3rd Day Week 1

8.50 Children arrive read until 9.00
9.00 - 11.15 mathematics - line segments
11.15 break
11.30 literacy - continued autobiographies
12:00 phonics or circle time
12.45 lunch
1.30 return read and register
1.30 - 3.00 dance practice
3.00 children go home
3.15 - 3.30 briefing

Registration:
Children gave in secondary school application forms signed by their parents before the deadline later in the week. Praise was given to tables who set up quickly and for improvements in literacy work. Stickers and biscuits were given to particular pupils who had worked particularly hard. Extracts of work were read out and strong points were aknowledged. One child wrote a humerous extract which gave a positive desciption of his dad and another suggested he cried so much that he could have flooded the world.

B discussed different pupils strengths: neat joined up handwriting, effective use of similies, lively and entertaining storytelling.

As a class their writing was greatly improved and they were asked to give themselves a pat on the back.

Appearance:
Children are praised on good appearance it is important to be well dressed while in school, school shoes and jumpers must be worn and shirts need to be tucked in.

Mathematics:
interpreting data:
Children work in two books, one for geometry - a problem solving book, and one for mathematics. This separates the diciplines at an early age which helps their understanding. The problem solving book is plain paper and allows room for drawing shapes, lines and showing working out.

Pupils were given past sats paper questions to test their knowledge of interpreting data. Sheets were given according to ability, some were level three, others level four papers. Children worked in pairs to solve the problems given.

Line segments:
Compasses were kept in a tin before needed for health and safety reasons. B explained to the children the meaning of an infinity line, and how through intersection and labeling it A and B it becomes a line segment. B noted the importance of of using capital letters in geometry to distinguish it from the written word.

B showed the pupils how to make the line segment AB using a compass, letting them practice 'twiddleing' the compassess to make arcs and circles. They practiced adjusting the compass size with a ruler to provide accurate, presise and exact measurements. Children were told to use separate pencils for drawing and writing so as not to disturb the accuracy of measurements and to keep the pencils in the compass sharp.

Children began work in their books, starting with the date and W.A.L.T ( learning objective)

W.A.L.T - What We Are Learning Today
To draw a line segment using a compass

Whie B was talking children were made to cross arms so that they didn't play with the compasses and hurt themselves and were concentrating on her instructions. She told a story from her childhood about learning to use a compass, she expressed that she found it hard and showed them that they were not the only ones who found it challenging. The children could then identify with her experience.

'can't' and 'won't' are strongly discouraged

Following the lesson children gave themselves a clap for working well.

Literacy:
Grammer, tenses and punctuation was touched on at the beginning of the lesson, particularly full stops and capital letters. Other than this, feedback was very positive. The class are encouraged to be positive about each others work and support each other to resolve mistakes. Rubbing out is not allowed, this allows B to see where pupils are struggling and help them, she aknowledges the need for mistakes in order to learn. Children are aware of this rule and were asked if they had rubbed out any of their work. Those who admitted they had were thanked for their honesty but told not to do it in future.

'mistakes mean you are learning, errors tell adults what you need for your learning'.

The class continued their work on autobiographies, thinking of different ways to start sentences, improving description and attempting to include varied ages and events. When they had written it and had it checked over, they used post it notes to separate events and set them out chronologically.

I.C.T:
Small groups went to the I.C.T room to write up their autobiography booklets one their drafts had been checked through.

Phonics:
The school uses easily accessible modular books by spellboaund for use in phonics. They are each separated into sections:

phonic sounds,
graphemes,
new vocabulary,
a story including the new vocabulary,
comprehension questions on the story,
a writing task e.g write a play script

Children read out words through recognising graphemes, they work out the number of graphemes in each word and learn graphemes used in word roots and endings.

Circle time:
This is a chance for the children to express how they are feeling and any worries that they have. The most popular worries surrounded upcoming S.A.Ts and moving to highschool. B held a discussion to help ease the stress and worry they were feeling. Some children even highlighted that they were scared about travelling to and from their new school due to stories they had heard about attacks on buses e.t.c in the media and from older relatives and friends.

Art Project:
B gave me and Minty an art project for the next art lesson, featuring collages of moving figures.

Extension class:
These are children who have english as a second language or hold a different dialect to standard english. They focused on the past tence and using the ending ...ed.

with the exceptions e.g.
draw - drew not draw - drawed

Behaviour:
Four children were sent to a lower year as punishment, due to an argument the day before.