We’re back in full swing and we are busy, busy, busy! The pupils are busy learning and doing and exploring and problem solving. The teaching teams are busy planning and preparing and monitoring and assessing. The leaders are busy reviewing and evaluating and arranging and supporting. Marketing are busy scheduling and inviting and communicating and hosting. We are a hive of fruitful activity. However, it’s not enough to be busy. The question is: what are we busy about?
For parents to find out more about what their child and the teaching teams are busy about, we provide the following information:
- A themed newsletter, outlining the theme which will be covered for the next four – six weeks. This provides cues for parents and families to use throughout their conversations, time together, books to read at home, concepts to investigate together during weekends. It takes only time and a little imagination to reinforce the learning and strengthen the link between home and the setting.
- Classroom news weekly, which outlines what children will be exploring in the week ahead. Again, this provides cues and links for families to use in their conversations.
- Tapestry learning journals, which focus on each individual child and demonstrates what they do, how they do it, what they like and paints a beautiful picture of the unique child. Parents can use this information to plan activities together and learn about their child outside of the home environment.
- Parent / practitioner meetings which are imperative to understand where each child is in terms of growth and development and where support may be required.
These methods of feedback to parents are maintained consistently. It is then up to the parents to use the information that is provided to them. If any parent feels that they need support accessing the information, we are extremely happy and willing to provide it – please just ask!
The leadership team are busy undertaking the continual cycle of reviewing the curriculum, its delivery and its assessment. Working with specialists from Central Office, we consider language development against global benchmarks and map pupil progress to a ‘language ladder’ to record development across time. The curriculum co-ordinators also map development of all seven areas of learning across the setting, highlighting trends for discussion with the teaching teams and implementing plans for meeting the needs of pupils where necessary. We are starting to plan for the termly academic sub-committee, which feeds in to the School Affairs Committee and Board of Governors meetings. Here, we must provide evidence, data and analysis of our curriculum, teaching and learning, monitoring and assessment and future development, mapped and reviewed against the academic development plan. Closely following this event, we will annual review in March; a thorough and rigorous process of monitoring and evaluation of everything we do. By a team of seasoned educators and inspectors from the UK. Reviewed against eight areas, the annual review
team consider our self-evaluation and cross reference the evidence we provide with what they can see. They meet with the team, the parents and the pupils and conclude with a series of judgements on our practice.
Marketing are busy with planning and preparing for upcoming events. Plans for the Chinese New Year event on February 7
th are well underway and there is a full day of exciting travel and guest artists to be experienced.
I conclude this week’s missive with an addendum; we are not merely busy, we are busy being productive.
Classroom News for week beginning Monday 22nd January 2018
EY1 – Erica Ni writes about the theme Dear Zoo
Children will be encouraged to describe animals’ positions such as on the table or under the chair through the activity. We will continue to talk about hard and soft too when children are playing. Children are supported and encouraged to take care of themselves every day in the setting. For example, we will talk about how to wash hands properly, why we need to drink lots of water, and how to put on jackets by ourselves. We will keep making Chinese New Year crafts to learn about Chinese culture and to decorate our learning spaces.
We are reading:
《亲爱的动物园》、《9只小猫呼呼呼》、《小白兔学归类》、Dear Zoo
We are singing:
《新年好》、《健康歌》、《春雨沙沙》、《我有一头小毛驴》、《幸福拍手歌》、How’s the weather, Hocky Pocky, If you are happy and you know it, Pat your Head
Special date: 26
th January Superhero Day
A note from the EY1 team:
EY1 would like to collect some recycle boxes or bottles in the classroom in order to enrich children’s play experience. Please clean them properly then bring them to our classrooms if you have.
EY2 – Vivian He writes about the theme We’re Going on a Bear Hunt
This week, our learning will continue to be based around the story, “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”. We will continue to sequence the story by discussing the story and ordering the pictures from the story in the correct order. We will also be making a sensory box containing the different textured materials from the story and we will describe how they feel. We will then review number recognition and counting objects up to 10. Finally we will finish the week with the children listening to different sounds and describing what they hear and saying what it is.
We are reading:
《看世界》、《小猴子找妈妈》、《动物》、《长颈鹿不会跳舞》、We’re Going on a Bear Hunt、Walking through the Jungle、Dear Zoo、Elmer、Animal book
We are singing:
《两只小象》、《我的朋友在哪里》、《三只小熊》、12345 Once I caught a fish alive、Down in the jungle、where nobody goes、One little finger
Special date: January 26 Super Hero Day (non-uniform day)
A note from the EY2 team:
We would like ask children to bring their animal books or toys for their show and tell.
EY3 – Nicole writes about the theme Blast Off into Space
“The vastness of the spirit, the activity of imagination, the diligence of the mind, is the genius”. – Diderot
This week children will start to look at the Moon and we will do an experiment to know why we have day and night. We will find the secret of shadow. We will discuss the questions like “How can we go to the Moon?” With the use of the book Whatever Next, the children will use the cupboard or the other materials to make their own rocket.
We are reading:
Whatever Next、《小小急救手册》、《地球之舞》、《那接下来呢？》、《如果地球被我们吃掉了》
We are singing:
《奇妙太空人》
Special date: January 26 Super Hero Day (non-uniform day)
EY4 – Emily Gu writes about the theme We Are the Explorer of the World
After learning the story of the great explorer Zheng He, EY4 children will start to explore the world by themselves. In Monkey and Elephant class children are very interested in knowing about dinosaur. So they will travel through two different time zones on alternate day to explore the dinosaur land to look at what dinosaur look like, talk about their height and features and also explore some detail about the dinosaur fossil and share their findings with the class.
In Giraffe class the children are very interested in knowing about the desert. So they will travel with the Magic School Bus to go to the desert to start the adventure, find out the features of desert animals such as what they eat and how they keep cool in the desert. Also children will look into how the rain affects the desert and what nocturnal animals we can find there?
We are reading:
《恐龙啊，你在哪里？》、《神奇校车，追寻恐龙》、Dinosaurs、If you happen to have a dinosaur 、《神奇校车—沙漠之旅》、Magic School Bus—The Journey to the Desert
We are singing:
恐龙化石、恐龙巴士、Dinosaurs lived a long, long time ago、We are the dinosaurs!
Special note: January 26 Super Hero Day (non-uniform day)
A note from the EY4 team:
Please label uniforms for your child in case it is lost.
Music and Movement – PeiHua and Sarah write about life in the music space
EY1 – This week our EY1 children will be busy learning the bilingual song 新年好 and playing with a steady beat with Chinese traditional music as we prepare for Spring Festival, Creative animal movements to music will continue as we explore the musical side of
Dear Zoo.
EY2 – We’ll review the song that inspired
Going on a Bear Hunt, adding more body percussion and movement to it. The children will also continue to appreciate classical music and learn about brass instruments through the musical story 《动物音乐会》. The bilingual song 新年好will also be introduced as we will celebrate Spring Festival soon.
EY3 – 3… 2… 1… Blast off! The children are so inspired by space sound and images! This week the EY3 children will continued to use some instruments to create their own space adventure music in small groups. We will also dance like robots.
EY4 –We Are Musical Explorers! We will continue working in small groups to create our own music, this time inspired by pictures from familiar stories and our own drawings. We will also review 礼貌歌（二）and continue exploring all the ways our bodies can move with the song
Zoom-eh-Oh
We are reading:
EY 2 –
Going on a Bear Hunt，《动物音乐会》
We are singing:
EY1 – 新年好（双语）, Going to the Zoo，动物园
EY2 – 新年好（双语）,Ten in the Bed
EY3 – Soaring, Blue White Planet
EY4 – Zoom-eh-Oh，礼貌歌（二）
Special notes:
Are you a musician, dancer, or creative performer? WCCBS needs you!
Our children are an enthusiastic and appreciative audience, and we would love to share your talents with them as we learn about music. Grandparents, family friends, and community members are welcome too! If you have a talent you would like to share, please e-mail
peihua.wang@wellingtoncollege.cn or
sarah.peel@wellingtoncollege.cn to discuss how we may be able to include you in our upcoming activities.
