Thank you for your patience with the TEAMs setting up this week. It is a sharp learning experience and I have made a few errors along the way but am now hoping the links to the Seminar Groups work. If you download the TEAMs app it will work better apparently.

There are three groups: Seminar Group A, Seminar Group B and Seminar C. Seminar Group A meet on a Tuesday at 1:30-2pm, Seminar Group B meet on a Thursday at 2:30-3:00pm and finally Seminar Group C meet on a Friday at 1:30-2:00pm. The Seminars are a chance for your child to show me their work, to talk about any problems in accessing it and for your children to keep in touch with the children who are in class. Your child has been assigned to one of the groups and a link will follow, where appropriate. I look forward to supporting your children in these sessions.

I hope you are all able to access the learning schedule; if you have problems accessing it please email me on: willow@crowmoorschool.co.uk. Here’s the new timetable (I have also included a fun RAF activity):

Willow Class Week 3 Remote Timetable

The next Spelling lesson will take place next Thursday – new spellings will be given in that lesson so please make sure your child copy the list when directed. You can test your child the following week after they have had chance to learn them each day.

I am in the process of organising some SAT books. We usually use these books as homework in the lead up to SATs. The Department for Education has suggested SATs will not go ahead this year but I thought the books would help prepare your child for Secondary. It will keep their skills current and are a good revision tool for the knowledge they have learnt. There are 6 books and it is my intention that the children work through them; they will need to follow my specific direction as to what to complete and when as it will usually follow my curriculum/plan. I intend posting the answers on the homework page each week for the children to mark at home. I will organise the resources then send a message re their collection from school.

Have a fantastic weekend and remain safe.

Mr Wilmot

I hope you all had a good Christmas and I wish you all a safe and healthy 2021.

What a strange week – I don’t think many expected the extremes of school closure etc. It’s all very new and very different to what I anticipated so please bear with me as we become more familiar with the remote learning process and TEAM face-to-face sessions.

I published the weekly timetable earlier in the week and I expect your child is now familiar with the process and sequencing of sessions. The children in school have commented on the how engaging the lessons are so far and I believe all in the class can access the content, possibly with the exception of the maths today. I will virtually meet with the children next week when I can see the work they have completed, mark the work and answer any questions relating to it.

In the event of any query, please email me on: willow@crowmoorschool.co.uk. I will answer emails as quickly as I can; however, please be aware that I will be teaching full-time too with the children that are in class.

I will publish the weekly spellings each week and, where possible, link them to the focus of the English lessons.

Please see the attachment for the timetable for next week: Week 2 – 11.1.21 – Willow new

I have included a Science lesson and a History lesson for the coming week for completion in the afternoons. The Science lesson follows our termly plan and the topic is ‘Electricity’. The History unit revises but more importantly extends the Ancient Greek topic we started last term – this will be particularly relevant for our end of your play (providing we can go ahead with it).

Your child should have their passwords to access Accelerated Reader, Mathletics, NumberGym, LanguageNut and Espresso – these can be accessed online and at any time. I will ensure work is added/set on Mathletics.

Please remain safe.

Mr Wilmot

The end of the term and Christmas! It’s been a very unusual term and I would like to thank you for your support. The classroom routines etc are different now and will be so for the foreseeable future but the children have shown great aptitude to change and they have handled the term with enthusiasm and energy.

We started the week with our normal PE session in the afternoon – next term’s PE will be on a Wednesday only unless advised (if I can fit in more, I will). We completed our Maths Position unit and the children enjoyed a little Christmas code breaking. We also sneaked in our class Christmas song – the children know it well; you’ll probably hear it hummed around the house!

Thank you for the shoe boxes and cereal boxes – they were perfect. The children paired up and made buzzer games – we completed them on Friday and all the models worked, looked good and were fit for purpose. It was a super practical activity to end the term.

The children have worked hard this term and I will feedback their progress after the holidays when I have had chance to analyse the data from recent assessments. As a thank you and to ensure they fully relax I will not be setting any spellings or homework this week – it is the season of goodwill after all! I would recommend your child reads each night though.

I wish you and your family a happy Christmas and a healthy New Year. See you all in 2021!

Mr Wilmot, Mrs Carroll-Lewis and Ms Harris

We have had a great week in Willow. Between assessments I have made sure the children have enjoyed a few fun activities. On Monday, the children had their usual PE session and we filmed our Highwayman dramas in the morning.

We have completed several assessments which will help me direct any interventions we may need and prepare us for the SATs in May.

In PSHE, we discussed the consequences of our choices and how to make decisions by looking at a problem from different viewpoints. In RE, the children learnt about Christmas customs and traditions and in History we learnt about Athens and Sparta and the Battle of Marathon.

The children completed their fraction topic and we are now looking at coordinates and translations. We will continue with this next week but I will make sure we find time to complete fun Christmas maths activities.

With next week in mind, we will block our DT project for the term. We are going to make buzzer games where you have to navigate a shoe box wire course without setting off the buzzer. It is a similar principle to the game ‘Operation’ – it combines some Science and our earlier class topic of ‘Fairgrounds’. I would be grateful if your child could bring in any empty cereal boxes you may have or any old shoe boxes as they create a good base for our games/models.

It was Christmas Jumper Day and Christmas Lunch on Friday – the children clearly enjoyed it and the visit from Santa on Thursday.

Have a great weekend.

Mr Wilmot, Mrs Carroll-Lewis and Ms Harries