Dear Parents/Caregivers
Welcome to Room 6! My name is Mr Harrison and I will be teaching your child. I hope you enjoyed the summer break with as much as I did. Most of my time was spent camping in the Coromandel, consuming well earned brown cordial and keeping my leg elevated after a stint of surgery. I have to say that all my Christmas presents were excellent. You can't go wrong buying a man gift vouchers for any hardware outlet.
I have planned many wonderful learning activities and look forward to working alongside your child. Term 1 will have a major learning focus on 'Belonging' and 'The Amazing Brain' and 'China'.
Homework:
Each week, your child will bring home an activity to share with you. These homework sheets will need to be completed by Friday and kept in their 'homework book'. The homework activities have been specifically designed for parents and children to share together, rather than being a solitary task that the child might just as well be doing in class – or on the moon!
If homework is to really help your child and fully advance their learning, then it needs to fulfil two purposes:
- The activity should involve your child in explaining something they have learnt at school.
- The activity should be one which draws upon the situation and resources of the home. This means that school-learning is transferred to real-life contexts.
If parents and children share an activity in which the child has to explain aspects of Maths or English learned at school, the child thereby strengthens their learning. These gains are further enhanced if these concepts or skills are transferred to real-life contexts rather than remaining as classroom activities. Each child is expected to complete 20 minutes of homework per night (approximately 1 hour and 20 minutes per week). However, homework is not intended to create stress or tension in the home. If this happens, please see me so that I can give your child a kick up the backside. That last statement is not true – teachers aren't allowed to kick students.
Email:
Before I forget a fantastic form of communication between you and I could be achieved through email - given that it is generally hard to pin down a teacher before and after school. Apart from the obvious benefits to emailing, here are a few more:
- I can email you some excellent learning websites that will improve your child's literacy and numeracy skills;
- I can attach current homework sheets to this email so that you don't need to rummage through their bag;
- I can keep you posted in regards to current classroom learning, events and updates.
If you would like to use email as a quick method of communication, please write down your email address and drop it off at school.
If you have any questions or would like to see me, please feel free to contact me before or after school. Also keep in mind that the Hillary Syndicate Parent Evening is coming up soon so I'll keep you posted.
Regards,
Mr Harrison