Tortoiseshells - The Hub (SRP)

Welcome to the Hub!

The teachers in the hub are Mrs. Lyle and Miss Benson. Supported by Miss Sikindari.

P.E days 

Thursday mornings will be our PE day in the hub. The children will also join their mainstream classes and we will let you know on a case by case basis. 

Give Me Ten - Children are expected to read for at least ten minutes every day and should record this in their reading record. Children should bring their reading record to school every day. We hope to see lots of children becoming Reading Champions this year! 

Maths Magicians - There are a number of key mathematical facts that children should know and remember. These are, of course, taught in school but it is essential that children practise them at home too. You can find out which facts your child is currently working on by checking their maths record book. This is also where you should record their daily practice. Children's maths record books should be brought to school every day. Children will be quizzed on their maths facts every Friday. As they progress through the different stages of facts, children have the opportunity to earn rewards and work towards becoming Maths Magicians!

Handwriting - Using www.letterjoin.co.uk, your child can practise their handwriting at home. There are desktop and tablet login details that can be found by clicking on the phonics, spelling and writing star at the top of the page.

Summer 2 update

As the year draws to a close the adults in the hub have been reflecting on our time with the children this year and we cannot believe we have only known some of them for a half term! We want to take this opportunity to thank all of the parents and carers for their continued support both for the staff and for your children. We have been amazed by their progress since being with us and the speed in which they have settled into their new school, for some even being independent enough to get taxis in the morning. The children have continued to use their learning powers everyday to build a successful classroom community and to do their best in their work. We are so lucky to be able to teach such a lovely class of children with so much personality. We are really looking forward to seeing them continue to grow next year.

English

In English this half term Miss Benson's group have written a biography about a person of their choice. This ranged from youtubers to famous scientists! Miss Benson was very impressed with their ability to research effectively and to produce informative writing. 

In Mrs. Lyle's group the children first began looking at the story of 'Beegu' an alien who crash lands on Earth and struggles to be understood by the people living on Earth. They worked on using adjectives and writing descriptions. They then looked at a book called 'Bug hotel' where they learnt all about different mini-beasts and wrote an explanation text about some of their favourite mini beasts and what was special about them. 

Maths

In Miss Benson's group the children have been looking at recapping division and multiplication. The children have done a lot of work around this topic this year so we recapped everything we had learnt ready to go into the next year. 

In Mrs Lyle's group, some children have been practicing their addition and subtraction with in 10, some have been learning how to tell the time to quarter past, half past and quarter too on an analogue clock and some children have been practicing counting forwards and backwards (depending on their CAPPS targets).  

We wish you all a lovely and safe summer holidays! We look forward to seeing you in September. 

Summer 1 update!

We have had such a busy and lovely half term. We have had school trips for some of our children which has been a wonderful addition to their curriculum and we look forward to having more of these next half term. 

English 

Our first topic in English this half term was a wordless book called Journey. The children were able to create their very own world and write beautiful descriptions about them. Then we have moved on to a story called Stuck. A story all about resilience and never giving up. The children have been learning how to use inverted commas, commas in a list and have written their own stories about resilience. 

Maths 

This half term we have split into two groups!

Mrs Lyle's group have been learning all about fact families and word problems. They have been exploring the language used in maths and thinking about what the question is asking them to do. 

Miss Benson's group have started learning about perimeter this half term and everyone had a go at measuring some different objects to find their perimeter. We have also look at dividing and multiplying by 10 and 100. 

Spring 2 update!

What a busy half term we've had this half term. We have welcomed two new students, cooked, celebrated book week, had VR work shops and more! We are so proud of all the children in the hub and how hard they have been working. 

English

In English this half term we've first looked at sustainability and the book 'The most important animal of all.' The children created their very own book about an animal of their choice. We learnt lots about our environment and why all animals are so important. We finished by looking at Suzy Orbit- Astronaut. The children got to create their own space inventions and write diary entries pretending to be Suzy Orbit! They used some amazing adjectives and wrote brilliant sentences. 

Maths

This half term we have been focusing on addition and subtraction. We have learnt how to use column method, number lines and all the children have learnt how to do exchanging in both!

Spring term update 2024

What a busy term we have had in Tortoiseshells class! We are so impressed by all of the children's hard work this half term: they have been amazing! 

English

In our English lessons this term, we have looked at the theme of Superheroes. Firstly, we read a book called Traction Man, which was all about an action man who gets himself stuck in some tricky situations. The children created their own superheroes with their own very cool super powers and then they wrote a story all about it! They all produced some amazing writing and really impressed us with their creativity. Then we moved on to looking at real life heroes. People who have really cool jobs that help to keep us all safe. The children researched all about these lifesaving jobs and wrote a non-chronological report about the one they found most interesting. We had a wide variety of jobs from Vets to Cancer research scientists and the children showed their curiosity when researching the different types of jobs.

Maths

In maths, we have been looking mostly at fractions. We were so impressed with their resilience when they have been learning new skills. Especially when we were learning about finding half of a number, which initially they found tricky but by the end of the topic they were experts at doing it! Lots of the children even chose it as their ‘Proud work’ because of much effort they had put into it. We have also been working hard on our fluency this half term and practising our number bonds and number skills. We have thought about what different resources might help us to answer more tricky questions. The popular ones were number lines and numicon!

Superflex

This half term we have introduced Superflex thinking in the hub. Super flex helps us to be flexible in our thinking and overcome problems. For example, we have been thinking about Glassman who sends his explodabots into our brains, which makes us, get angry over small problems. We have been learning how to overcome this by thinking about how big the problem is before we react. This has linked nicely with our zones of regulation work. We are going to continue working on these new skills for us to improve our flexible thinking skills.

Oracy

This half term, and going forward, we are having a big focus on our oracy (speaking and listening skills). We have been working on our ‘good listening’ to show that we are listening and showing what ‘good talking’ looks like. This has included the pace we talk about, the volume we speak at and where we look when we talk. In terms of listening, we have thought about how we can show we are listening by being still when someone is talking by ensuring we are still, we are facing them and that we are responding to what that person is saying.  

Recent Learning

In order to prepare for Christmas, we have been having lots of fun creating different Christmas crafts - our children are very talented. 

We've also experienced our first Attention Autism lessons, otherwise known as 'Supergroups' in the Hub. It helps to support children with maintaining their attention, waiting and turn taking. Supergroups sessions often get messy and wacky, they are so much fun! 

As we get to know your children, we are completing more 'All About Me' activities. The children have told us what they like and don't like, painted self-portraits and designed their own Pupil Passports to show their mainstream teachers too. 

In English lessons, we have been writing descriptively using our five senses; there was a lot of reference to gingerbread men and what Christmas smells like 

As well as that, we wrote postcards to our class Elf on the Shelf, Snowy. We realised she must have been missing Santa and the North Pole and wrote her some kind words of thanks, for all of the lovely things she does for us each day. 

The children have also been exploring what a 'sensory circuit' means and how it helps us to regulate our emotions. We have been having lots of fun with creating obstacle courses and using our wonderful Hub resources to enjoy meaningful sensory circuits where we learn to 'alert' our bodies, then 'organise' and then 'calm'.

Autumn Term

A sneak peek at what we have been up to this half-term!