The Newsletter I Sent Home on the 8th March (2013)

Mr Stuart’s Occasional Newsletter to Parents 8th March, 2013 Hi, Bits and pieces of news here. Please read them all; they’re all important in their own way. Sorry I don’t have more time to prepare a classier-looking newsletter. Martin Stuart The Focus The Next Two Weeks As well as normal teaching, we’ll be focusing on: ·         Anti-Bullying Lessons and Anti-Cyberbullying Lessons ·         St Patrick and celebrating the best of Irish life and culture ·         “Taking Care of Babies” lessons (RSE) ·         The Transfiguration and then all about the events of Holy Week ·         Division and 2D Shapes, and then a fair but tough Assessment Test, the results of which we’ll pass on to you, so you can see how your child is truly doing in Maths.

Kidblog.org/MrS2013 I encourage you to encourage your child to keep posting on this safe website. The kids have really taken to it, and many have posted lots of interesting things for others to enjoy. I vet each and every post and comment, so I ensure it’s a safe, happy, positive experience for them all. If you haven’t already done so, then ask your child to let you see how it all works. They’ve lots of great things to show off to you!

“Great Week” Certificates Each week I text the parents of those children who have earned a “great week certificate” for the week. This is for their great behaviour, effort, and honesty each and every day. If you do not receive a text, that means that your child has ended at least one day of the week on the ‘bad’ side of the board. On average each week 14 or 15 children receive these certificates. If your child is not receiving them, then feel free to ask me or them why. I’d love to discuss this with you. If you want, and if coming in to the school is a problem, I will call you to discuss your child’s effort and behaviour.

Class Behaviour In  the last few weeks I have noticed the behaviour of some children getting worse. Some days we are wasting maybe a quarter of the possible time for learning on dealing with their bad/disruptive behaviour. It’s NOT all the kids, just a few. We’ve talked about it as a class and agreed that those children who are getting the yellow and red cards for this need to change their behaviour. They are being selfish in wasting everyone’s time and everyone’s opportunities to learn.

Tables That Are Clear of Everything Since early January the class has had a “Clear Table” policy. And it has helped many children concentrate better. The policy means that a child’s table should have on it only what he/she needs for the lesson they’re doing... the other books should be in their bags. (At the end of the day a child can leave books neatly on their table so as not to have to carry them home.) A few children find this hard. They moan about their bags not being big enough. If this is true of your child, please give him/her an extra or a bigger bag (any type of bag at all).

A New Idea For This Class: “Help Each Other Hour” Each class is different and as a teacher I try out different ideas to see what works best for each class. A new idea I have is an “Help Each Other Hour”. When I suggested it to the class, they were surprised, many thought about it, and many liked it. Here’s how it might work... One hour a week, after school, they can work in pairs or any-sized groups on anything they like. I’ll be in the classroom, supervising for safety’s sake and providing whatever resources I can but not actually teaching (I’ll be hoping to be doing my own work: planning, preparing, writing up reports, and so on). I’ll be volunteering my time so there’ll be no charge. It’ll be on Mondays. Let’s give it a go, see how it works, and take it from there. Obviously no child HAS TO sign up and also I don’t want to be spending any time or energy having to deal with children breaking the school rules, so, to be fair to all the children, any child who wants to take part will have to sign a ‘Good Behaviour Contract’ and if they mess up they will be barred.

Five Computers in Our Classroom! Yes, it’s true. Soon after we come back after Easter we’ll be getting five computers into our classroom. It’s going to be magic! I’ll be planning to let children develop their ICT skills while working on various subjects. I’ll be having the children working in pairs, as they learn ICT skills that way better and quicker and it’s good for them to develop teamwork skills. Sometimes children don’t know how lucky they are, but this class seem to: they know what a wonderful resource these computers will be to their learning. They’re rightfully excited. talbotmrstuart.blogspot.ie kidblog.org/MrS2013 usefulsiteforparents.blogspot.ie www.mathletics.com