THE GREAT BARRIER REEF

A very big welcome to all of our new Puffins and Puffin Parents! 

We hope that our web page will act as a method of communication, and keep you up to date with what is happening in the classroom.

At the start of every term we will include a curriculum map on here, which will provide details of curriculum coverage for that term.

Our topic this term is The Great Barrier Reef! As the largest reef in the world and one which can be seen from space, it’s no wonder that it’s one of the seven natural wonders of the world!

Children will be learning about the location of The Great Barrier Reef and will be exploring life beneath the surface. We will be encouraging children to generate their own questions about this magnificent structure …

How long has it been there?
How big is it?
What creatures live there?
Why is it endangered?

This term, our whole class reading book is Manfish – the story of Jacques Cousteau. We have chosen this story as it is beautifully and poetically written and links perfectly with our descriptive writing focus this term. As well as whole class reading, where children will be answering a range of questions linked to vocabulary, inference, prediction, explanation, retrieval and sequencing (VIPERS), we will be reading daily in phonics.

                            
Daily phonics will continue throughout the year and will be taught using the Read Write Inc scheme. In addition, children will have focus spellings which will be taught as part of our early morning work. These are spellings that your child is expected to know by the end of Year 1. We have shared 'Red Words' in our useful documents section of our webpage and would very much appreciate your help with getting your child to read (not spell) these words. Red Words are phonetically irregular words -they are quite simply words that can't be sounded out and need to be learnt.

During the first few weeks of term, we will be assessing children’s phonics and will then place them on levelled books or ditty sheets. Books will be sent home on a Monday and should be returned the following Monday, so they can be changed. We will only be able to change your child’s book once the previous one has been returned.

Our PE days for this term will be Tuesday and Friday. Forest School sessions (for the whole class), will take place on Monday afternoon, during terms 1 and 4

We hope this gives you some useful information to start, but will look forward to talking to you more at the 'Meet the Teachers' session on Wednesday 13^th September.

Puffins Team