Croeso i Dosbarth Oak
Welcome to Dosbarth Oak's class page. In Dosbarth Oak, Miss Carroll is the class teacher. We also have two wonderful teaching assistants, Mrs Jones and Mrs Saunders. On Wednesdays, Miss Carroll has PPA and Management time. During this time, Dosbarth Oak will be taught by Miss Curtis in the morning, who will be teaching PE. On Wednesday afternoons, the children have Forest School with Miss Jones.
In Dosbarth Oak, the children are placed at the centre of their learning, where their ideas and interests influence all areas as they plan how they are going to develop and apply their skills. We encourage our children to be independent and we instil a 'We Can Do' approach to develop happy, confident and capable learners.
We aim to provide the children with as many real-life experiences as possible and plan many exciting opportunities to enrich their learning. The children learn through a careful balance of focus teaching, enhanced and continuous provision and daily access to our outdoor learning environments. During this time, children experience a wide range of learning opportunities where they independently explore and investigate in a variety of areas, consolidate their learning and challenge themselves further. Our high expectations, care and dedication to your children ensure that they reach their full potential in a happy, safe and fun environment.
On our class page you will find information about our current topics and have the opportunity to see some of our learning in action!
Please click on the link below and take a closer look at our current topic map to see what we will be learning this half term.
You will also find the children's homework for this half term.
Don't forget to check out our Twitter page @alexcptweets to see the exciting things we have been doing. You can also post your homework there too!
Dosbarth Oak Learning in action
How you can support your child
Read, Write Inc - We follow Read, Write Inc to help children develop their reading and writing skills through daily sessions at a level appropriate for their development. In addition to reading books, we also provide resources such as flashcards to further support this at home. Please encourage your child to spend 10 minutes each evening looking through their flashcards and reading their book. Please see the link below for more information regarding Read Write Inc.
PE - Children in Dosbarth Oak have PE every Wednesday. Please make sure your child has a PE kit consisting of a plain white t-shirt, black shorts and pumps or trainers. In the winter they may wear a plain black tracksuit. It is very important that your child's clothes are clearly labelled.
Forest School - Children in Dosbarth Oak have Forest School every Wednesday afternoon with Miss Jones. Forest School is a fantastic way to build up children's skills, abilities and confidence through practical hands-on activities in the outdoors. It provides children with rich opportunities to explore, learn and discover at their own pace in a safe and supportive space. Forest School uses natural resources to stimulate imagination, creativity and investigation.
Forest School sessions will take place entirely outside in the natural environment whatever the weather. We will provide shelter from the elements, but it is still important that your child wears clothes that are waterproof, warm and clothes that are OK to get wet and muddy.
Your child should wear
- A waterproof coat
- Wellington boats (or sturdy walking boats/old trainers)
- Comfortable long trousers (waterproof if they own a pair)
- Comfortable, warm long sleeved top or fleece
- Thick socks if the weather is cold - thermal if possible or two pairs of thinner socks
- Hat and gloves
- Two bags, one to put dirty forest school clothes in and another bag for their wellies
On Forest School days (Wednesdays), children will come to school wearing their full school uniform and will then change into their Forest School kit. Children will bring their kit into school weekly so that they can be taken home and cleaned.
Snack - We provide a healthy fruit snack to all children in Foundation Phase. The cost of snack is £1 per week. Please make sure you have paid your child's snack money via Parent Pay. If you require any support with this, please contact the school office where the secretaries will be happy to help you.
Google Classroom - Children in Dosbarth Oak will access Google Classroom during the school day and also for some of their homework. Please see the link below.
Seesaw - Seesaw is a fantastic tool that allows myself and the children to independently document their own learning by uploading photos, videos, audio recordings and more. This also provides opportunities for discussion and encourages the children to reflect upon their learning during this process. This is a wonderful opportunity for you to see the progress your child is making throughout the school year. Please make sure you have joined our class Seesaw page and check it regularly as this is where I post important information. You can also contact me via Seesaw if you have any queries or concerns.
Our Topics
Spring 1: The Great Fire of London
Autumn 2 - Special Delivery from Outer Space
This half term, children will be immersed into the topic of space when a mysterious spacecraft crash lands into their classroom. They will be presented with a series of problems, where they will need to collaborate in order to help a stranded alien make their way back home by teaching the alien a range of new things. This will provide the hook for many engaging learning opportunities including digital film making, drama and role play as well as a range of exciting science experiments, letter writing and digital programming.
In Languages, children will use Talk for Writing to learn and retell the story 'The Way Back Home' before innovating the text and creating their own journey stories. Children will also develop their understanding of letter writing and use this knowledge to send their own special deliveries. In mathematics, children will be developing their understanding of addition and subtraction, where they will explore a range of strategies to support them. Later in the term, they will be learning about 2D and 3D shapes, where they will learn to recognise and name a range of regular and irregular shapes and discuss their properties.
Autumn 2 Homework
Autumn 1 - Reach for the stars / EARTH - Elemental
This half term the children will start the new school year with our mini topic of 'Reach for the Stars'. During this period we will be welcoming the children, establishing routines and developing a strong growth mindset. We will also be looking at our aspirations and dreams for the future using the wonderful stories 'The Magical Yet' and 'Incredible You'
We will then move on to our topic of Earth, where Science and technology is the driving area of learning and experience. We will be focusing our discovery topic on the recent Disney film 'Elemental'. During the topic, children will be responding to BIG QUESTIONS, where they will use their pupil voice to influence their learning which will be based around the four elements (fire, earth, air and water). We will start our topic by identifying, sorting and comparing the elements. Children will also be developing their investigation skills as they carefully plan and carry out a range of exciting, thought provoking experiments. They will make predictions and record their observations. During this process children will be developing their understanding of explanation texts as they write their own investigations.
During ICT sessions, children will learn the importance of online safety and how to be responsible users of a range of ICT equipment. They will learn how to share their learning online using Google classroom and Seesaw.
In Dosbarth Oak we will be developing our Language, Literacy and Communication skills through Talk 4 Writing. We will be looking closely at the genre of 'warning tales' by learning the story 'Little Red Riding Hood'. Children will be immersed in story telling, through lots of role play and drama techniques, children will learn to retell the story through text maps and actions. We will then look closely at the genre, develop our skills and creating our own toolkit. We will be focussing on the structure of a story - beginning, middle and end, as well as paying close attention to the use of phonics (Fred fingers) when writing and the importance of capital letters and full stops. Children will then use their toolkit to create their own warning tales.
Children will also be developing their Welsh language through daily Helpwr Heddiw sessions, where we will be learning how to introduce ourselves, express our feelings and talk about the weather.
In mathematics, we will be focussing on place value. This consists of reading and writing numbers to and beyond 100, representing numbers, counting objects/amounts, one more/one less, ordering and comparing numbers.
In PSE/RSE, children will be learning about 'Safety First'. During this term, children will learn about the importance of keeping themselves safe in real-life and online. They will also learn about the 'Underwear Rule', including appropriate and inappropriate touching.