Welcome to Class 3

Dear Parents,

Welcome to the Spring term of 2025.

First of all, I would just like to say how grateful I am for all your messages and support through a tricky period of time for both myself and my family, but I’m positive and looking forward to being back in the very near future. I would like to welcome Mrs Trotter to class 3, who will be looking after things in my absence. The children have met her, as have a few parents who have said ‘hello’ in the mornings, and are all looking forward to some of the things she has planned in class for the forthcoming weeks.

We have had a fabulous Autumn term, what with the tremendous Christmas performance ‘What on Earth is Christmas’, with too many memorable performances to name, the travelling panto performing ‘Robin Hood, the trip to the Theatre by the Lake to watch ‘Jungle Book’, a cricket competition, swimming and the excitement of the party, making it a busy last few weeks!

All routines and arrangements will be as follows:

• Homework (either maths or English) will be given out on a Monday and needs to be completed and handed in by Wednesday morning; and another given out on Wednesday and completed/handed in Friday (leaving your weekends usually free of school work)
• PE will usually be Tuesday (Multi skills with Rowan) and Cricket (with Fraser), but children need their kit in school all the time, as we may have other activities;
• Spellings will be given out on a Monday for a test on a Friday – it is much easier for the children if they do a little bit every night rather than cram on a Thursday night;
• Times tables will be tested on a Friday. This skill is also vitally important, especially for year 4’s as they will be sitting a SAT’s type test later on in the year;
• Rowan’s after-school football is continuing on a Tuesday.

The curriculum: This term’s topic is called Marvellous Mayans. We will also be studying Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ in Literacy.

• RE: Learning from the Carlisle Diocese scheme of work: How has belief in Christianity/Islam impacted on music and art throughout history?
• Science: Living things and their habitats;
• PE: football and cricket plus the outdoor activities;
• Geography and History: life and times of the Mayan people and a study of Central America;
• Music: Charanga, an exciting new music scheme based around ‘The Fresh Prince of Bel Air’;
• Art and DT: Mayan masks, using textiles to create worry people, painting and sketching of temples;
• Literacy: a study of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’, retelling, recount, instructional writing, comprehension skills;
• Maths: place value, numbers, addition and subtraction strategies, multiplication and division, problem solving, shape and measures;
• PSHE: valuing difference and rights and respect
• French: General use of the French language
• ICT: programming using ‘Turtle Logo’

Assessments: We conducted our usual end-of-term assessments before the holidays. As I won’t be available to discuss your child face-to-face at parents evening, I will prepare a brief report to feed back the progression thus far.

PE Kit: The children need a pair of PE trainers (in a separate plastic bag) that will be expected to get dirty and very muddy after use on the field, so please don’t send in expensive shoes. The footwear for Rowan’s will be used on the field and therefore cannot be used for PE in the hall or on the new rubberised surface. They would also benefit from a couple of pairs of socks so they don’t need to wear the same wet ones.

Residential: We are very excited to be going on a full residential to Eskdale in June, which is only minutes from Wasdale Wast Water. This youth hostel is an excellent base for all the water sports and adventures. You have all had the initial letter reserving places, and we will have further information with regards to the finer details later on this year. Please feel free to email any questions to me at the address below.

Reading: I would like the children to read every night (including weekends). However, I appreciate this can be difficult, so a minimum of twice a week recorded in the reading records would be beneficial. We have bought brand new books as part of a Cumbria Library Services ‘Spellbinding’ programme, that children will read, have a passport to collect stickers as they review them, and finally vote collectively on the book they judged to be the best. This proved very popular last year.

Equipment: All stationary children require for their daily tasks is provided by school. We are a large class with space at a premium, so please can children only bring into school items they are required to, including reading books and records daily, spelling records and purple spelling activity books, and Friday test books for spelling and times-table tests on Fridays. Please check book bags as letters often remain in there for several weeks!

Spares, wellies and bottles: Thank you to all parents for providing children with the above items, we have now 100% of children fully equipped. Just a quick note that some wellies are getting a little small, and spares damaged, even though we are approaching Summer we still require these in school thanks to the uncertainty of Cumbrian weather! Water bottles are still required to travel home after school, and return refreshed the next morning.

Year 6 SAT’s tests:

SAT’s tests will occur this year for the Year 6 children.

We will be holding an information evening for the parents of these children, at a date to be confirmed in March, to outline expectations for those of you who haven’t experienced the testing before.

We can show you examples of CGP texts that can provide additional support for those wishing to purchase such materials to help prepare, they are very cost effective and closely matched to the SAT’s themselves. Please let me know if you would be interested in ordering some of these books through school at a reduced rate.

Finally, during my recuperation, all emails sent to me will be redirected to the office, where they will be attended to.

If there is anything you wish to let us know, please stay in touch. Emails to the office at admin@irthingtonvillage.cumbria.sch.uk or head@irthingtonvillage.cumbria.sch.uk are the best forms of communication for anything.

Yours sincerely,

Mark Harriso