Rufford Park Primary School and Nursery

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Weekly Update-9/1/26

Posted: Jan 9, 2026 by: Mr Kyriacou (n.kyriacou) on: Beech Tree Blog

Hello everyone,

The children have settled back in really well this week, which has been lovely to see.

In reading, we have started to read our new class novel which is called The Chocolate Touch by Patrick Skene Catling. We had a lovely lesson making predictions about the story based on what we could see on the front cover and what the title of the story is. We have also read the first chapter together, discussing the meaning of any tricky vocabulary as we read and we have also completed a retrieval and inference comprehension task based on the first chapter. We have also continued to read our story time book, which the children have been really enjoying.

In maths, we are continuing our unit of work on multiplication and division. This week, the focus has been on understanding what factors are and identifying factor pairs. The children have also been learning about how to use factor pairs to break down trickier multiplication calculations and solve them more easily using their factor knowledge. We have also started looking at multiplying by 10 and understanding what is happening to a number when it is multiplied by 10. We have also been using place value charts to show which way the digits move and how many places when a number becomes ten times bigger. The children have been working very hard and it’s lovely to see their confidence increasing so much.

In writing, we are focusing on a recount piece of writing based around the children’s Christmas holidays. Together, we have read a WAGOLL piece and identified the different features that have gone into it to make it work so successfully. We then created a mind map of all the wonderful different things that the children did over the break and then the children  were tasked with creating a six-part storyboard about their Christmas holidays. The children have worked really hard on these and it’s been so lovely to find out all the wonderful things that they got up to over the break.

In PSHE, our lesson was based around out Mind Mate assembly which was all about coping with change. The children gave lots of really good examples of changes that have occurred within their lives, however big or small, and we discussed how they felt during those changes and how they dealt with it. Then, together as a class, through a really lovely discussion, we created a top tips poster about strategies that individuals can use to cope with changes in their lives more effectively.

Take care,

Mr Kyriacou