk/curriculum/) Helpful year group-specific sites will be shown in class presentations afterwards Tips for parents (how to help): http://www.theschoolrun.com/primary-school-coding-explained- for-parents http://www.theschoolrun.com/language-learning-in-primary- schools-from-2014 http://www.theschoolrun.com/primary-numeracy-glossary-for- parents