At Norris Bank Primary School, we aim to instil a love of learning in all our pupils to equip them for successful lives beyond our walls.

On this page, you can find a range of learning resources to support your child’s learning at home.

At Norris Bank we recognise that reading provides the foundation for learning as well as the opportunity to develop a skill which will also bring pleasure throughout your child’s life.

Guided reading sessions in class are one of the ways in which reading skills are developed and practised throughout school. In these sessions, teachers focus on:

  • Vocabulary
  • Retrieval
  • Inference
  • Predicting
  • Summarising

Reading to your child (even as they get older), as well as regularly listening to your child read, will support their reading development. Below are links to posters which provide strategies which can be used to develop the different skills above when reading with your child.

At Norris Bank Primary, we use Little Wandle Letters and Sound Phonics to give your child the best possible start with their reading journey. This scheme has been validated by the Department of Education and meets the requirements for the teaching of phonics in schools. Every day your child will have a 20 minute phonics lesson where they will be taught all the skills they need to decode words for reading, and segment words for spelling.

Key Phonics Terms

Phoneme

The smallest unit of sound in a word is called a phoneme. If you say the word ‘cat’ slowly you can hear 3 phonemes or sounds: /c/ /a/ /t/

Grapheme

A phoneme written down is called a grapheme.

For example, the letter (grapheme) ‘a’ represents the sound (phoneme) /a/. The word ‘cat’ has three graphemes: the letters ‘c’ ‘a’ ‘t’.

A grapheme may have 1, 2 or 3 letters to make one sound, this is explained below.

Some graphemes represent more than one phoneme. For example, ‘oo’ has two different phonemes (sounds) as in ‘book’ and ‘zoo’.

Diagraph

If a grapheme has 2 letters to make 1 sound, it is called a diagraph.

For example: ‘shut’ has 3 phonemes or sounds: /sh/ /u/ t/. Although there are 4 letters in the word ‘shut’, we say there are 3 graphemes because the letters that make /sh/ go together to make one sound. This is a digraph. The graphemes are ‘sh’ ‘u ‘t’.

Once your child has learned all the single sounds (the alphabet letters), then they will begin to learn digraphs.

Split Diagraph

Split digraphs are digraphs where the grapheme is split up by a consonant.

For example: ‘bake’ has 3 phonemes or sounds ‘b ‘a_e’ ‘k’. When your child writes the ‘a_e’ digraph, it is split because there is a ‘k’ between the ‘a’ and the ‘e’.

Some other split digraphs are: ‘i_e’, ‘o_e’, e-e and ‘u_e’. They make one sound (phoneme) but are split when written.

Trigraph

If a grapheme has 3 letters, it is called a trigraph.

For example: ‘light’ has 3 phonemes or sounds /l/ /igh/ /t/. /igh/ is a trigraph.

Grapheme– Phoneme Correspondence (GPC)

The relationship of the phoneme and the grapheme that represents it and vice versa. To see the grapheme ‘sh’ and know the sound that it will make. Or, to hear the sound /sh/ and know how to write the corresponding grapheme.

At Norris Bank Primary School we aim to foster a love for writing by immersing pupils in high quality texts combined with drama and discussion activities that ignite and inspire their imaginations.

The most important thing you can do at home to support this is to help us develop and encourage their love for reading!

Spelling

In school at Key Stage 1, spelling follows the progression of phonemes taught through Little Wandle (see phonics section above for more information).

At Key Stage 2 we use Spelling Shed to structure the order in which different spelling patterns and rules are taught and to also provide opportunities to practise spellings.

Children have weekly spelling lessons in school as well as further opportunities to practise and consolidate their learning. Children are set a weekly spelling list.

Encouragement to learn these spellings through regular practise, at home as well as completing any spelling homework, will support your child.

At Norris Bank Primary School, we develop a mastery approach to maths using many of the resources from White Rose Education. 

Across the school, we teach maths using small steps that are carefully designed to build knowledge over time. 

Key Stage 1 and 2

White Rose Education have produced videos for parents/carers to go alongside each small step. It’s very common for parents/carers to have been taught different methods for working things out, which can make it more difficult to support your child in the way they are currently learning. 

To help with this, the small step videos will give you an in depth look at the exact methodology for that lesson. 

 These small steps can also be found by visiting the White Rose Education website. 

The drop down boxes allow you to choose year groups and terms. We currently teach ‘Maths (v3 schemes)’. 

Additionally, White Rose have created ‘Maths with Michael’ videos exclusively for parents. These videos are designed to help parents keep up with modern teaching methods. The videos cover the following: 

Has Maths changed?

  1. Place Value
  2. Subtraction
  3. Multiplication
  4. Division
  5. Fractions
  6. Algebra

The videos can be found on White Rose’s Maths with Michael webpage.

If you would like to provide additional support to your child that aligns with the learning they are doing in school then download these free printable White Rose home learning workbooks for Years 1-6.

Times Tables 

At Norris Bank Primary School, we believe recall of times tables facts is an important skill that helps children access many challenging aspects of maths by reducing the cognitive load required to work out component parts of the question. 

To help the children learn their times tables, we use an app called Times Table Rock Stars (TTRS). The app can be downloaded from any app store or played in a web browser. 

From Year 2, children have login details which allow them to access the app. These login details will be provided by their class teacher. 

If you would like to know more about the app or how to use it then read our handy TTRS Guide. 

Additonally, you may wish to watch TTRS’s video guide on YouTube – What is Times Tables Rock Stars? Parents and Carers Guide 

Additional Apps/Websites

  • Numbots – designed to develop understanding, recall and fluency in addition and subtraction. This can be downloaded as an app or accessed via a browser. For help with key words like subitising or how they represent things see the NumBots – Parent Help Sheet 
  • 1-minute maths – designed to build greater number confidence and fluency in subitising, addition, subtraction, multiplication and division. This is available as an app only from any app store.