Education News 

Next week there will be a Big Write. 

Next week on Thursday 6th June the whole school will be participating in a BIG Write. The genre for this week is an Information Report.  An information report provides readers with information on chosen a topic by providing them with facts. Generally an information report is written to provide facts about a living or non-living object. It can be an individual object or a group of objects. 

All families are encouraged to participate in the 'Big Talk' home  learning and discuss the topic and gather any ideas. 

SOME HINTS FOR ADULTS TAKING PART IN A Big Talk for Big Writing CONVERSATION WITH THEIR CHILDREN:

· Encourage as many family members as possible to be involved in the Big Talk for Big Writing activity

· Make it an enjoyable activity

· Switch off the television to try to ensure that this is dedicated talking and listening time

· Begin a conversation by modelling… “I think that… because …”

· Ask other family members to give their ideas, opinions and reasons why.

These are exactly the same types of activities as your child’s teacher will be using when developing oral literacy. As well as word games and sentence building, teachers try to develop children’s listening and talking skills in every area of the curriculum. In short, discussion skills are vital. 

What else can help improve my child’s writing?

In your child’s classroom there are VCOP pyramids. These are being used in class to help your children remember the more ambitious Vocabulary (V), Conjunctions (C), Openers (O) and Punctuation (P) so that they can improve their talking and writing. The purpose of the pyramids is to show children how they can progress by improving the language they use, both orally and in writing. The simplest examples are at the top of the pyramid, working down to the more ambitious at the bottom. These are examples only – what is considered “ambitious” will vary from child to child. Ambitious vocabulary will also vary according to the subject being discussed or written about. We hope that you find these useful when approaching the ‘talking homework’.

We hope that Big Talk for Big Writing will provide the opportunity for parents to play a vital role in developing their children’s English skills. One useful way to get the conversation started is by using open questions, which lend themselves to extended answers, such as: · What would happen if... · I wonder... · What do you think about... · In what way... · Tell me about... · What would you do... · How can we... · How did you ...

Bollywood comes to CSPS

This term, Miss Rani has been running a Bollywood Dancing club each Tuesday at lunch. It has been extremely popular!

To share all their wonderful dance moves, Miss Rani organised a secret flash mob under the rotunda last week. The music started pumping and students who have been participating in the weekly club began moving. Before long the whole rotunda was filled with Bollywood dancers! 

It was a wonderful opportunity for students and staff to connect to a different culture and share their passion for dance! We look forward to having more moments like these throughout the year.