We’re both really happy about being back at school. We’ve liked seeing some of our old friends and making new ones. In class, we have really enjoyed Geography and learning all about the 7 continents and the 5 oceans. We’re really looking forward to learning more about the world in the next few weeks.  
Also, we liked learning about adjectives and adverbs in English and using them in our writing when we described Simba and Scar. We have asked to watch the Lion King in Golden time too as we had fun using it in English.   
Maci & Stanley  
2EM  ​

2RS have made a great start to the year. It has been lovely to see everyone back, smiling and ready to learn. The children have all adapted to the changes in the classroom and have been busy making new friends within the class.  
In our English lessons, we have been focusing on writing sentences; we have been watching clips from the Lion King and writing character descriptions. We learned about adverbs and interesting sentence openers and have been using them to make our writing more interesting. The film would make great watching for any children who haven’t seen it already.  
During maths lessons, we have been partitioning numbers to find out how many tens and ones there are in a two-digit number. We have used a part-whole model and a place value chart to help us. This week we have been comparing and ordering objects and numbers using <, > and = symbols. The children have enjoyed breaking numbers apart and have grasped the concept well.  
In geography, we have learned about the 7 continents and 5 oceans. We enjoyed listening to songs to help us remember them. Later in the term we will be studying the continents in greater detail. We will begin comparing places around the world to broaden our understanding of geographical concepts and the wider world we live in.  ​

​It’s lovely to have children back in school to teach! Although all classes were doing mathematics lessons during ‘Lockdown’ on and ‘Key Worker’ pupils and some pupils from Y6, Y1 and Reception were back in school for the final half term, there is nothing like teaching pupils within the actual classroom, being able to engage in one to one conversations to help them to further develop their learning and understanding.
At East Tilbury Primary, we follow the White Rose Maths scheme of learning https://whiterosemaths.com/resources/primary-resources/ White Rose Maths have taken into account the amount of direct classroom learning that pupils missed and have adapted their units of work to ensure that pupils revisit learning from the previous year to help cement their understanding before moving on to new threads.

​After months away for some children, we have seen a school full of busy readers. Incredibly, it has been as if the children were never away; excited teachers saw lots of enthusiastic readers, who were keen to share their lockdown reads with their classes.
During your child’s school day, they will receive a dedicated reading lesson (of at least half an hour), as well as several opportunities throughout the day to use their reading skills in many subjects across the curriculum. 
With the children welcomed back to school, we want them to stay motivated to read; we also want them to be encouraged and supported to read at home.
Here are a few things you can do to help them:

• Ask your child to choose what they’d like to read; they will feel more interested in the story if they have picked it out themselves. Don’t worry if they keep returning to the same story; this gives you the opportunity to discuss why they have chosen the book again.
• Sit close together. If you have younger children, you could encourage your child to hold the book themselves and turn the pages as you read aloud.
• Take a look at the pictures together; your children can infer a lot from illustrations and may even make predictions about what might happen in the story – a book cover can tell us a lot about the content inside!
• Use picture books. Picture books can be a great way to talk through your child’s fears and worries, or to help them deal with their emotions. Remember to give them space to talk, and ask how they feel about the situations in the story.
• Keep reading together – this is so important. Even if you have older children, it doesn’t mean you have to stop sharing stories – perhaps you could try a series of book.

Always ask questions and discuss the story. If you’re not confident about asking questions, log on to Bug Club, where you will find lots of questions about the story by just clicking on the bug icon. Let your child’s class teacher know if you’re unable to access this at home