Moulton CEVC Primary School Parent Portal

A Message From Mrs Shipp

What a lovely way to end the week - lots of bright colours in school for Children In Need Day. Thank you so much for your donations.

Year 6 pupils led Monday's Collective Worship, with a Remembrance Day focus. The whole school observed a minute's silence in commemoration. On Thursday, Mrs. Gilmore talked about bullying, with the story, The Kindest Red. An online version of the story can be found here. On Thursday, our Wellbeing Team talked about physical, emotional and mental health - they did a wonderful job.

On Monday, Miss Rutter and I took most of the School Council (Y4 were out on a trip) to the church for a Remembrance Service. They represented the school brilliantly, and were reverent and respectful throughout. We were very proud of them.

We’ve noticed a slowdown in our KS2 children’s progress through our Times Table Mountain levels. Miss Rutter and I have reviewed data from the Times Table Rockstars website: some children haven’t practised at home since September. While we understand that some families may prefer alternative practice methods, regular practice is essential for fluency. Next week, Y3 and Y4 pupils will bring home a letter showing their current times table attainment alongside age-related expectations. We hope this will help parents gauge how much additional practice their child needs. For children with SEND, we recognise that memorising facts can be more challenging, and we make adjustments in school to support this and to build children's confidence. However, many pupils are falling behind simply due to a lack of home practice, not because of an identified need. We will continue teaching and practising times tables in school, but the Upper KS2 curriculum assumes fluency up to 12x12 by the end of that year 4, with no additional time allocated for this in Y5 and Y6. (Year 2 pupils will receive Times Table Rockstars logins later this year, once they’ve developed the foundational understanding of multiplication.)

A big well done to our staff and pupils for their fantastic teamwork today! In Angie’s very rare absence from the kitchen, Leanne and Joanne from the kitchen, supported by our midday supervisors, Mrs. Manning, and other staff, managed to prepare, pack, and serve over 150 Pudsey-themed lunches. The children adapted brilliantly to the changes, making us all very proud.

Special Mentions...

Thank you to Maisie (Y6) and Everleigh (Y6) for helping Mrs. Manning with gate closing earlier this week - they stepped in immediately, when they could see that she needed assistance. Well done to all of our pupils who commemorated Remembrance with beavers, scouts, cubs, Rainbows, Brownies, cadets and other organisations - it was lovely to see so many children in Higham church last week. (See photos below of some of our pupils and an ex-pupil). Millie (Y2) showed us a beautiful sash and rosette that she was awarded for the HHPP online horse show. I was impressed with Ivy's (Y3) resilience, resourcefulness and maturity this morning - well done! Rocco (Y3) has shown great determination and courage, as he has navigated school in a wheelchair this week - well done! One of our Y3 girls did some super array work at home - I was really impressed with it. (See photo below). One of our Y5 girls showed off super needlework skills - well done! (See photo below) Thank you to Logan G-C (Y3) for a lovely chat earlier this week - it was lovely to speak to him. Thank you to Zoe (Y6) for helping to set up the breakfast club this morning - much appreciated.

Have a wonderful weekend - see you on Monday!

Year 3

It has been absolutely lovely to meet the Year 3 parents and carers this week. In lots of these conversations, we discussed times tables. Next week, a detailed letter about times tables and an example copy of your child’s times tables sheet will be sent home.

In less positive news, our star reader numbers have dipped considerably over the last two weeks. Please encourage your child to read at least 5 times a week (we need 6 to be a star reader) and record it in their reading record.

We have had a busy week of learning. The children have learned a non-chronological report about tigers by heart brilliantly! They have used this to help them imitate the text in writing. We have begun a new unit of work in maths – multiplication and division – and our first steps have been to revisit equal groups, use arrays and multiples of 2, 5 and 10. We built paper laptops in computing, including components and peripherals and drew native British animals in prehistoric style in art. The children really enjoyed becoming geologists in science, drawing and making observations of different rocks. We researched and answered questions about how Stone Age people hunted and gathered food, and why they needed to work together in history. In French we began to learn about masculine and feminine words, focussing on un/une (a tricky concept!) Miss Spinks’ lesson saw the children create a soundscape for climbing a mountain and Mrs Chittock lead the class for RE.

Have a lovely weekend!

The Year 3 team

Year 4

Well what a great start to the week! The trip to the West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village was amazing, so much to see, so much to do. I recommend a trip there as a family then your child can show off what they know. We were so lucky with the weather too!

It has made for a 'fizzy' week but we are still carrying on with our learning.

This week we have;-

English - we have started to investigate Quest stories and have started to look at our particular text. We have also started reading Freedom for Bron, it is great so far . . .

Maths - This week we have multiplied and divided by 1 and 0, this has proven a little tricky, and then we have ended the week with looking at multiplying 2-digit numbers using the grid method. This has been fun. With Mrs Harper they have continued to look at measuring looking at equivalent metres and kilometres.

Science - The children started to understand the basic elements of an electrical circuit.

Topic - Our trip to West Stow Anglo-Saxon Village.

DT - The children were evaluating different types of fastening and discussing the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

RE - Continuing with our Islam topic the children thought about important messages and what important message they might want to give the world and what important message God might want to give the world.

It was great to catch up with some of you last week at the Parent's consultations and I look forward to seeing some more parents next week.

We were much better this week with our reading but still not enough to get Bookster.

Have a great weekend

Mrs Chittock

Year 5

I'm delighted to announce that we have reclaimed our Star Reading crown (sorry - there has been lots of talk this week about claiming crowns!) Year 5 are back on top - just where we like to be!

On Monday, our school councillors represented us at the village Remembrance service. Many of the community members there commented on how nice it was to see the school represented, and how well behaved they were. On Wednesday, we went to Newmarket Academy for an Art and Science session. The art session was a surprise but it was lots of fun to get to make a bauble or a Christmas sculpture (and eat a muffin!) In the Science session, we got to use all sorts of different scientific techniques to separate mixtures. We sieved, filtered and evaporated using Bunsen burners.

In school this week, we have finished off our subtraction unit and written incredible persuasive speeches as the 1066 contenders. The children were working really hard to try and include AFOREST in their speech - hopefully they can remember what those letters stand for! In History, we learnt about how the Godwinson brothers fell out in 1065 and thought about how this might impact the events still to come in 1066. In Science, we planned and completed an experiment testing the scientific properties of different objects.

It was lovely to see so many of you at Parents Evening this week. It is always nice to have a chance to sit together to talk about the children and what we get up to everyday. It was reassuring to me that some of them do go home and tell you about things they've learnt! We are always very busy. If you were unable to come this week, you can always email me to make an appointment joanne.rutter@moulton.suffolk.sch.uk

Have a great weekend

Miss Rutter, Mrs Marsh and Mrs Nichols.

Year 6

It's been another busy week in Y6.

I was exceptionally proud of the children who led the Remembrance assembly on Monday morning and those who represented the school down at the church.

In English, we have continued poetry analysis, and next week, we will be looking at flashback texts. We started to assess pupils on spellings this week, and this will continue into next week. We have paid particular attention to the tial andcial suffixes. Please encourage your child to go on Spelling Shed to keep up their spelling skills.

In history, we looked at the rise of the dictators in WW2 and how the map of Europe changed between dictatorships and democracies.

In RE, we have continued to explore Islam and looked at the similarities and differences between Sunni and Shi'a beliefs.

In maths, we have been working exceptionally hard on comparing fractions, looking at comparing fractions: we have compared fractions with the same numerator and different denominator and discovered that the larger the number of the denominator, the smaller the fraction, for example.

In science, we are continuing with our topic on electricity. We have been building circuits that include motors and buzzers. We were interested to see how they respond differently to a change in direction of current.

Computing - Our new topic is about codebreaking and learning about what went on at Bletchley Park during the war.

Home learning this week is consolidating what we have been learning in maths this week.

If you were unable to make parents' evenings, please look out for the email I have sent you.

Have a super weekend,

The Y6 Team