The first part of today’s message comes from the Sphere Maths Leader…
We’re proud to have a Maths Mastery teacher in our team. As well as teaching Maths here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary and leading Maths across the three Sphere Federation schools, Paula Allaway works for West Yorkshire Maths Hub, working closely with the National Centre for Excellence in the Teaching of Mathematics. Paula writes…
Is your child regularly accessing NumBots or Times Tables Rock Stars?
The quick recall of addition and subtraction facts, and multiplication and division facts (times tables) is really important for all children. The ability to recall these facts quickly (rather than taking too long working them out) helps children to answer questions in lots of areas of Maths much more easily.
If these facts are learnt and stored, rather than being calculated or counted, they require less activity from the brain. Essentially, memorisation frees up working memory space to allow children to focus on learning new mathematical ideas and applying mathematics to solve problems, and not the facts themselves.
Without times tables facts, many future Maths topics are more difficult to learn. Daily practice, in short bursts, really makes a difference. If you’re finding it hard to fit in all the lessons, some days, you may want to prioritise practising number facts over the daily White Rose lesson.
Check out Numbots and Times Tables Rock Stars. Ask your child’s teacher for login details if you’re not sure how to access.
It’s another snow day…
As we’ve said before, deciding whether to close or not is a tough decision to make. The Heads of School were all up extra early today to check with staff about whether they can safely travel to school. Admin leaders were also up early, ready to communicate as soon as the decision to close (or stay open) was made.
We made the decision based on two main factors: the current weather and the forecast. When the call was made, it was snowing heavily and the forecast was that it would continue to snow heavily until noon. We also checked with other local schools.
The situation is made harder right now because we can’t mix children or staff – they have to stay within their bubbles.
Thanks for your understanding.