Positive Parenting

Raising children is just about the most difficult task that we face and being a good parent is no easy matter. What we all endeavour to do is to raise a child whose behaviour is something we will be proud of.

In order to develop well, children need an environment in which they can explore and stimulate their imagination and have people around them who will be prepared to share their interests, listen to them and respond to their questions.

Positive parents use 5 rules for rewarding their children.

• Reward them as soon as they do what they should be doing.
• Reward them, every time they do well, or have a good try.
• Always use praise (hug, kisses and smiles) even when using other sorts of rewards such as sweets, toys and so on.
• Always say why you are pleased with what they have done. Don't just say, "Good boy!" but, "I'm pleased with you because..."
• Gradually reduce the amount of rewards given so that children begin to judge their own behaviour and thus become more independent.

Involving Parents

The school and the parents all have crucial roles to play and the impact is greater if parents and schools work in partnership.

Please regularly allow your child to play with letters/numbers at home.

Regularly draw children's attention to sounds and letters as this linked to improved literacy skills, early number skills and speaking and listening.

Read with your children at least 3 to 4 times a week, evidence shows that these children make more progress

Evidence also exists that those parents who encourage children to spend time on homework make more progress.

Please read the Curriculum Newsletter each term informing you of what your children are doing that term. You would be amazed at how much support and help you could provide.

Many parents help in school doing many activities from listening to children read - to helping with art. All help is of equal value no matter how little.

Helping your child

Many of you have asked how you can help and support your child effectively at home with mathematics and literacy.

Below are examples that you can do at home, some of which may be based on your own every day experiences, that you may wish to share with your child, to encourage them to be aware of mathematics and literacy in everyday life.

Many of you now have computers at home and have access to the internet; therefore enclosed some useful web sites are enclosed. These contain information which may be useful for you. There are also puzzles and games for your children to use as included in the children's zone.

Practical ideas for play with your children

Literacy

Please take the time to read with your child - we all need to read and everyone wants to read. Only at a later age do people become switched off to reading if they are finding it difficult.

Never let reading come between yourself and your children. Make it an enjoyable activity that everyone wants to share.

Make sure your children receive a lot of praise for their reading because praise means a lot to children.

Most children can hear very well, but it is important that they learn to listen. A quiet time is always good for children. Just ask them to listen and after a short break ask them what they heard.

Nursery rhymes are important. They have a definite rhyming pattern which makes them easy for children to memorise.

When you tell your child a story ask them about it, can they repeat what as happened?

Take time to sit with your children to listen to everyday happenings : the postman, a running tap on, doors closing etc

Games to play

• Looking and seeing- snap and dominoes
• What's missing from a tray of objects?
• Early letter matching
• Jigsaws
• I spy
• Collecting things and talking about them
• Cooking for language development
• Making books - animal or family books
• Use the television; make it work for you- read the adverts, talk about the programmes, watch together
• Read comics - they bring a lot of pleasure
• Use the local library

When reading with your children use the clues - word clues, picture clues, sentence clues, sound clues and context clues

Never criticize your children's reading or compare his/her reading with another

Display your children's work

Ask your teacher how you can help your children at home.

Mathematics

Learning mathematics is like learning a language - children need to become fluent - so you might also want to help them to learn and remember some number facts by heart.

• Practise counting on and back to 20, in 1's and 2's, then in 3's, 4's, and 5's.
• Practise number bonds to 20, e.g. 17+3=20, then to 50 and 100
• Practise counting on and back in 10's, 100's, 1000's
• Practise the rapid recall of doubles and halves with numbers from 1 to 100.
• Quick fire recall of all tables, initially, 2's, 5's, 10's, then 3's, 4's, then 6's, 8's, 7's, 9's.
• Play magic number, ask your child to suggest as many ways of making that number as they can, e.g. 30+6, 40-4 etc.
• Doubles and halves up to 100.
• Play Fizz Buzz using times tables 3's and 5's.
• Play Beat Your Time - Your child writes the time tables as fast as she/he can and next time tries to beat that time.
• Yes/No game - The first person thinks of a number within a specific range (e.g. between 0 and 20). The second person has to guess the number by asking questions. However they may only ask questions to which the answer is yes or no. Try to discourage random guesses by developing logical thinking and good questioning strategies. Some good questions might include, 'Is it more than 10?' or 'Is it an even number?'
• Number noughts and crosses : This game is played like noughts and crosses but with the use of the numbers 1 to 9. The first player has the odd numbers (1,3,5,7,9) and the second player the even numbers (2,4,6,8). The person with the odd numbers begins the game. The aim of the game is to make a row, column or diagonal add up to a total of 15. The player who places the final number to do this is the winner.
• Don't be Greedy - This is a good game to practise addition to 100 (or a smaller number). To play you need to throw two die and add the scores together. Each player can continue to throw the die as many times as they choose in order to build up their own personal score. However if they throw a 1 their score for that turn is wiped out, and if they throw a double their total score within the game is wiped out. The winner is the first person to gain a total score of 100 or more. This game can be simplified by the use of only one dice and a smaller total score to win the game.
• Calculator Snooker
• Calculator Connect 4

Card Games

Snap - For younger children you may want to make a set of cards with both objects and numbers on them (0 to 10).

Addsnap - This is a game for any number of players. Two cards are shown to all the players. The first person to shout out their sum wins the cards. The player who gains the most cards wins the game.

Productsnap - This is played in the same way as addsnap, but players have to call out the total of the cards when they are multiplied.

Guess the pair - The cards are all laid out, face up in five rows of eight. The dealer chooses two cards, which are next to each other either horizontally or vertically, and calls out their sum (or their product). The first player to point to the correct pair wins them. This player then chooses the next pair. Pelmanism Remove the jacks and kings from a pack of cards. Spread the cards upside down on the table. Take it in turns to turn two over. If they add up to 10 you keep them. The queen counts as a 0.

Whist

Crib

In the kitchen

Weighing ingredients, measuring capacities, discussing proportions, reading different scales, calculating cooking times, estimating.

In The Garden

Measuring distances between plants and seedlings, reading max and min thermometers (-ve and +ve numbers), counting out plants, looking at patterns in flowers, calculating sufficient liquid fertilizer for plants, calculating the area and perimeter of a garden.

Managing Money

Pocket money, adding and taking away amounts, saving up for special items, how many weeks will it take, coin usage and combinations to make set amounts, calculating the amount needed for a week's dinners, writing numbers in figures and words, checking change.

Using Information At Home

Looking at +ve and -ve numbers on weather forecasts, calculating length of favourite TV programmes, discussing 24hr clock, reading tables, learning the days of the week, weeks in a month, months in a year, calculating how many days between certain dates, (holiday time), daily timetables (getting up, going to bed, lunch time).

Travelling

Cost of fuel per litre, how to fill the car up, cost of trips, paying fares themselves, estimating times of journey, using a map to calculate distances and directions, looking at bus and train timetables and understanding how they work.

Home Improvements

Counting rolls of paper, estimating the amount needed to wallpaper a room, estimating carpet area, working out the cost of a carpet, comparing prices, discounts using percentages, discussing what a scale is.

Shopping

Making lists, counting items, estimating and comparing weights, looking at 3D shapes, simple money operations using all four number operations, estimating the bill, checking the change.

Bought games that encourage Literacy/Numeracy skills

Chinese Chequers, Connect 4, Bingo, Monopoly, Dominoes, Snakes and Ladders, Ludo, Noughts and Crosses, Battleships, Frustration, Chess, Draughts and Othello.

Helping children with their Maths

Below you will find various documents in PDF format to help your child with their maths. You will need to have Adobe Acrobat installed on your computer which can be downloaded for free from here

	Helping your child with maths
	adding years 123
	adding years 456
	division years 123
	division years 456
	multiplication years 123
	multiplication years 456
	subtraction years 123
	subtraction years 456
	mental multiplication
	mental subtraction
	foundation

Useful websites for parents

www.direct.gov.uk/Audiences/Parents/fs/en

www.php.com/

www.parentsonline.gov.uk/

www.parentcentre.gov.uk/

www.parents.org.uk/index.html?parents-welcome.html&2

http://yahooligans.yahoo.com/parents/

www.eduplace.com/parents/

www.sesameworkshop.org/parents/

www.bbc.co.uk/schools/parents/

www.pta.org/

www.pin.org.uk/

www.sitesforparents.com

www.rif.org/parents

Newbold Verdon Primary School - October 2004

We are very proud to announce!!!!!!

Several of our pupils have entered a poem in the "Younger Writers 2004" Poetry Competition. Many children's poems have been selected for publication in this year's Anthology. The children received an individual certificate and bookmark. We have yet to hear whether the school as a whole as done well enough to be awarded a prize - we must wait and see!!

CONGRATULATIONS TO EVERYONE !!!!!!!

Re-Cycling Collection.

You will probably remember that last term we collected items of clothing, bedding etc. for recycling. The response was extremely good and the total weight of items that were recycled was 470 kg. This meant that the school received a cheque for £65.80. , which of course will be spent on resources for the children.

We have decided to repeat the collection this term and we hope that you will again bring in clothes etc. A flier giving details of the collection has already been sent home. The deadline for the collection is Friday 8th October, but if anyone finds something to send to school over the week-end, please drop it into school on Monday.

Help in school .

We have been extremely fortunate in the past with the tremendous quantity and quality of voluntary help we get at Newbold Verdon Primary School . We are hoping that anyone who has helped in the past will be willing to continue and would also welcome anyone who would like to give some time to helping out. Please let us know if you would like to help, by leaving your name at the office or by telling us in the playground before the beginning of school.

We particularly need help in these areas if anyone is interested:-

• Volunteers to help with trips out for classes 4 and 5 to Leicester and to the village library.
• The P.T.A. need help with cooking the morning toast.

The school gate will be opened at 8.15 a.m.

Please may I remind parents that children should not be on school premises before 8.40 a.m. as children are not insured before this time. If you walk to school, please use the pedestrian gate and do not use the vehicle gate if at all possible.

With the children's safety in mind , any parents who have been into the K.S.1 area in the morning, please make sure that a member of staff locks the door behind you when you leave. Also to all parents who use the car park , please make sure that if you are last parent to leave via that gate, please close the gate securely behind you.

We are proud to announce that we now have an e-mail address for parents to use.

Parents.information@newboldverdon.leics.sch.uk can be used to get in touch with the school. This address will be checked during each school day to retrieve any messages that are sent.

School Clothing

We have in school a small amount of clothing in the school colours. These items are clean and are ideal for school use. Please let us know if you are interested in having any of these items. They include blue sweatshirts, sweatcardis and red polo shirts .

Parent Partnership Service.

The aim of this service is to support parents of children with special educational needs. They have regular surgeries around the county and will be continuing this academic year. Parents can drop in or alternatively ring on 0116 2714137 to make an appointment if you would like to meet with either Helga or Jo to discuss any issues regarding their child's special educational needs.

Headlice. ( New leaflet being sent home)

Unfortunately we have had incidences of headlice again this term.

Please make sure that you examine your child's hair regularly and treat hair with conditioner and a very fine toothcomb. Unfortunately this is a national problem and we all must be vigilant to make sure we keep incidences to the absolute minimum.

Sponsored Read.

Last term you will remember that children were invited to join a "Sponsored Read" to collect money towards a basketball post that the school council requested. The children that took part in this did exceptionally well and the total money raised was £224.30 This is almost half the amount of money needed, so thank you to all the children that took part, a basketball post will be ordered in due course.

SCHOOL TERMS AND HOLIDAYS ACADEMIC YEAR

Academic Year 2008 - 2009

*+ 2 flexible days when staff are required to be in school, but when pupils are not (to be agreed locally).

Academic Year 2009 - 2010

+ 2 flexible days when staff are required to be in school, but when pupils are not (to be agreed locally).

Academic Year 2010 - 2011

+ 2 flexible days when staff are required to be in school, but when pupils are not (to be agreed locally).

Academic Year 2011 - 2012

+ 2 flexible days when staff are required to be in school, but when pupils are not (to be agreed locally).

Contacting School

An alternative way to contact school is through the parent e-mail address shown below.

Parents.information@newboldverdon.leics.sch.uk

Ofsted Report

We have pleasure in providing our latest Ofsted report. Simply click the icon below to load the report

Ofsted Report

Foundation Stage Information For Parents

Please find below an information booklet for parents of children soon to enter Foundation Class

Information For Parents

Newsletters

	Leicester Mercury School Report - Dec 2006
	Nov 2007
	Dec 2007
	Oct 2008
	Nov 2008

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