St Edward's Catholic First School
Windsor, Berkshire
Helping Your Child At Home
Helping Your Child At Home
At the start of every school year you are invited to an information session with your child’s class teacher where ideas will be shared. Your child will also be given homework. The most important way you can help your child is to show an interest in what they do at school, ensure they attend regularly, eat a nutritious breakfast and get plenty of sleep.
You can really help your child by talking to them about what they have done at school but some children are more forthcoming than others. If you visit the class webpages, you will find information about what your child is learning in school. Fledglings and Y1 also have Tapestry accounts which will contain learning updates.
To help you support your child, our class pages have an overview of what your child will be learning each term as well as ideas to help specific to their class and topics.
We hold workshops throughout the year, sometimes by ages of children, where teachers tell you how we teach Maths and English.
Phonics
At St Edward's First, we use Little Wandle Phonics. The following link provides information on how to support your children at home: https://www.littlewandlelettersandsounds.org.uk/whats-included/support-for-parents/
The following resources were shown at our recent Phonics workshop which focussed on giving ideas and strategies to support your child with reading and phonics at home. Mrs Hayman gave information regarding the compulsory phonics screening test in Year 1.
Little Wandle Everybody Read Parents Presentation
Oxford Owl also offer a range of resources and an 'Expert Help' area: https://www.oxfordowl.co.uk/welcome-back/for-home/reading-owl/expert-help
Mathematics
There are many ways you can help your child at home with Maths in everyday situations.
Children must learn to form their digits and numbers correctly as early as possible. To do this without confusion we all use the same formation rhymes to help children remember how to write numbers, which we got from this excellent website: http://www.communication4all.co.uk/http/NumeracyNew.htm
We use White Rose Maths to supplement our maths teaching. If you choose to, here are some workbooks you may find helpful to support your child at home: https://whiteroseeducation.com/products?page=1
In order to become confident mathematicians, we encourage children to practise using the subject specific vocabulary for maths. Please find attached a link to the vocabulary they are taught in each year group.
In each year group we help children understand the number system and to become confident in making a range of accurate calculations. Please find below our calculation strategy, which may be helpful when supporting your children at home.
Multiplication Check
In Year 4, there is a statutory Multiplication Check to ensure learners have the quick recall of mathematical facts needed to access maths in school and later life. To prepare children for this we have a subscription to Times Table Rockstars (please contact your child's class teacher if you cannot find your log in) which is a game to help children to prepare. This can be accessed on any smartphone, tablet or computer. Please help your child to practise at home, and if you cannot please let your child's class teacher know so that we can support them in school.
TV, Games and Apps
The following links are for free (at time of writing) games, TV shows and apps that can help support your child practise mathematical facts and develop their thinking at home.
TV for younger children
Numberblocks Numberblocks - YouTube
NUMBEROCK Math Songs & Videos
BBC Bitesize Maths BBC Bitesize
Oak Academy Oak National Academy
Online Games
These websites also have a wealth of resources to help your child at home:
BBC Bitesize
Twinkl
Teaching Resources
CGP Books
The Primary Teacher Resource Centre
Top Marks
Coming Up
Lent Penitential Service - KS2 pupils only
Sparrows Reading Cafe - Sparrows parents invited
Kingfishers Reading Cafe - Kingfisher parents invited