Literacy skills are essential in our everyday lives and at Wimborne Primary School we aim to prepare our pupils for a successful future. Children are in grouped sets for Literacy, working alongside a teacher to develop their understanding in reading, writing and speaking and listening. Teachers use the unit overviews to plan their Literacy lessons while creating as many opportunities to link to the year group’s current curriculum topic. For example, when looking at suspense stories, year 5 used their topic work on the Titanic to create disaster themed stories. As part of Literacy lessons, teachers plan activities to develop children’s sentence construction. These activities are normally at the beginning of lessons and involve the children actively taking part in writing activities and tasks linked to interesting images.

At the end of each taught unit, children are given an opportunity to show what they have learnt about the writing skills linked to their current genre. This is a timed task within a specific context which enables teachers to assess what the children have learned and which skills need to be developed during the next unit. Guided groups are used to teach children specific writing skills as the units progress. This is a perfect time to work with smaller groups of children on targets linked to their writing. Wherever possible, Literacy lessons are linked to real life skills so learning is purposeful and engaging. With thanks to the newly purchased laptops, children are using the internet and word processing packages to take their literacy even further. Children are now responding to their teacher’s feedback using polishing pens in order to make their work shine!

Maths skills are vital for everyday life and at Wimborne we aim to prepare our pupils for a successful future. Children are taught age-ralted maths by their class teacher, who will support and extend learning where necessary. Teachers follow their half- termly plans, in order to ensure that all of the objectives are covered and the key ones are repeated. At the end of each half-term, our pupils complete an assessment on what they have been taught, in order to identify what they have achieved and identify the next steps for learning. Arithmetic skills are taught daily and assessed fortnightly, in order to ensure that children are operating at age-related expectations. Ongoing formative assessment takes place at all times to aid planning, identify misconceptions and address pupil needs.  Wherever possible, maths lessons are linked to real life skills so learning is purposeful. Teachers make lessons engaging by using a wide range of resources and ICT.

We have also recently introduced MyMaths.co.uk - a website where children can log in and complete activities, lessons and homework. This is proving successful with pupils. Please see your class teacher if you do not have access to your MyMaths logon.

We really value parental support and appreciate any help you can give your child at home. Supporting them with homework, encouraging them to practice their times tables and playing games such as shut the box or battleships will be beneficial to your child’s learning. There is also a wide selection of maths games which can be played on the internet.