Primary Phase Learning

Writing

How to help your child with writing at home

Read Together

Reading and writing go hand in hand. Read books, stories, and poems with your child. Discuss characters, plots, and ideas. Encourage them to write their own versions or sequels.

Reading Spine and Recommended Reads 2024

Motor skills

Motor skills are movements and actions of the muscles. Typically, they are categorized into two groups: gross and fine motor skills.

Fine motor skills involve smaller movements in the wrists, hands, fingers, feet, and toes. For example, they participate in smaller actions such as picking up objects between the thumb and finger, writing carefully, and even blinking.

Gross motor skills, on the other hand, involve movements of the arms, legs, and other large body parts. They participate in actions such as crawling, running, and swimming.

These two motor skills work together to provide coordination.

Gross Motor Skills:

Efficient control of the larger muscle groups in the neck, shoulder, and trunk is necessary to maintain stability for the fingers and hands to move to complete the handwriting task. As children develop, control and stability begin at the trunk and progress to the elbow, wrist, and finally, the hand. Fine motor skills are developed from gross motor skills.

• Upper body strength development (climbing, running, throwing and catching, playing with watering jugs etc)
• Balance development (stepping stones, following chalk lines/markings on the ground, balancing beans bags on heads whilst walking, egg and spoon races etc)
• Upper arm movements (using large paint brushes, sweeping brushes, parachute games, pushing or pulling toys, using wheel borrows)

These are just a few examples of how you can develop gross motor skills.

Fine Motor Skills:

Young children need to be able to hold and use scissors and pencils appropriately before using them in a classroom context. We cannot expect them to be able to write if they haven’t yet developed the strength needed in their hands and fingers.

• Playing with playdough (squeezing, squishing, pushing, pulling, moulding, hiding small objects in the play dough, rolling and using the cutters.)
• Threading beads/pasta/cheerios, making bracelets with string or loombands,
• Using clothes pegs (hanging up washing, adding the correct number of pegs to the board, building words with letters on pegs.)
• Sewing,
• Popping bubble wrap, using plastic tweezers and chopsticks.
• Typing on keyboards, using scissors, putting coins in piggy banks.
• Playing with lego.

These are just a few examples of how you can develop fine motor skills.

Phonics

Phonics plays a huge role in writing.  We will support our youngest children by teaching phonics with a systematic and consistent approach. This ensures that explicit links are made between the teaching of phonics and applying spelling strategies from the moment they begin to write and spell. We will equip children with the principles underpinning word construction (phonemic, morphemic and etymological), to enable them to spell accurately.

We are a Read Write Inc school. Please regularly access your child’s phonics sway to see what sounds they are learning to read and write.

Take Advantage of Authentic Writing Opportunities:

• If you go on a day out- purchase a postcard,
• Having a party? Can your child write an invitation or a thank you card.
• If you are going shopping- encourage your child to write a shopping list,
• Encourage your child to write a diary,
• Can your child send an email to a family member?
• Write recipes of food you and your child have cooked.
• Can your child write a book or game recommendation to share?

Writing needs to have a purpose (reason).

Spellings

At William Hulme’s Primary Phase, we hope to create a culture of ‘word consciousness’ and support children with their spellings through vocabulary knowledge-based spelling strategies. Pupils receive explicit teaching of both spelling and vocabulary to help them develop into ‘word detectives’. Our children build up a bank of rich vocabulary in all lessons. We encourage our pupils to seek out common spelling patterns, make links, and find out meaning of words.

Maths

How to help your child with maths at home

For children in Key Stage 2, daily practice of times tables is crucial and is expected as part of weekly homework. We use the TT Rockstars platform to make this practice engaging and fun. Regular repetition helps embed these important mathematical facts, which are essential for more advanced maths skills later on.

There are also other areas of core learning that you can help your child with at home:

EYFS

1. Use Songs and Rhymes

Introduce your child to songs that include counting. For example, sing “1, 2, 3, 4, 5, once I caught a fish alive” to practice counting up, and songs like “Five currant buns” to count down. These tunes not only help with number recognition but also teach patterns. You can also try counting by twos with songs like “The animals went in two by two.” Repeat the same songs or rhymes on a regular basis and use finger actions to show the mathematical meaning of the words.

2. Making counting objects or actions a regular habit.

For example, count the stairs every time you go up, count the number of plates on the table before a meal or count fingers and toes after bath time.

3.Count with Toys

Incorporate toys into math activities. Use building blocks to create towers, or line up toys like animals or cars and count them together. This encourages your child to understand order and patterns through play.

4. Explore Math in Everyday Activities

Look for math in daily life! When you’re shopping, ask your child to find shapes, like a round apple or a square face on a box. You can also compare the weights of two items or point out numbers, like prices or aisle numbers.

5. Identify Shapes in Nature

As you walk through parks or neighborhoods, help your child spot shapes in the environment. For instance, notice square windows or rectangular doors, and even measure shadows to explore concepts of size and shape.

Key Stage 1

In Key Stage 1, it is important that your child gains a good knowledge of basic number facts by the end of Year 2. These include:

• Number bonds to 10
• Number bonds to 20
• Doubling and halving up to 10
• 2, 5 and 10-times tables
• Counting up to 100

Key Stage 2

In Key Stage 2, children need to continue to develop their knowledge of number facts:

• Number bonds to 100
• Doubling and halving beyond 10
• Times Tables

Year 3: 2, 5, 10, 3, 4 ,8- times tables.

Year 4 and above: All times tables.

The following websites can support your child with this:

Wider Curriculum

How to help your child with other areas of the curriculum

Please visit our curriculum pages, which detail what your child will be learning in each subject for each year group.