Brookburn
Primary
School

With the changes in the curriculum, greater emphasis has been placed on presentation, the formation of letters and joined handwriting. We are now part of the Letter-join handwriting scheme and any of our pupils wishing to practise their handwriting at home can now log in to the Letter-join website on iPads and tablets as well as desktop and laptop computers. Your child is able to practice certain letter shapes using our cursive handwriting scheme, tracing over words, patterns and numbers to reinforce directional strokes and correct joins.

This is a new programme we have recently invested in. Spelling continues to be an important part of writing and we wanted to find fun and engaging ways of helping your children practise and rehearse their spellings. We received some positive feedback from parents lower down the school about Sumdog and how much children enjoyed the games and rewards for completing maths. Spelling Shed offers similar motivations. Our aim is that each week, children will be able to practise their spellings set by the teacher within the game format to secure the letter patterns within the words. They will also be able to practise words from the statutory lists for their year group and engage in hive games against others in their class.

The website for this programme is https://play.edshed.co/login

TT Rockstars provides simple game formats for your child to practise times tables – they start out by completing a baseline task which sets their speed for time spent answering each question. The aim is that in using TT Rockstars, children’s recall of their tables facts becomes quicker, and as such, their speed and fluency increases.

Next year, our Y4 2019-2020 cohort will be the first group of pupils nationally to sit the Y4 Times Table check being introduced. Similar to the phonics check in Y1, children are expected to demonstrate security with their times table facts up to 12 x 12, answering a series of times table questions on a tablet for 5 minutes. Children will have 6 seconds to answer each question. To support our children in preparing for this, we, along with many other schools locally, have agreed that a fun and interactive programme like Times Table Rock Stars supports your children to work towards the goal of becoming fluent with their fact recall.

Your child will come home with their login details for this programme, which runs either through an app that you can download on your tablet or phone, or by visiting  www.ttrockstars.com/login

This game / app has been up and running in all classes from Y1 – Y6 for a number of months now, and our children love it! Your child should have their login for this programme – if not, please contact your class teacher. On the programme, children get to play on a range of games where mathematical challenges are set. Your child will face content appropriate for their mathematical stage and their class teacher will set content and challenges for the children to complete through the course of a week linked to learning that has been studied in the classroom.

Children have the opportunity to earn coins and shop to incentivise their play. They can even buy gifts for each other, which they very much enjoy.

We compete in local and national challenges against other schools at different times of the year, and like the other apps / games that we use, these interactive approaches are very engaging and motivating for your children.

To access Sumdog, you can either download the app or visit www.sumdog.com

NumBots is an online game and playing little and often will significantly improve your child’s recall and understanding of number bonds and addition and subtraction facts. These are critical foundations in maths so we are excited by the impact NumBots will have.

Children can use their TT Rockstars login to access Numbots. They might need some help navigating to the website and entering the details but once they’re in, they just need some quiet space to get on with the games for 5 minutes (or more if they wish to!). Please don’t allow siblings, friends or family to answer for them but do support your child if they’re stuck. Here are the game types:

1. Story Mode – the emphasis is on learning the ideas and concepts behind addition and subtraction so it features more diagrams, shapes and question styles.

2. Challenge Mode – the emphasis is more on speed of recall of key facts, like number bonds to 10, doubling small numbers or adding & taking away in your head.

Numbot is available online at https://play.numbots.com or you can download the Numbots app.