Turtle Class
Welcome to the Turtle Class web page for 2024-2025!
A very warm welcome to our home page!
Turtle class comprises of Year 1 and Year 2 children. We have had a fantastic start to the academic year across our first 4 terms and are now officially over half way through our year.
We cannot wait to see what Term 5 has in store for us as we begin brand new topics across our curriculum.
This page will be updated throughout the year with information regarding our topics and learning for the term ahead. You can find all relevant information regarding out latest term below.
Class team
Class Teacher: Miss Sammy Hughes (Mon-Thurs)Class Teacher: Mrs Michelle Price (Fri)
Learning Support: Miss Lynne Davis
Class documents
Turtle Class Timetable - Term 5:
turtles timetable term 5 2024 2025.pdf
Useful web links
Turtle Class
Our learning
As a school, we follow the Cornerstones Curriculum. Each ‘long’ term (so 3 times a year) the topics change. There is always one main topic (driver project) and several companion units.
In Terms 5 and 6 the driver project is a History unit called ‘Magnificent Monarchs’. This project will teach us about the English and British monarchy from AD 871 to the present day. We will use timelines, information about royal palaces, portraits and other historical sources, to build up an understanding of the monarchs. We will then research six of the most significant sovereigns.
The companion units for this project are ‘Push and Pull’ and 'Cut, Stitch and Join' (Design Technology), ‘Portraits and Poses' (Art and Design) and ‘Animal Survival' (Science).
English
Children in Turtles will continue to develop their phonetic knowledge using Read Write Inc. (RWI). We carefully group the children according to their phonic knowledge. This ensures each child is being supported, yet challenges, aiming for excellent reading progress. More information regarding RWI can be found under our Phonics and Reading area here on the website.
Children will have RWI lessons from Monday-Thursday. These lessons are followed by a whole class English lesson, where we will continue to focus on reading skills as well as developing our writing skills. Our English lessons are driven by The Power of Reading – a whole school learning and teaching approach which engages teachers and children in the English curriculum through the use of high quality texts and proven teaching approaches. These texts will vary and change across the terms. On Fridays alongside our whole class English lessons, we will also have a focus sessions on Spelling, Punctuation and Grammar (SPaG), as well as dedicated handwriting and dictation sessions.
Reading
Children will have access to two books to read at home. One will be an eBook set by their RWI leader to match their phonic ability. These will be set on Thursdays. Each eBook will be accompanied by a quiz, which provide opportunities for children to apply their phonic knowledge, as well as developing their comprehension skills. Children will also have a RWI Book Bag Book, a physical book that they will take home that is matched to the phonics they are learning. Book bag books are changed accordingly every Monday and Thursday. Therefore each eBook and Book Bag Book will stay with each child for a few days and should be re-read to support fluency in reading.
For those children who have completed the RWI scheme, they will then move onto reading AR (Accelerated Reader) books. These books are equally matched to the child’s reading ability, as an initial quiz provides each child with a reading level. The children will then get to choose a reading book within their book band levels, providing each child with autonomy over their reading.
Maths
We use Power Maths as the main driver in our Maths learning at Bethersden, supported with a range of practical activities to ensure that each child has a secure understanding of the concepts taught. We will be teaching each year group in isolation across the year, teaching the Year 1s and Year 2s separately.
Before Power Maths we have dedicated time to practise and develop our maths fluency. We will be using the Mastering Number program to do so, which aims to secure firm foundations in the development of good number sense for all children from Reception through to Year 1 and Year 2. A key resource we will be using throughout these sessions include tens frames and counters and rekenreks.
Term 5 coverage
English – Our core text across this term is The Pet Potato by Josh Lacey and Momoko Abe. This text links humorously with our Science topic 'Animal Survival', as in this text Albert is so desperate to get a pet. So much so, he'll take anything - a cat, a dog, giraffe... he's not fussy, so he's super excited when Dad finally brings a pet home. Though there's just one problem: it's a potato. We wonder if any of you have ever been desperate for a pet, just like Albert? Whilst developing our reading comprehension and understanding of this text, we will be exploring a range of writing genres including both fiction and non-fiction.
Maths – For our Year 1s we will begin learning about multiplication and division, as we explore counting in a variety of ways - 2s, 5s and 10s. We will look closely for patterns in numbers as we do so. For our Year 2s, we will be exploring measure as we learn about length and height, including mass, capacity and temperature.
Science – In our unit ‘Animal Survival’ we will learn about growth in animals by exploring the life cycles of some familiar animals. We will build on learning about the survival of humans by identifying the basic needs of animals for survival, including food, water, air and shelter - drawing on learning from our previous unit 'Human Survival'.
History is our main unit within our Cornerstones curriculum across these next 2 terms, with our driver project ‘Magnificent Monarchs’. This project will teach us about the English and British monarchy from AD 871 to the present day.
Art – In our Art unit ‘Portraits and Poses’ we will explore portraiture. We will look closely at the portraits of Tudor monarchs and compare Tudor portraits and selfies today. They use photo editing software to create royal portraits. This unit links nicely with our driver project unit 'Magnificent Monarchs'.
PSHE – This term we will be exploring the concept of 'healthy bodies, healthy minds' as we consider and discuss ways we can stay safe and healthy.
Computing – This term we will be focusing on programming, using Scratch Junior to help us. We will explore how sequences of commands have an outcome and make predictions based on our learning. We will use and modify designs to create their own quiz questions in ScratchJr and realise these designs in ScratchJr using blocks of code.
Home Learning
Here at Bethersden our home learning tasks are set each week on Tuesday via Google Classroom. Each child has their own login details to access this (which includes an email address and password – these can be found in their yellow reading records). Once set every Tuesday, the tasks will typically be due the following Monday. Each week we dedicate time to sharing and celebrating completed home learning tasks, something we and the children always look forward to. The tasks will range from physical activities, discussions, questions to explore – all activities we hope you will enjoy!
Alongside tasks set on Google Classroom, there will also be a weekly spelling ‘assignment’ set on Spelling Shed. We would also encourage children to practice their Maths skills using NumBots. Links to both of these sites can be found here on our class page. All login details can also be found in their yellow reading records.
We are looking forward to continued support with home learning this new academic year.
How can you support your child?
There are many ways that you can support your child to have a healthy, fun filled year in school!
- Please make sure that they are on time, have the correct uniform and have had a healthy breakfast.
- Read! Listen to them read, read to them, let them see you enjoying reading – reading in any form will help foster a love of books – something that we are passionate about at Bethersden Primary.
- Please ensure that they have the correct PE kit. Our PE day is on Friday, so please ensure your child comes into school on Fridays wearing their PE kit.
- Provide a water bottle (hydrated brains are happy brains!) - Please make sure these are filled with water only and not squash/juice.
- Please provide appropriate clothing for outdoor learning, we will not let the weather stop us!
Contact us
We are always available after school if you need a quick catch up. If you need a longer or more private meeting, please book this in at the office and we will be happy to accommodate.
If you have a non-urgent message for the team, you could contact the school office and the message will be passed on to the class team.
Very best wishes,
The Turtle Team
