Dear Parents,
We hope you have all had a wonderful weekend in the sunshine, we have all had a lot of fun with the hawks at school today and I am sure your son will tell you all about the experience this evening!
In this update we will update you on the different IT programs that we use as a school to communicate and educate the boys and also keep in touch with you.
Microsoft Teams
Pupil logins for our new Prep boys and pupils in Year 1 will be emailed out to parents by the end of the day tomorrow. You can use these details to join Celebration Assembly and the Catch Up Meetings on Wednesday, as well as any other parent/teacher meetings scheduled.
New Early Years pupils (Little Griffins & Reception) parents' will receive an email invitation to join the class Team to attend Celebration Assembly and the Catch Up Meetings on Wednesday, as well as any other parent/teacher meetings scheduled.
To make this very effective program work for you at home, you will need to download the Microsoft Teams App to your laptop if you don't already have it, full instructions on how to do this can be found here;
https://www.stedwardsprep.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Microsoft-Teams-Instructions.pdf
Class Dojo Yrs 1-6 (House Point reward system)
All new pupils in Years 1-6 will receive an email with login details for Class Dojo. This program is used by teachers to award House Points throughout the term. You can login and see how your son is doing whenever you like. You will see that there is a message function available for you to communicate with teachers, we would ask that you don't use this program for that purpose but that you continue to use your normal email program to get in touch with us.
For existing parents who already have their logins, all the classes have now been promoted a year so are accurate for the new academic year.
Mangahigh Yrs 2-6 (Online Maths Homework tool) - message from Mrs Hunt
As you are probably aware, your son now has a subscription to Mangahigh, our online Maths website. The link to the website is https://app.mangahigh.com I wanted to write to help you understand how this website works and how to get the best out of it for your son.
We hope that you will find it a motivational tool for your son to complete their Maths homework or revision. The boys seem to be enjoy using this tool and it encourages them to talk about Maths and encourages their learning. Usually Maths homework will be rotated between a written homework and an online Mangahigh assignment
All boys have been given a username and password and the school ID is 374232. They should have been given their login details and the boys are responsible for keeping it safe (or best of all learning it), but if you are unsure please do email me and I can provide the details again.
Boys will be set ‘assignments’ – homework that should be completed by a certain due date. Please ensure your child completes these tasks first and as a priority. Each task can be done as many times as they want (the questions will change each time) and they may receive medals for their work. This should motivate your son to complete the same task a few times to try and improve, which will mean he is consolidating his Maths skills. As teachers we are not putting emphasis on medals or points scored – the most important thing is that your son has completed the task to his best ability. He may not always pass each task, but that will indicate to his teacher that more support in this area is required. A useful part to each assignment is that there is a ‘Teach Me’ section, which is worth doing as a way of practising the skills before starting the task.
All boys have access to the wide range of games and activities and can complete additional tasks separate to their homework assignment. There will also be tasks in a ‘recommended’ section, these are the most suitable according to the age and ability of your son. However, these are optional and it is up to you as parents to decide on how much screen time your son has. The leader boards and ‘top ten’ pupils sections are only there to motivate boys and not as a requirement. As a guide your son should be spending between 20 minutes to half an hour on Maths homework when it is set.
I hope you find this information is useful, if you have any further questions please do not hesitate to contact me.
Tamara Hunt, t.hunt@stedwardsprep.com
If you have any questions about any of the items in this Update, please get in touch with the School Office, 01189574342 or admin@stedwardsprep.com
Kind regards,
Tracy Glass, School Business Manager