Meet the teacher

Meet the teacher is at 9am on Friday 23rd September. I look forward to meeting you all.

Parent support

Has your child come home from school and asked for help with homework?

We learn in slightly different ways from the time you may have been at school, even though it may not be very long ago!

To avoid some of the confusion, we have included some resources to help you to help your child.

Using a Calculator

Using calculators helps children to learn more about how numbers work as well as performing calculations during problem-solving.

Estimating the answer first helps you to know if the calculator answer is likely to be right. Encourage your child to estimate roughly what size answer they expect, before using their calculator.

Timetables & 24hr Clocks

There are lots of opportunities to read timetables and schedules in the home. Help your child to interpret bus, train and ferry timetables, airline flight times and TV schedules. Help them to work out arrival and departure times, how long a journey takes or how long a TV programme lasts.

Understanding Decimals

There are many examples of decimal numbers around the home. They can be found in newspapers, magazines, on food packets and containers. Follow the activity below (in the body of the resource) and talk about numbers and about what the digits in the numbers mean.

Fractions

Look out for situations where fractions occur around the home or in leisure activities. Use these opportunities to help your child explore and understand fractions. Here are some possible situations (in the body of the resource) where fractions might arise.

Interpreting Line Graphs

There are many opportunities to look at and interpret graphs in newspapers, on TV and on the Internet. Ask your child questions about any you find, to help them interpret and explain graphs like the one below (in the body of the resource).

Number Facts » X & ÷ X & ÷

Children need practice so they are able to recall or work out multiplication and division facts to help them calculate quickly and accurately.

Using a Protractor

To check that your child can measure angles with a protractor, ask them to measure this angle (In the body of the resource).

Reading Scales (Thermometer, Ruler, Jug & Weighing Scales)

Children often find it difficult to read scales accurately. There are lots of opportunities to read scales in the home. Help your child to interpret scales in millimetres, centimetres and metres, millilitres and litres, grams and kilograms. Help them to read a measure when it falls between two unnumbered marks on a scale.

Scaling (Recipes etc.)

At home you can find practical opportunities for your child to practise scaling numbers up and down to solve problems. The kitchen is a good place to start. Look at recipes for meals, or for mixing soft drinks or sauces. Model-making also involves scaling of measurement, as do interpreting maps and making or using scale drawings.

Shapes

There are angles of all types and sizes around the home.

●Ask your child to find three different objects with right-angled (square) corners anywhere in the house.

●Next ask your child to open a door so that its bottom edge makes an acute angle (less than a right angle) with the line it makes when closed. Ask if they can find a door that opens to form an angle bigger than a right angle (cupboard doors sometimes do this).

●Ask your child to find you a pair of parallel lines in the house (they might suggest two opposite edges of a door, the TV or a photograph).

Reading Bar Charts & Tables

There are lots of opportunities to find and read bar charts in newspapers or on the Internet. Tables of information often appear in leaflets found in shops or distributed by post.

Look out for local takeaway menus, tables of charges to parks and cinemas or tables of information in guides or magazines. For example, use a tourist information leaflet to work out costs of visits.

Time & Timelines

We tell the time in different ways. We use ‘old-fashioned’ analogue clocks, with hands, and digital clocks, which can use 12-hour and 24-hour displays. We read a train departure time as 15:45 and speak the time as ‘a quarter to four’.