We all enjoyed our school trip to The Malling School today. The children were involved in pond dipping, bug catching and flower counting learning about biodiversity.

Sports Day

Willow Class enjoyed participating in the races yesterday and had a great time.

PESE Presentation to Parents concerning the Kent Test (11+) process

Please find attached the slides from this week's presentation concerning the Kent Test that children in the current Year 5 may take in September 2021, in advance of starting secondary school in September 2022.

Please do not hesitate to talk to Mr Rye if you have any questions.

Congratulations Willow Class! 

Mrs McConnel and I are so proud of every single one of you. You have adapted to online learning extremely well and have produced excellent work.  You are all star learners this week!  Super work Willow class! Keep up the good work. 

Dear Parents 

We hope you had a fantastic Christmas and wish you a Happy 2021!

By now you will know that term 3 will start with remote learning. Mrs McConnel and I have been working hard to create learning opportunities that match what we would have been doing in class. There will be some aspects that are the same as the last time we were all working from home – use of Timetable Rock Stars, Mathletics and Bug Club - but this time we will cover more subjects, have teacher led sessions and offer “drop in” zoom sessions for children to use. Please watch out for your zoom invites which should arrive in your inboxes on Monday 4th. 

Organisation 

We will post a timetable of coverage so you know what to expect each day and can prepare for it accordingly.

We have tried to make completing activities as easy as possible for parents and pupils.  We will either upload worksheets onto the class page or when necessary send the worksheet to your email.  If worksheets are going to be emailed, we will put a note on the timetable, the day before so you are aware.

Most of the worksheets, your children will be able to type their answers so there will be no need to print them.  However, if it is easier to print, take a photograph and send to me, that is absolutely fine also.

If you are unable to print a worksheet that does require writing answers, the answers can be written out clearly on a piece of paper or typed if preferred.

 Email/Contact 

Our contact email is willowteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk 

So that we can prioritise your communication, we ask that if you are emailing us with a question, you put “Question” in the subject line.  

We ask that all work from the week is shared with us daily. It would be extremely helpful if work could be sent in one email as this helps us file and organise things. Please put “Work” and your child’s name in the subject line of the email when sending their learning in. Your cooperation with this will really make things a lot easier for us to deal with and we thank you in advance. 

Maths

We will upload a Maths timetable for the week.  Each day will have two links to two Oak Academy lessons.   You will also be able to download the relevant worksheets for each day from the class web page.  The timetable is a guideline, the expectation is that all pupils complete two lessons a day.  If your child finds that they complete the work quickly they may move onto the next lessons.  We have also uploaded White Rose, Power Maths and Deepen activities if your child would like more practise or to challenge themselves further.

English

On the timetable for Monday, we have set a research project, which can be completed over the week.

Other English activities include comprehension and spellings.  Science also involves writing.  Each day I will upload a Science PowerPoint which I have narrated. I have also typed my narration if you unable to hear it, at the bottom in the notes.

On Friday’s we will have a zoom meeting to carry out the spelling test, share work from the week and present ‘News From Around the World’.

Expectations 

Willow class know the high expectations we have of all of them. They know how we value excellent presentation and careful work. We expect all work produced to be presented as carefully as they would in class and to also put as much effort and thought into it as they would if they were working in the classroom. We thank you for your support with this. 

Drop Ins 

We will hold “Drop Ins” for the children. We will be online between 9am and 9.45am each Monday (except for Monday 4^th January), Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. These sessions are for the children to ask any questions they have from the week’s work and for a general chat and catch up. Attendance is not compulsory and if your child chooses not to attend, they will not miss anything vital to their learning.  

As with parent evening, children will enter a waiting room and we will let them into the main chat. This will be a group chat and not 1:1 time. When children are admitted into the chat they will be muted, and we ask they give us a wave and we will unmute them when they have something to say! 

We ask that you bear with us at this time. We are trying our best to make sure everything runs smoothly, and we provide as high-quality learning experience as possible during these strange times, however, there may well be hiccups in the early days! 

Let's hope we are back safely in school very soon!

Mrs Excell and Mrs McConnel 

P.E will be on Monday Term 3.  Pupils to wear their P.E kit to school please.

This selection of work is on display outside our classroom, linked to our text ‘The Journey.’ We are loving the way the author / illustrator Francesca Sanna has layered so much meaning into both the text and illustrations. 

In the book, war destroys the peace and happiness of a family, with the father being a victim of the conflict. His glasses are symbolic in the illustrations. We used the idea of his glasses to write poems, imagining both the happy memories that would have been seen through them, together with the anguish and heartache now left behind. We were able to present our poems inside images of glasses by using the Book Creator app on the iPads. 

Our accompanying artwork represents an imaginary darkness invading and destroying our own treasured summer memories. 

Friday 4th September

Welcome back to school everyone! It's been so good to see the school come back to life these last couple of days. Well done to all of you for the fantastic way you've started life in Willow Class. 

Below is a copy of the class newsletter for Term 1. This gives you lots of information about the things we'll be learning this term, and some of the routines and expectations within the class. Don't forget that without blue contact books in operation any more you can contact any of the Willow teaching team using the class email address (willowteacher@west-malling.kent.sch.uk).

We're all looking forward to a fantastic year of working together!