Times Tables

Dear parents and carers,

We are having a whole school push on children learning and knowing their times tables. Children who are secure and confident in their times tables become far more fluent and successful mathematicians, and those that lack confidence can really start to struggle by Year 5 and 6.

We teach times tables at school, but we would be grateful if you could support your children in learning and practising their times tables at home, as much as possible as this is proven to help embed their learning.

Here are the times tables and calculations your child should know by the end of the year:

Year 1 To know and understand the 2 times table, 5 times table, 10 times table
Children should also know all doubles and halves to 10

Year 2 To know and understand the 2, 5 and 10 times tables and all corresponding division facts.
Children should also be able to recognise odd and even numbers to 10

Year 3 To know and understand the 3 times table, 6 times table, 4 times table, 8 times table and all corresponding division facts

Year 4 To know all times tables and corresponding division facts
Teach explicitly 7, 9, 11 and 12 times tables
Times Table Assessment in the Summer Term

Year 5 Regular practise and revision of all times tables and corresponding division facts
To know and understand square numbers, cube numbers and prime numbers

Year 6 Regular practise and revision of all times tables and corresponding division facts
To know and understand multiplication and division facts, involving decimals, fractions and percentages.

A letter is coming home with every child explaining ways you can support your child with their times tables. If you have any questions, do not hesitate to get into contact with your child's class teacher or Miss Murray, our Maths lead.

Thanks in advance for your support.

Best wishes

Mrs R

As you know, we take reading very seriously at Notre Dame and want to get everyone reading as much as possible.

To encourage more reading at home, teachers will be giving every child a raffle ticket on Fridays, if they have read at least 4 times in the week. This has to be written into Reading/Homework Diaries.

The raffle ticket will be entered into a draw and at the end of this term, we will be awarding a Kindle to the child whose raffle ticket is pulled out! It will come with a warranty, cover and access to 1000s of books!

We have one Kindle for every half-term kindly donated by Carey Olsen- so 5 to be won this academic year!

Please hear your child read and write in their record book so that they get a chance at winning this amazing prize.

Education is re-introducing its package of enhanced measures from tomorrow (Thursday 17th March 2022) to help alleviate pressures in settings because of the current wave of COVID-19 infections.
These measures have been developed in consultation with Public Health and are designed to support the priority objective of keeping educational schools and settings fully operational and therefore minimising any disruption to young people’s education.
While there might be slight variations at each setting depending on their specific circumstances and operational needs, the suite of measures includes:
• All staff (primary, secondary and post-16) are expected to wear a face covering when inside school buildings, including in classrooms.
• All secondary and post-16 students are expected to wear a face covering on school transport and when inside school buildings, including in classrooms. Additional outside breaks will be worked into the school day.
• Primary school-aged students should be supported to wear a face covering if they want to do so.
• Schools may implement changes to drop-off and pick-up times to stagger the number of people on-site at any one time.
• Classroom bubbles will be re-introduced for primary schools where possible.
• Classroom bubbles will be introduced for KS3 (secondary school years 7-9) where possible.
• No school-run extra-curricular clubs or activities will take place for the time being.
• No whole-school assemblies or in-person events such a parents evenings (these will be held online where possible).
Schools will contact parents and carers to provide further information relevant to the implementation of these measures at their child’s school.
Nick Hynes, Director of Education, said:
‘This is undoubtedly a challenging time for education settings, which is also being experienced by other essential services and private companies, due to the number of
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positive cases at the moment. A number of our schools and settings currently have staffing concerns and we all remain focused on managing disruption as a result of absences while maintaining our absolute focus of keeping settings open and delivering education.
‘This package of enhanced measures will be familiar to our staff, students and parents and carers as we are not introducing anything now that hasn’t been in place before. When we have had to revert to these enhanced measures previously, it has served us well so I’m hopeful that they can do so again as long as we continue to have the support of all involved in the delivery of education. I am sure that will be the case so I again take this opportunity to thank all staff and the community in advance for working with us to ensure these measures have the desired impact.’

Education has announced a planned relaxation of measures in schools, removing classroom bubbles and re-introducing extra-curricular activities among other changes, effective from Monday 17th January.
Following the CCA’s announcement on Wednesday (12th January 2022) of its intention to relax testing requirements at the borders, as long as the recent positive trend around case numbers is maintained, Education, following dialogue with Public Health, has decided the time is right to relax measures in settings.
The easing of measures will enable students and staff to return to a more ‘normal’ educational experience which has been affected by working in bubbles. However, in moving to a better-quality learning environment an enhanced lateral flow testing regime will be put in place as an additional mitigation which all students, staff, parents and carers are asked to support.
From Monday, the management of the implications of COVID-19 in education settings will include:
• Secondary and post-16 students asked to take daily LFTs before attending
• Primary students asked to take an LFT on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before attending school
• Staff in all settings asked to take daily LFTs before attending • As an additional mitigation following the removal of the package of enhanced measures, face coverings will now be expected in classrooms and teaching spaces in secondary and post-16 settings. They remain compulsory in communal areas for all staff and for secondary and post-16 students and for staff in communal areas within primary schools.
Measures in place since the start of term that are being removed include:
• Classroom bubbles
• School-run extra-curricular clubs and activities can resume
• On-island trips from one school to another (so to take part in swimming at another school, for example) can resume
Additionally, external organisations will again be able to use education settings facilities this weekend (Saturday 15th and Sunday 16th January), however sites will remain unavailable to
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external organisations between Monday and Friday next week. Education facilities will then fully re-open to external use from Saturday 22nd January. Access to sites was restricted for external users primarily to ensure there was enough resilience in the facilities team to maintain sites being open during core school opening times, should staff have needed to isolate, however this can now begin to be relaxed.
Nick Hynes, Director of Education, said:
‘I would like to thank all those involved in the delivery of education – staff, students, parents and carers – for helping us with the package of measures we put in place for the new term. They were designed to get us through the first couple of weeks of term and the current signs are positive, which is why we’ve taken the decision to try and move back to what we hope and think will feel like a more normal educational experience. Removing the classroom bubbles is key to that, but as ever we need to ensure that appropriate measures are in place which is why we’re enhancing the current position around face coverings in class within a secondary or post-16 environment and asking everyone to support an enhanced lateral flow testing regime.
‘The start of term has been successful in terms of our core priority of minimising disruption to young people’s education, but we’re happy that the positive signs seen across the community with case numbers falling means these relaxations can come into effect on Monday.’
Separately, the Committee for Education, Sport & Culture yesterday agreed to delay the introduction of external inspections until after the February half term. The new inspection framework, carried out by Ofsted, was due to come into operation at the beginning of the Spring Term.
In taking the decision to delay the start of school and further education inspections until slightly later in the Spring Term, the Committee acknowledged that the current priority for staff in education settings is maintaining provision while managing challenges presented by the current wave of infections. It is important to note that the new inspection framework already includes a mechanism under which any settings that receive a notification of external inspection are able to request a delay to their inspection based on their individual circumstances at the time. This mechanism will be available for use if required after half-term.
The Committee has confirmed that, after the half-term break, save for any significant and unexpected change in circumstances across the islands, there will not be any further whole-system delay to external inspections in Guernsey and Alderney. From this point any deferrals of Ofsted inspection will be handled on an individual basis depending upon the specific circumstances of each setting at the time of their notification.