Dear Parents/Carers,

Planners in Year 2

At Tyndale, our primary aim is to give our pupils the best chance of success. In order to support our pupils in achieving this success, we have decided to continue to use a planner, which is a compulsory item that they must bring to school with them every day.

Preparing Our Pupils for Success

Teaching our pupils to use a planner is an effective way to prepare our pupils for their transition to secondary school, teach them to be professional and organised and to assist their ability to retain the knowledge they are taught at school.

Planner Usage

Pupils will use their planners every day during term time to record a variety of information:

• Self Quizzing
  Pupils will complete 3 self-quizzing questions per day, which will be a balance of the new knowledge they've been taught at school that day and some questions targeting prior knowledge they've been taught for example knowledge they were taught yesterday, last week, last month, last term and last year. These questions will be set by their teacher.
  
  Why is Self Quizzing Important?
  Reviewing notes in detail following each lesson, or at minimum sometimes during the day before going to bed, will greatly increase pupils' ability to recall what they have learnt.
  
  At the end of nine weeks, pupils who have reviewed their notes within a day recalled about 75% of what they had been taught. Pupils who did not review their notes following their class were not even able to recall 50% of the information covered during the lesson after one day and only slightly more than 20% of the information nine weeks later.
   
• Reading Record
  Pupils will record their daily reading in their planner so that they do not need to keep an additional reading record. They are expected to read for a minimum of 20 minutes per day in Year 2.
   
• Spelling Practice
  Daily, pupils will complete a 'look, cover, write, check' exercise for each word from their weekly statutory spelling list, which they will be tested on that week (on a Friday). They will record their result of that test in their planner for parents/carers to monitor.
   

• Parent and Teacher Communication
  Whilst we are happy to answer any queries from parents/carers via our social media platforms, we understand that sometimes it can be useful to write a quick message to your child's class teacher and for them to do the same when communicating to you.
  
  At the bottom of each page in the child's planner there is an optional comments box to facilitate this line of communication. Please do not hesitate to use this facility within the planner or book an appointment to come in and see us if you ever have any concerns.

It is the responsibility of our pupils to bring the planner into school every day and to complete the daily tasks within it. Please could you support them with this by ensuring they arrive at school on time, organised and prepared to start their day because every second counts!

Kind Regards,

Ms A Bisset