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First News- Keeping children up to date with news events in the UK and around the world.

We will use Class Dojo, School Website and Twitter to send out general communications. We cannot respond to individual comments on any of these sites. This is due to a mixture of privacy and practicality. We will be manning the school phone at the following times:
Monday 23rd March 9:30am – 11:30am
2:30pm – 3:30pm
Tuesday 24th March 9:30am – 11:30am
In addition, you can email school at millbrook@knowsley.gov.uk
Please understand that it will be impossible to send an immediate response but we will prioritise queries accordingly.
The vast majority of our staff are currently unavailable to attend school due to self isolation as per the government guidelines. Where possible, they are working in the background preparing remote learning opportunities for our pupils. Thank you to the parents who took the time this week to share kind words with our staff and show their appreciation. Through kindness, we can all help to keep staff morale up and help us to keep serving our fabulous school community at this difficult time.

The school crossing patrol service has been suspended until further notice for your site. The government guidelines for Covid-19 states that over 70’s should be self isolating. Please take extra care on the crossing this evening and again tomorrow.

The Local Food Banks are keen to make parents aware that families will still be able to access food without the paper vouchers.  Please find a link to the local food banks and opening times below. Please communicate this out to your parents.

https://knowsley.foodbank.org.uk/locations/

Due to staff absences we are suspending after school clubs from Monday 23rd March.  All available staffing will be focused on keeping school open between the hours of 8:50am and 3:15pm.  Thank you for your consideration with this.

Mrs Williams

We are focusing on RESILIENCE in school.  We are aiming to improve our resilience by not giving up, working hard, pushing ourselves and not giving up.  Class 4 are making a video about resilience. Today in assembly, we focused on JK Rowling and celebrated how she overcame challenges when first writing Harry Potter.

For key documentation, please see below:

Writing Policy

Reading Policy

Handwriting Policy

At Millbrook, we deliver focused grammar sessions as well teaching the aspects of SPaG discretely. We use a range of resources to support the teaching and learning of grammar.

At our school, we primarily use Nelson Grammar. Nelson Grammar is a structured grammar teaching programme that is fully in line with the new
National Curriculum for England. A careful spiral progression means that all key grammar and punctuation concepts are introduced, revisited and built on as the course progresses.
Nelson Grammar supports teachers in the formative assessment of grammar through:
• Marking of the work in the Pupil Book, Resource Book and Workbooks each lesson
• Check-ups: short tests which occur on average every half term. These tests re-cap learning from
a range of units to ensure that children are retaining their knowledge.
• Improve Your Writing tasks: short written tasks that help assess how well children can apply
their grammar knowledge in context.
• Practice Papers for Year 2 and Year 6 to familiarise children with the format of the new National
tests. These papers draw on grammar knowledge for the whole key stage.

The programmes of study are available here:

Nelson Grammar_POS_Year 1

Nelson Grammar_POS_Year 2

Nelson Grammar_POS_Years 3 4

Nelson Grammar_POS_Years 5 6

As well as using the Nelson Grammar scheme, at Millbrook, we follow a tailored curriculum map. This is in line with National Curriculum requirements and links to the Nelson Grammar scheme.

You can view a copy of the grammar curriculum map here:

Grammar Curriculum Map

Read Write Inc. Phonics, Literacy & Language, Fresh Start and Spelling are highly successful literacy programmes for 4-13 year-olds created by Ruth Miskin and published by Oxford University Press. The training and support from Ruth Miskin Training, rated Outstanding by the
Department for Education, ensure the programmes have the best chance of success in schools.

The four Read Write Inc. programmes are carefully matched to the new curriculum, giving your children the best chance of success in the national tests. They show teachers, teaching assistants and parents step-by-step how to teach all children to become fluent readers, confident speakers
and willing writers.

At Millbrook, we use Read Write Inc. Phonics for our children in Reception to Year 1 and for our children in Year 2 who do not pass the phonics screening in Year 1. Read Write Inc. Phonics is a comprehensive literacy programme, weaving decoding, comprehension, writing and spelling together seamlessly. Ruth Miskin developed the programme she believes that every school needs to adopt a consistent whole-school approach to teaching reading, writing and spelling. Read Write Inc Phonics has allowed us to have that consistent approach and we are consistently above national average for the year 1 phonics screening.

For information and tutorials on how to support your child learning to read go to: http://www.ruthmiskin.com/en/parents/