Many of the children in Hazel class come to the school during their junior period of primary education often after a period of instability in their education. The children have good cognitive potential for learning but require a highly personalised approach to their personal and social education which is their main barrier to achieving. The Link Curriculum Priorities help them to focus on and understand their emotional needs and also help them to see and understand life from the perspective of others. Raising self- esteem and a positive attitude to learning is the key to the children accessing and learning from the wide variety of cross curricular topics and extra- curricular activities on offer.
Hazel Class Curriculum Focus – 2019 Spring Term
Dear Hazel Parents,
Over the next 6 weeks those of us in Hazel Class will be following a unit of work on a theme that focuses on ‘ICT and Computing’.
This unit of work is part of the International Primary Curriculum. This new curriculum sets out very clearly what children will learn – the learning goals – in three different areas:
- The subjects of the curriculum. The learning goals for each of these subjects are at least as challenging as anything taught in the curriculum in your child’s own country. In many cases, the learning goals are more challenging.
- Personal development – the characteristics which will help children become more responsible, independent learners.
- International understanding – which will help children develop both a sense of the independence of their own country and culture and the interdependence between countries and cultures.
Each unit of work is based around specific targets derived from the learning goals for one or more of the subjects.
During this unit we will be focusing on ICT and International learning.
In ICT, we’ll be finding out:
- How to handle photographic equipment
- About techniques for taking successful photos
- About photography as a profession
- How to download save, edit and print out photos
- How to publish photos on the internet to share them with others
- About ways to stay safe online
- How to write and debug a simple program to control an avatar
In International we’ll be finding out:
- How the internet allows us to find out more about the lives of children in different countries and make comparisons with our own
All of the work we are going to do has been specially written to help your child reach the learning goals. Children will be reading, researching, writing, illustrating, working on their own and working in groups. We will be checking to see how well your child has learned through particular activities and asking children to explain their work, perhaps to you.
We already know the interest you take in your child’s work. If you can, please discuss with your child the work they have done as the term progresses and let them teach you.
As you look through magazines, books and posters, talk to your child about your own experiences of taking photos and how you think the photographers achieve certain effects. If possible, encourage your child to use the family camera to teach you what they have learnt in class.
Your children will be using a program called ‘Scratch’ to write their own computer games. This software has been developed by MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) for educational purposes. Please encourage your child to create his or her own online ‘Scratch’ account at:
‘Scratch’ allows students to program their own interactive stories, games, and animations, which can then be shared with others in the online community. They will need access to an email address in order to set up a ‘Scratch’ account.
If your child has some work to research, please help them, but without actually doing the work. If you have the chance to further their interest in the ideas of this theme please take it, but your enthusiasm and interest is most important.
By the end of the unit, we hope your child has achieved all of the learning targets. We hope they have had an enjoyable time in the classroom. And we hope you have enjoyed seeing your child work with enthusiasm. If you have any comments or questions about your child’s learning, please get in touch.
Kind Regards,
Frances McNaughton and the Hazel Team.
