Form Two Parents’ Guide
2015 - 2016
1. Introduction
2. Organisation
3. Assessment
4. Homework
5. Reading Guidance for Form Two
6. Maths ideas to support learning at home
7. Literacy Guidelines & Reading
8. Handwriting Guide
9. High frequency word lists
10. Numeracy Guidelines
11. Form Topics
12. French
13. IT and Computing
14. PE
15. Art
16. Music
17. Individual Music Lessons
18. Productions and Performances
19. Useful apps and websites list
Introduction
Our Form Two Curriculum Guide has been written to give parents a brief outline of the areas that the children will be working on over the course of the academic year and our aims in each subject. We review and develop our curriculum all the time so the information enclosed may alter slightly.
You will receive a welcome letter at the start of each term which will highlight any changes to the class timetable, projects, planned trips and PE sessions, times and requirements, as well as descriptions of expected uniforms to be worn during the term.
I hope that you find the Guide both interesting and informative. The Guide should be used to support your child’s learning at home.
You can contact Miss Rollins by email on: (checked at the end of the day) or by correspondence in your child’s reading diary.
Please inform the office of any practical matters including collection arrangements, absences due to illness and absence requests that should always be addressed to the School Principal.
Organisation
Form & Subject Teachers
· Miss Rollins is the Form Two class teacher and responsible for the teaching of Numeracy, Literacy, Science, History, Geography, PSHE, IT and Computing, Art and PE (supported by specialist teachers for swimming).
· Miss Pluskowska is the teaching assistant
· Music is taught by Mrs Hopkins
· French is taught by Ms Urbanek
· Mr Hampton supports the boys’ exam preparation
Grouping
· Within the class, and at the discretion of the form teacher, the children may be divided into ability groups for Literacy and Numeracy. This is to enable the children to work at their own pace and receive appropriate support.
· To help prepare boys taking the January entrance examinations, they have one dedicated session a week with Mr Hampton.
Accommodation
· Form Two class is taught in a large, airy room on the ground floor of the school
· Art and DT are taught in the dining room
· Music is in the music room on the first floor
· Paddington Recreational Ground, Kensington Leisure Centre and Little Venice Sports Centre are used for rotated games sessions which include netball, swimming, football and hockey
· Specialist coaches are used for swimming
· On other days the children have games in Hyde Park
Assessment
Children’s progress and attainments are monitored continuously by staff throughout the year:
· There are spelling and times tables tests every Friday morning.
The 10 spellings for testing follow a phonic spelling scheme called Spellzoo and some words that are relevant to the children’s learning in their topics
· There are regular assessments each term of the children’s grammatical and mathematical understanding.
· In preparation for the boys 7+ examinations in January, the boys will sit weekly exam paper practice that will be set in exam conditions with time to go through exam techniques.
· There will be summative assessments at different stages of the year although the children will be unaware that this is the case. These are carried out to aid teacher planning and to set targets.
· During the summer term, the children’s literacy and numeracy skills are assessed against the national expected standard.
· In the Summer Term the children are set formal exams in Literacy, Numeracy, Science, History, French and Geography to assess their understanding of the topics from the year. This will also give an indication of their ability to perform under pressure.
· Children’s reading levels, including ability to read and comprehension of the text, are tested annually.
· Children’s spelling levels are tested annually.
Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Coordinator
Ms Urbanek, BA Hons (Roehampton), PGCE (Kings College, London), Diploma in French (Redbridge College), Specific Learning Difficulties OCR Programme (UCL), is the School’s SENCO and is available for in-school SEN assessment and support.
In her role as SEND Coordinator, Ms Urbanek will be able to assess and provide guidance. If it is agreed that a child will benefit from one-to-one specialist support then this can be arranged at an extra charge.
Please see the SEND policy.
Homework
As your child matures and becomes more independent, the nature and purpose of homework changes. However, parental encouragement and support are still very important.
Homework is outlined in your child’s homework book and instructions on how to complete the work will be included.
Your child will receive: Spellings (Friday to Friday), Times Tables (Friday to Friday) and a Literacy and Numeracy activity (Friday to Tuesday).
Aims
· To develop independent study skills
· To provide opportunities for parental support
· To begin to establish study habits at home
How you can help
· Try to establish a routine
· Find a calm and quiet place
· Encourage your child to have a go
· Encourage independence and perseverance and praise achievement
· Written work should come back to school unmarked and unaltered
Weekly tests:
The children will be given 10 spellings and a times table (from the 2 to 12) to learn each week.
Weekly Literacy and Numeracy activity:
The length of these activities will increase as the year progresses from a simple activity to a longer comprehension in preparation for the increase in homework in Form Three. We would advise that your child should spend a maximum of 30 minutes a week on each piece of homework.
If your child is struggling to complete their homework, with your support in the recommended time, please notify Miss Rollins. Likewise, if you feel the homework is not challenging your child sufficiently, then please come and discuss how you can extend your child’s learning with her.
Reading Guidance
Guided by Miss Rollins, the children will begin to select their own books to bring home from the Junior Library. Please do make sure you record their progress in their reading diary.
When reading together at home:
· Start with the title, look at the cover and talk about what you might find inside
· Encourage the child to predict what may happen next
· If your child gets stuck on a word ask them what might fit, look at the picture, then give the word
· Discuss the book e.g. character, sequence main events, likes, dislikes and interesting words, to build up your child’s comprehension skills, progressing as children build up their sight vocabulary and knowledge of sounds
You can help when a mistake is made by:
· If the meaning is not lost let the child read on.
· If the meaning is lost, let the child complete the sentence then ask if that made sense, which word would fit or point to the picture.
· If the child is stuck, encourage use of strategies i.e. context, picture, sounds in word, grammar (what would make sense?)
· Tell the child the word to maintain momentum and meaning.
· Do not let the child attempt to sound out phonetically irregular words e.g. was and some.
· Paired reading is a useful strategy particularly for less confident and reluctant readers. An adult reads some of the book whilst the child points to the word, thus silent reading, and then the child has a turn on an alternate page basis.
· As your child acquires reading skills we begin to work on expression and the development of comprehension skills.
· Once a child wants to read in their head, the focus at home can shift to a discussion about the book being read although there is still a place for reading aloud regularly. Regardless of a child’s technical reading ability their reading material should be age appropriate (so that material is understood). Breadth of reading is imperative, rather than tackling more and more complex texts.
Reading for fun
· Let your child see you enjoying reading
· Visit a library or bookshop together
· Read anything! – comics, recipes, poetry, newspapers, packets
· Story tapes are good for reluctant readers and are excellent for developing vocabulary
· Make books at home
· Play ‘I Spy’, matching games, word bingo or junior scrabble
Maths ideas to support learning at home
Much of the work done at school can be supported at home:
· Play board games involving number operations e.g. Snakes and Ladders.
· Commercially produced tapes and posters (or home made!) of multiplication tables are very useful.
· Learn 3D and 2D shapes by identifying them in the house.
· Reinforce time telling by wearing a watch.
· Sequence days and months.
· Practise using money – recognising coins, calculating change, etc.
· Simple sharing activities help the understanding of division – share out sweets or playing cards.
· Cut fruit in to halves and quarters to help understand basic fractions.
· Ask your child to problem solve with you, e.g. there are four people having dinner, each person will have half an apple, how many apples do we need to get?
Core Subjects
Literacy guidelines
The Form Two Literacy curriculum is taken from The Primary Framework for Literacy.
Aims
Our aims in teaching Literacy are to:
· Systematically plan opportunities for practising skills – skills such as skimming, scanning or analysing data which are taught in the context of literacy sessions can be further developed through purposeful use in other areas
· Provide real experiences, context and meaning for the development of core skills in literacy
· Assist memory through providing opportunities for children to practise and use information in different contexts.
· Provide opportunities for application of knowledge in new contexts to involve children in higher-order thinking skills such as reasoning and problem solving.
Speaking and Listening
This is an integral part of all curriculum areas. However, a range of explicit activities (e.g. News sharing, News and Reviews) allows the children to focus on and develop their skills in Speaking and Listening.
These skills follow a progression in these areas:
· Speaking for different audiences
· Listening and responding
· Discussion and group interaction
· Drama activities, language structure and vocabulary, expressive qualities and purpose of talk are taken into account.
Reading
The children learn further strategies to read with fluency, accuracy, understanding and enjoyment. They gain an appreciation that reading is an intrinsic aspect of the educational process and learn to value a wide range of reading material.
In Form Two the children will begin to progress on from the Read Write Inc. scheme covered in Junior One and Form One to reading the Collins Big Cat series; these are a variety of books within coloured bands (levels).
Children will be heard reading individually to either the form teacher or form assistant at least twice a week.
Individual reading allows for close monitoring and immediate intervention.
In guided reading sessions the children will be separated into small groups and will share a common text. Whilst doing this the remaining children will complete a range of spelling, word and sound activities and games (e.g. Boggle and Bananagrams) as well as developing their dictionary and thesaurus skills.
Reading at home
· Children are encouraged to read for at least 15-20 minutes every day at home.
· See reading at home guides.
The following page entitled ‘National Literacy Strategy High Frequency Words’ lists the words that the children should know as sight vocabulary, both in and out of context by the end of Year Two.
http://www.highfrequencywords.org/hfw100fp.pdf http://www.highfrequencywords.org/hfw200fp.pdf
First 100 High Frequency Words
In frequency order reading down the columns
the / that / not / look / putand / with / then / don’t / could
a / all / were / come / house
to / we / go / will / old
said / can / little / into / too
in / are / as / back / by
he / up / no / from / day
I / had / mum / children / made
of / my / one / him / time
it / her / them / Mr / I’m
was / what / do / get / if
you / there / me / just / help
they / out / down / now / Mrs
on / this / dad / came / called
she / have / big / oh / here
is / went / when / about / off
for / be / it’s / got / asked
at / like / see / their / saw
his / some / looked / people / make
but / so / very / your / an
Next 200 High Frequency Words
In frequency order reading down the columns (water to laughed then let’s to grow)
Set A
water / bear / find / these / liveaway / can’t / more / began / say
good / again / I’ll / boy / soon
want / cat / round / animals / night
over / long / tree / never / narrator
how / things / magic / next / small
did / new / shouted / first / car
man / after / us / work / couldn’t
going / wanted / other / lots / three
where / eat / food / need / head
would / everyone / fox / that’s / king
or / our / through / baby / town
took / two / way / fish / I’ve
school / has / been / gave / around
think / yes / stop / mouse / every
home / play / must / something / garden
who / take / red / bed / fast
didn’t / thought / door / may / only
ran / dog / right / still / many
know / well / sea / found / laughed
Set B
let’s / fun / any / better / livedmuch / place / under / hot / birds
suddenly / mother / hat / sun / duck
told / sat / snow / across / horse
another / boat / air / gone / rabbit
great / window / trees / hard / white
why / sleep / bad / floppy / coming
cried / feet / tea / really / he’s
keep / morning / top / wind / river
room / queen / eyes / wish / liked
last / each / fell / eggs / giant
jumped / book / friends / once / looks
because / its / box / please / use
even / green / dark / thing / along
am / different / grandad / stopped / plants
before / let / there’s / ever / dragon
gran / girl / looking / miss / pulled
clothes / which / end / most / we’re
tell / inside / than / cold / fly
key / run / best / park / grow
Writing