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Preston
Primary School
Academy

Unit 3 Autumn 1 Newsletter

'Sting in the Tail'

Learning Experience

Please find the details of our intended learning experience for Autumn 1:

At the start of this learning experience, children will learn about the Harvest Festival and will present their learning to parents during Harvest Assembly. For the rest of the half term, children will dive deeper into the natural world as they learn about bees and their importance to the natural world around us.

During the experience, children will be inspired by a visit from a bee expert, allowing them to experience a beehive and learn how honey is made. They will then be taught how to write an effective Non-Chronological Report about bees through our Talk for Writing sequence.

It is important to show the natural world respect, and this links with our focus school value this half term ‘Respect’.  

Maths

During this half term, children will develop their knowledge and understanding of number and place value, before moving onto addition and subtraction. We will be continuing with our focus on depth of understanding in maths this year, encouraging the children to explain the ‘how and why’ behind the maths through journaling.

We would like to encourage children to learn and practise their times tables at home through the use of TTRockstars.

Literacy

Through the six week learning experience, the children will be expected to write a non-chronological report on bees. As always, the children will be encouraged to read a range of quality texts as these experiences broaden their vocabulary and develop their awareness of more complex punctuation and sentence structures.

Home Learning

As an ongoing task for this half term, the children are tasked with creating a bee-inspired piece of art. This could take any form be it a model or a painting. We ask that these come into school on Monday 7th October ready to be shared with the class.

Weekly maths homework tasks are to be completed on MathsShed, as well as additional practice available through Sumdog and TTRockstars. In addition to this, spellings will be set weekly and can be practiced through SpellingShed. Your children will have brought home all their passwords and details on how to log onto these different platforms. Any questions please check with your class teacher.

Science

This unit of work is based on learning about the structure and parts of plants. They will be able to identify and describe the functions of different parts of flowering plants including the roots, stem, trunk, leaves and flowers. They will explore the requirements of plants for life and growth and investigate the way in which water is transported within plants. In addition, they will explore the part that flowers play in the life cycle of flowering plants, including pollination, seed formation and seed dispersal.

In Spanish, this half term, the children will be learning basic greetings.

In RE this half term, we will be exploring Hinduism. We will be learning all about this religion, from the core beliefs and main stories, to how Hindus worship.

Swimming At Preston, we are committed to water safety and feel that learning to swim and be safe around water is important. Your child will be swimming on the following days: Swifts – Wednesday; Sparrows – Thursday; Starlings – Friday. Please ensure that your child has their swim kit in school on these days.

Dates for your diary

  • Harvest festival and Meet the Teachers assembly – Wednesday 18th September from 2pm
  • Swifts sports festival – Thursday 19th September
  • Home learning project due – Monday 7th October
  • Parents’ evenings – Tuesday 8th October and Wednesday 9th October – 15:30 – 18:00.

We have children in school with a nut allergy. Please ensure you do not pack food that contains nuts for snacks or lunches to help us keep everybody safe.

Address
Preston Primary School Academy
Old Paignton Road
Torquay
Devon
TQ2 6UY

Phone
01803 607075