You decide!

I had an interesting conversation with a Mum the other day. Most of you will be aware of the fact that I frequently wear a homemade badge with the words 'You decide' written on it.
She hadn't ascertained its purpose. She had quite reasonably assumed that it indicated indecisiveness on my part.
I thought I had better clarify its purpose here. It isn't there to tell the world that I want to avoid responsibility. It's there on my lapel to get the children to think about taking on responsibility for themselves.
All of us are frequently asked questions by children that shouldn't need asking.
I don't mean questions like "What if....?" or "So is that like...?"
These are just the kind of questions we are constantly trying to get children to ask.
The badge is there to deflect questions like "What shall I do with this?" or "Where does this go?" These questions are usually asked by a sweet child holding up a bent paper clip or a rubber while standing next to the drawer marked rubbers.
Our job as teachers is to work ourselves out of a job. If we have earned our corn the children will blossom into independent learners as they step out to meet life. Being independent means being organised. We have to encourage the children to try to do things for themselves from the earliest opportunity.
At a school where I used to work we used to take a vast herd of children swimming at the same time as another school. We emerged from our different dressing rooms to line up for coaches simultaneously. Comparing the queues was interesting. My children often came from large families and had working Mums. The other school had an army of Mums who had the opportunity to come along and help at swimming. Their children looked prim and neat. They had stood obediently with their hands in the air while being powdered dry and reshod. Our class was comparatively dishevelled. Collars were askew, shirt- tails dangled, dresses were on backwards. What didn't show was the comparative independence of spirit of my children. They had nobody to call on for assistance. Many were emotionally resilient as a result.. Some were trained to look after themselves by sharing a house with several brothers and sisters. They battled to drag socks over wet feet, stumped off to look for lost shoes among damp clothes and some of them were learning to work as a pair to wring out their wet costumes.
A comparative glance at the two queues showed the opposite of the truth. The best looking children were the ones being denied a learning opportunity!
It is the rugged, independent attitude of mind that was developing in my damp infants what we want to bring to the fore in our children at St Katharine's. We want them to do things for themselves. To help with this our aim is to provide an organised environment where everything has a place and we all know where it is. Keeping things organised isn't an adults only job.
Children love to ditch responsibility on us. "Shall I draw a margin?" "Shall I give this to.....?" "The painting water is spilled! What shall we do?"
When I shrug and point at my badge I'm telling the children that they are faced with a learning opportunity. They usually grimace and look dissatisfied, but never the less they stump off and resolve the issue.
On Friday our celeration assembly will be about Mothers. Monday's assembly will be about mothers too. The children in Oak Class will not be making Mother's Day cards this year. This will be their opportunity to take the resposibility of showing that they love you on themselves. We shall do lots of reminding about what the purpose of Mother's day is! But what you get on the day will have been provided by their own initiative! Happy Independent Mother's day!

Oak Class: Homework week beginning 16.3.09

Mrs White has set

Spellings to learn for Friday.

Literacy: A research homework.
Find, cut out and stick into your purple homework book a newspaper report that interests you.
Hand in on Friday.
Numeracy;
Everyone has a sheet about data handling. Different people have different sheets.
Hand in on Friday.

Mr Perry has set
A science sheet about the organs inside the human body with a labelling task and a few short questions.
There is also a cutting out and labelling task. The children have to make a jaw for a herbivore or a carnivore and write on their cardboard model the names of the teeth and their function. A paper template and the sheet of card are provided.

Homework week beginning 9.3.09

Oak Class (Homework.)

Well done everyone for last weeks homework. The answers you gave to the questions on Materials were very good. Two children got full marks.Out of 25 many of you scored more than 20. Some children managed to get almost full marks on question papers that were all level 5, including some Y5 children.

Now we need to work hard at undertanding how to add deciaml numbers. Children having booster lessons need to work on multiplication of double digit numbers (73 x 24 for instance)

This week's homework is

Learn your spellings.

Numeracy - addition of decimals. For Mrs White

Literacy - do the worksheet on changing present tense to past tense in a diary extract.For Mrs White.

Science - all children have work about pulse rates and/or the circulatory system. For Mr Perry.

Hand in day is Thursday.

Spellings tested on Friday.

Find the class play in the Children's Work section of the website. Look in the "Whole school Gallery" Learn your words and understand the story.

Keeping up to date.

Things to remember.

RED NOSE DAY

Save brown money for charity assembly 2.00pm on Friday 13th.

Red Nose Day depends on you being there and being ready for anything. Bring your video camera. Be ready to caputre your little darling in a pink tap dress with sequins on the sleeve, miming in sync with a ine of miniature Rockettes or doing keepie ups in their football strip with the complicated, vowel free name of an Eastern European imported footballer printed on their back at £1.50 a letter. It will add to your achieve of footage depicting your love for that competent, composed and charismatic child you raised . You can look back over it one day with a sentimental tear in your eye when they have forbidden you from dancing, performing or even standing quietly in the corner at any event which they are also attending.

Please help your child get their act ready to audition. Keep the act short. 10 seconds of juggling is worth a minute and a half of mumbling. Enthusiasm is more important than quality - and one last thing - all children can do stand up. So if they stand up - they get applause! (And brown money.)

Extra Football match against Shalbourne on Thurdsay 12th march. Away. Please help with transport.

No Knex and Lego club on Monday March 16th. The football club are playing away at Ramsbury that evening.

Hockey tournament postponed until March 31st.

Do you want us to supply an After School Club for your child.? Tell Mr Perry. At the time of writing only one parent has expressed real enthusiasm. We need at least 8 children to make the after school club viable.Please email me if you are at all interested.

head@st-katharines-savernake.wilts.sch.uk

E safety evening at Ogbourne School. 7.00pm Tuesday 10th March. All welcome.

We need two parent governors. Why not apply?

Sycamore parents.

Please make final payments for the Oxenwood trip on Monday 23rd March.

Mother's - It's Mother's day assembly on Friday 20th March.

Hazel Class

Trip to the fire station on Tuesday 10th March.

Number crunching.

Spring is come, the grass is riz.

Our new look website is the biz.

Here are some recommended websites. These should help us work together to improve our children's understanding of basic number.

http://www.woodlands-junior.kent.sch.uk/

This is an excellent website to look at at home.

It is very easy to follow. The maths games are fun.

You can play against your children or get your children to play against each other.



http://www.primarygames.co.uk/

is a dangerous website if you have things you should be getting on with.

I can waste hours shooting at multiple ghosts in the multiple hunter game or shape matching.

Ghostblasters is a great game for learning tables. Play it with a shaded 100 square showing all the numbers from one of the timestables filled in beside your child to give tham an advantage. Alternatively, when it's your turn you could only be allowed to shoot ghosts from times tables above 12.

I can't promise that the washing up will be done on time and to the appropriate standard if you introduce your children to this site.



If your child has a scientific turn of mind and you have cash to spare then http://www.echalk.co.uk/Science/science.htm might be a good investment.



Watch the newsletter for other suggestions about websites you can visit to help your children at home.



Look at the power point on the website to keep up to date with events in school!