Bocombra Primary School

:: Parents' Guide ::

Introduction
The following information contains important information regarding your child's education. It will hopefully help parents to support their child's work in school. We regard it as vitally important that home and school work together to help our children maximise their abilities thus enabling them to make the best of the learning opportunities and experiences they meet daily.

Remember to:
:: Always encourage and be positive - provide plenty of praise.
:: Be patient - give your child time to read and think.
:: Build on what they already know.
:: Contact your child's teacher, or me, if you have any concerns. Don't wait too long as it could have a detrimental effect on your child's educational and/or social development.

Assessment
Children are continually being assessed in school, right from Year 1 to Year 7.
Assessment is continuous and takes the form of observation, marking daily work and homework, tests (end of week/month/topic) and exams (years 3 - 7 in June). Children in Years 4 - 7 also undergo end of key stage statutory Assessment. During Term 2 children in these classes will complete Assessment Units, received from CCEA (Curriculum Council for Examinations and Assessment) as well as teacher assessment of work completed in school. The levels they achieve will be reported to parents in June.

Reading
Reading is one of the most important learning skills yet it is often the one which parents feel least comfortable with when helping their children.
Children should be taught to read accurately, fluently, with expression and most important of all, with understanding.

Homework
Homework is one obvious and important area in which schools can enlist parental support at home. It is an essential part of school life and as such should involve the parent working with the child (but not doing it for the child!).

:: It is useful in consolidating and extending the work done in the classroom.
:: It is an important part of the liaison between home and school.
:: It strengthens the educational partnership between parents and teachers.
:: It provides a means by which parents can monitor their child's progress.
:: As an exercise in self-discipline it will enhance a child's ability for private study in later education.

The school's homework policy provides fuller information regarding homework given and the role of parents and the teacher.Whether or not work of a formal nature (written) is set, you should always make time to assist with spellings, with oral table work and especially with reading or research.

To encourage children to read, parents - and grandparents - should:-
1 Offer a wide selection of reading material.
2 Make time for reading
3 Make space in your home and lives for reading.
4 Tie reading into real life situations when possible.
5 Never be too old to read with your children.
6 Encourage reading aloud - share the reading.

1 Keep the reading activity short and exciting.
2 Give lots of praise and encouragement.
3 Take the reading slowly and steadily.
4 If your child struggles over an unknown word - PAUSE > PROMPT > PRAISE.

Invite your child to express opinions by using open-ended questions, not closed one, e.g.
"Why do you think they did that?" rather than "What did they do?"
"What do you think is going to happen next?"

At the end of Key Stages 1 and 2, children are assessed in reading through comprehension exercises.
This tests their understanding. There are usually two main types of question;
:: Literal - where the information needed to answer the question is in the text.
:: Inferential - where the pupils have to work out the answer from what has been read as the passage does not actually give the answer.

Spellings
If your child is having difficulty learning spellings each night, try the following method: READ · SAY · COVER · WRITE · CHECK

When learning to spell words you must always:-

READ	Read the word to your child. As you do this, look for any ways of helping them to remember the spelling.Is it part of a word group? Are there smaller words contained in it? Are there letter patterns?
SAY	Look carefully at the word and say it out loud so that you can remember what you have seen.
COVER	Cover the word.
WRITE	Write the word from memory.
CHECK	Uncover and check that you have written the word correctly.If you have not written the word correctly, discuss how close the attempt was and then start again.