Hello!

It is my great pleasure to be the teacher of Giraffe Class again this year and I am very much looking forward to the year ahead! Unbelievably, this is going to be my 9th year at Barley Close and I think it's my 21st year of teaching. I've taught in every year group during my time as a teacher, but recently, most of my experience has been in Year 6. 

   It's really important to me, that everyone who is in my class enjoys coming to school and thinks that class time is fun. Yes we have lots of learning to do - but when you think about how many hours of our lives we spend at school, it's really important to make time to  laugh, smile and have a good time!

  We are lucky enough to have Mrs Selway and Mrs Cornish in class with us as well.  Mrs G will be teaching you on Monday afternoons. 

  I will post regular updates here, so please check back to see what has been happening in class. I will also post spellings here on a weekly basis. If you need to contact me, please email me on karen.beard@barleyclose.org.uk.

Miss Beard 

PE

In Term 1, PE will be on  a Tuesday. Children wear their PE kit to school (black leggings/jogging bottoms, plain white or house colour t-shirt and Barley Close jumper/hoodie/fleece) - no branded sportswear should be worn.

We will also be swimming on Fridays. Children should bring a towel, swimming costume and goggles if needed.  Long hair should be tied back and earrings should be removed for all PE activities.

Reading

Children will be bringing home a school reading book. The reading books will need to be sent into school every Friday, so that they can be changed. 

 Children will also need to bring in their reading records on the same day, as we will be checking that they have read 5 times at home. This expectation is in line with local primary schools and is also good preparation for Year 7 when they will be expected to read regularly. Parents/carers need to sign the reading record 5 times - either to say the child has read to them, or that they have seen the child reading independently. Although children often protest that 'they are too old to read to an adult', they certainly always enjoy it in school and it's a nice calming activity to do together in a busy world!

Spellings

Children will be given new spellings every Friday (to be tested the following Friday). These are also displayed below, if spelling books are left in school or lost!

Maths Homework

All children will be given a TTRS log in, which they can access from either the app or the TTRS website.  The expectation is that children will complete at least 25 minutes a week on TTRS. 

Children will also be given a MyMaths log in and will be expected to complete at least two activities a week. Both of these things will be monitored by me. 

Spellings to be tested: Friday 13th September

believe

different

disappear

favourite

heard

interest

minute

probably

quarter

separate

Friday 7th September

Week 1 complete! Well I hope the children have enjoyed their first week of term as much as I have! It has been great to spend time with them all and I think we are going to have an amazing year. 

   This week in English, we have been revising our understanding of basic punctuation and sentence types. In Maths, we have been looking at reading, writing, ordering and comparing numbers and in Science we learnt about the heart and the different parts of it. Our first humanities lesson of the year was centred around identifying and locating the continents and oceans on a map. The children also took part in their first swimming lesson of the term - we will be swimming every Friday afternoon.

 Congratulations to:

Pupil of the Week: Navayah

Marvellous Mathematician: Lilly

Raffle Ticket Winners: Ade, Phoebe, Imogen, Bella and Isla.

A reminder that 'Meet the teacher' is happening on September 19th and 24th from 3.30 and 4.30 - you don't have to come to both, it is just a chance to meet me, see where you child does their learning and ask any questions about Year 6 that you might have. 

Wednesday 28th August

The classroom is ready and I am very much looking forward to welcoming all the new Giraffes to class on Tuesday 2nd September!

Date for your diary

Meet the teacher is on Thursday 19th September and Tuesday 24th September between 3.30 and 4.30. Please come along to the classroom to say hello and ask any questions you may have.