Welcome to Taff Fawr

Meet The Teachers

         Mrs Hughes     Mrs Stone       Miss Courtman

Class Teacher     Class LSA           Class LSA

Important Dates

Spring 2 2023

Drop off time: 8.45am - 8.55am

Pick up time:  3.15pm

1st March – Eisteddfod

2nd March – World Book Day

3rd March – Reception and Nursery 'Bug Ball' immersion day

/ Rags to Riches Collection

13th March – Science Week

20th & 21st March – Parents Evening 3.30-5.30pm

20th March – Islam Celebration whole school day

31st March - End of Term

Easter Holidays – 3rd April - 14th April

Communication:

Schoop: The school ID is 17699

Twitter: @StDavidsCiWPrm

Email: reception@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk

Google Classroom code: fz52mbl

Weekly Routine

Please bring your book bag to school every day,  containing your reading book, sound sheets or key words.

Snack

Please bring a bottle of water to school daily, clearly labelled with your name.

Healthy snacks can be purchased from the snack trolley or brought in from home. Children will be offered milk at snack time.

PE

Please wear your PE kit to school on Mondays.

Children should wear black shorts, house colour t-shirt and trainers, labelled clearly with their name. They may also wear black jogging  bottoms when completing activities outdoors. 

Uniform

We encourage the children to become more independent in Reception and take care of their own belongings. Please ensure that all items of clothing are clearly labelled with your child's name.

Cold Weather

Please ensure that your child has a warm and waterproof coat during the Autumn and Spring terms. We will be using the outside area everyday. Hat, scarves and gloves can be brought to school- please ensure everything is clearly labelled with your child's name. 

Hot Weather

Please apply sun cream before school and provide your child with a hat and a large bottle of water.

Our topic for this half term:

What the Ladybird Heard.

This term we will be using the Julia Donaldson story 'What the Ladybird Heard' as our focus

for learning. We will be exploring the language of position, movement and direction and we will

be reading and creating maps and using 'Bee Bots' in class. We will be looking at farm animals

and learning some British sign language and Italian linked to these and we will also be learning

about mini-beasts and their habitats. We will launch our new topic with an 'Bug Ball', which

will take place on March 3rd.

Pupil Voice - At St David's we encourage the children to engage in their own learning. If your child would like to learn about something linked to our topic, or if you have a lovely suggestion for an activity that could support this topic, please email Mrs Hughes at reception@stdavidsprm.cardiff.sch.uk. 

Planning

In the unlikely event of a school closure, weekly planning can be found on Google Classroom.

All Planning is guided by the Four Core Purposes.

Congratulations to Elizabeth

For settling so well into her new class.

Homework

Homework will be set every Friday on Google Classroom.

The homework grid below offers some suggestions for practical activities that your child may like to complete independently. These are linked to our current topic and your child may like to show the class what they have completed at the end of the half term.

Homework Grid Spring 2

Hwb and Google Classroom

Your child will need to be a member of our Google Classroom in order to access learning resources.

When your child starts in our school they will receive a Hwb log in. Once they have recieved

these details they will be invited to join the classroom. You will then need to enter the 

following code for the reception class ; Inmvdmg

Homework will be set on the Google Classroom every Friday.

In the unexpected event of a school closure, planning and activities can be found on Google Classroom and on this class web page.

Christian Values

Our Christian Value for this term is Justice

This term in school we will be focussing on the value Justice. We will be hearing stories about peace from the Bible and examples from our daily lives. We hope that you will explore this value together at home too. 

Justice means more than making things ‘fair’.
In order for people to live together well in a just community, it is important to have rules or laws that everybody sticks to. Imagine if there were no rules for people driving cars on the road!

As a family you may want to talk about:

• why it is important to have rules and laws

• rules or laws that you don’t think are just (or fair)

• family rules that you think are important

Please take time to look at our Home School Values sheet as this helps you to explore values and have fun together.

Literacy

We use a scheme called Read Write Inc to teach your children to read and write. Above are

the letter sounds and a short rhyme which help the children to remember the correct letter

formation to use. It is extremely important that the children form letters correctly from the

start as habits are very difficult to change. Learning the correct letter formation is imperative

for 'joining' writing in later years. 

Please visit this link for parents, regarding the RWI scheme;

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkXcabDUg7Q

Please remember to use letter sounds when reading, rather than their names. This will help

the children to blend sounds when reading words such as cat, dog etc. For example, say 'c', 'a', 't'-

cat. You may wish to encourage your child to learn their sounds through play.

At St. David's we also use 'Phonics Play' to also reinforce learning. To access the website please use the following:

Username: march2020

Password: home

We also use the Oxford reading scheme. There are many free resources which you can access using the Oxford Owl website;

Username: stdavidsreception

Password: Reception123

Useful resources to support Literacy:

Welsh

The children will have opportunities to speak Welsh daily in school. We encourage the children to ask and answer questions using our 'Helper Heddiw'. We will begin by learning about our feelings and asking 'Sut wyt ti?'

Here is a link to a video which will help your child learn:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lGozXPt9M-Y

Modern Foreign Languages

As part of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL), Taff Fawr will be learning Italian. We will learn colours, numbers and animals.

www.languagenut.com

Languagenut is a wonderful online tool where children can access resources to support the development of their new language (Italian). Each child will have their own log in details where they can gain points for activities completed. Languagenut will also give you the correct pronunciation of words and phrases. You can learn alongside your child! These points will show a class ranking, school ranking, and even our school ranking compared to all schools around the world. Taff Fawr will have access to Italian and Welsh! At St David's we love multilingual children. Have fun!! 

Where to start Italian: We will be learning our different colours.

Other activities

Snap Game: This could be used with colours.

Feely Bag: Put different colours in a bag and pull different things out to name them. (Can you beat your last score?)

Numeracy

As with writing, forming numbers correctly is extremely important. Above are some short rhymes which will help your child remember the correct number formation in a fun way!

You can help your child at home by getting them to recognise and form numbers up to 10  and by asking them to sort and count groups of objects up to 10. Look for numbers in your environment, on doors, car reg etc. Have fun!

We often use the 'Topmarks' website to reinforce learning in school. There are lots of fun and interactive resources for the children to explore easily.

As with Literacy, Oxford Owl has many wonderful resources to help support mathematics.

PE

Our PE day is on . Your child may wear their PE clothes to school on this day.  They will need to wear their house coloured T-shirt, black shorts and trainers. On hot days please ensure that your child also brings a hat to school and a large water bottle. In the colder months the children may wear black tracksuit bottoms and a black hoody. 

Real PE

Real PE is a unique, child centred approach that transforms how we teach PE to include, challenge and support EVERY child. Jasmine - your real learning platform, provides 1000s of hours of fun activities and challenges that will help you to keep your children and family fit and healthy.

Healthy Schools Initiative / Snack

St David's is a healthy school and we encourage all children to eat healthy food in their  lunchboxes and at snack time. We provide snack for your children in school daily at a cost of £2 per week / £14 per term. Please pay via parent pay. You are able to bring your own healthy snacks to school. However using the snack trolley encourages the children to try new, healthy foods and they will often choose to try new things, when seeing their friends doing the same. 

Please ensure that your child has a labelled bottle in school daily, containing water only. We have fresh drinking water fountains, where the children can refill their bottles. 

Please - NO sweets, chocolate and sugary drinks in lunchboxes.

Active Travel

WOW is a pupil led initiative where children self-report how they get to school every day using our interactive WOW tracker. If pupils travel sustainably (walk, cycle or scoot) once a week for a month, they are rewarded with a WOW badge at the end of the month. 

Please support our mission by encouraging your child to travel sustainably to school or use our Park & Stride arrangement and park at Pentwyn Leisure Centre.

Rights Respecting Schools

St David's CIW Primary School is proud to be a Rights Respecting School, which means we are a community where children's rights are learned, taught, practised, respected, protected and promoted.

This half term we will be focusing on Articles 13, 14 and 15 from the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. 

Internet Safety

Children have regular access to computers and devices at home and in school. To keep them safe, whilst using the internet,  we teach them the 'SMART' rules. You may wish to reinforce these at home too. Have fun, stay safe!

Useful web links to support learning in Taff Fawr