Puffins
Welcome to the Puffins
Mrs Eremita – Class Teacher
Mrs Hoogstraten – Teaching Assistant
Miss Birdsall - Teaching Assistant
Email contacts
Mrs Eremita - meremita@sharnbrookprimary.beds.sch.uk
SENDCO - sendco@sharnbrookprimary.beds.sch.uk
Dear Puffin families,
Please note, we will restart our spellings after the Christmas holidays.
Please check out the tabs at the bottom of the page for an updated weekly timetable and lots of other important class information.
Reading
We believe that all our children can become fluent readers and writers. This is why we teach reading through Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised, which is a systematic and synthetic phonics programme.
We value reading as a crucial life skill. We want our children to read confidently for meaning and regularly enjoy reading for pleasure.
Home Reading
We have a chart to celebrate the reading the children do at home. Each time the children get their reading record signed or stamped they can move their puffin towards the nest. Five reads in a week and they can get a house point.
Reading Practice
The decodable reading practice book will be taken home every Friday to ensure success can be shared with the family. Please encourage your child to share their reading and celebrate their success! Please ensure that this book is returned on Monday as we will need a full set for the next group.
We will have taught your child to read this book through reading practice sessions three times in the preceding week. These sessions are taught by a fully trained adult to small groups of approximately six children. The books are matched to the children’s secure phonic knowledge. Each reading practice session has a clear focus, so that the demands of the session do not overload the children’s working memory. The reading practice sessions have been designed to focus on three key reading skills:
o decoding
o prosody: teaching children to read with understanding and expression
o comprehension: teaching children to understand the text.
Reading for Pleasure
‘Reading for pleasure is the single most important indicator of a child’s success’ (OECD 2002).
Reading for pleasure books will go home for parents to share and read to children. Please read more about research behind the importance and impact of sharing quality children’s books with parents in the Everybody read! resources on the Little Wandle website.
In Puffins, children will choose and bring home a decodable book matched to their phonic knowledge every Monday. Please enjoy reading this with your child and ensure this is returned every Monday.
On Thursdays, children choose a library book from our school library. Please return this every Thursday.
Please also visit the Little Wandle Letters and Sounds Revised parents’ resources to find information about phonics, the benefits of sharing books, how children learn to blend and other aspects of our provision, both online and through workshops.
Homework
To complete homework, children should choose something from one of the boxes to complete every week, along with practising counting forwards and backwards to 100. Additionally, children should read every night; please ensure that your children reread their reading book on the days between the book change. We will check homework on Fridays. You can send me photos via email of completed homework if you prefer.
PE
PE will usually be on Wednesdays and Fridays unless stated otherwise. Puffins should come into school in their full PE kit on these days.
Additional Information
Please check the tabs below for class information. Here you will find knowledge organisers, a weekly timetable and a homework grid as well as additional information to help you support your child this year.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact me via the email address above.
Best wishes,
Mrs. Eremita, Mrs. Hoogstraten and Miss Birdsall
