Week beginning 11th September 2006

Weekly update

Information for parents of the first intake
The first two days of the school year went very well. Many thanks for supporting your child on entering school, selecting their names and placing their belongings in the correct spot. The children have now started to understand the routines of the day and things are running very efficiently. Last week we concentrated on getting to know where the resources are, tidying up after a session as well as assessing your child on some basic skills. All the assessments for your child will be completed by Wednesday to enable the next intake to start theirs.

We would also appreciate it if you could make a comment in your child's diary when you have read with them, looked at the high frequency words, etc.

What will happen after the assessments?
The children will participate in a little project based on the story 'Lost and Found' by Oliver Jeffers. This book was the winner of the Gold Award last year in the Nestle Children's Book Prize. As a class we are entering a competition to become judges for this year's competition. The first round involves the children creating an environment using paint, oil pastels, etc for the penguin who is lost. Therefore, we will be completing activities linked to this. The last time we entered this competition, we did get through the first round and becomae judges for the 2004 awards. This is a great opportunity to be involved in the national love of children's literature.

Your child will also become a 'buddy' to the next intake of children. As they have had the benefit of a large adult-child ratio, they now take on the role of supporting the other children. This is an excellent way of providing the children with responsibility, a skill needed throughout life.

If you would like to start doing any ativities with your child, I would suggest visiting:
www.starfall.com - this is a great website that can be used to support letter recognition. The sooner we start the better!

Once again, thank you for your support.

Best wishes
Jayne Narraway x

Information for new starters (14th September 2006)
Welcome to St Vincent's! This is the first day of your child's exciting learning adventure at St Vincent's. There will be lots of new things to take in and many changes ahead. Please do not worry as the induction process has been carefully structured in order to enable your child to feel secure and happy making the transition into primary school.

This blogspot will be updated on a weekly basis and will contain lots of information regarding what your child will be learning in school for the week, websites you could visit to support the learning in school as well as activities you could try at home. It is updated every weekend in preparation for the coming week.

The next few weeks will be a settling in time allowing the Foundation Stage Team to get to know your child, their needs and starting point. This indepth induction process enables us to provide your child with the right start to their learning, as we would not like to repeat anything that they have been taught before. If your pre-school provider gave you any records please could you let us have a look at them as this will help us to tune in alot quicker. Please do not worry if you do not have any.

Finally, information will be sent home via your child's reading diary. You should have received this today. The diary is a means of communication between home and school, and in particular we ask that you make a comment every week about your child's reading at home. There will be a further induction meeting when all the children are in full time. At this meeting we will give further details regarding the types of comments you can make but we love to read your comments and always respond to them.

If you have anything you are unsure about please do not hesitate to see a member of the Foundation Stage Team.

Best wishes

Jayne Narraway x