Author: Mrs Taylor

08 January 2016

For all children in Year 1 to Year 6, the homework this week is Talk Time and is due Wednesday 13 January.

Which two charities should we support at school and why?

It’s time for children to think about our next two school charities. In 2014 and 2015, we have supported St Gemma’s Hospice and Cancer Research UK raising a total of £4370.02.  We’ve helped these charities for two years now, so it’s time for a change.

We need you to have a discussion at home about which charities would be best for us to support. Following a class discussion next week, each class will nominate two charities to be considered by the School Council, who will make the final decision.

Once your child has decided on two charities, make sure they have clear, powerful reasons to support their views.

You might want to discuss whether we support…

  • a local charity
  • a national charity
  • an international charity
  • a children’s charity
  • an animal charity
  • a charity which helps a vulnerable group in our community
  • a charity that has helped our learning, like Heart Research UK, NSPCC, RNLI

Our new school charities will be announced on Friday 15 January.

Fruit kebabs

Year 3 have been practising their peeling and chopping skills today when preparing a variety of fruits to make their own fruit kebabs.  We considered other aspects of selecting fruits such as seasonal availability, allergies and individual preference.  Children were keen to try new fruits, both fresh and dried.

At a time of year when many people make healthy eating goals, we all agreed this was a great way to get one of your 5-a-day.

IMG_0346IMG_0349IMG_0350IMG_0352IMG_0353IMG_0356IMG_0359 (1)IMG_0362 (1)

Let’s get sugar smart

Find out how much sugar is lurking in your food and drink.

Today has seen a new campaign launch by Change 4 Life, the government’s public health initiative, aimed at reducing the amount of sugar that children consume.

The free Sugar Smart App can tell you the amount of sugar in items by scanning the barcode, and then displaying the result as a number of cubes or in grams. The app can be used as a way of revealing the hidden sugar content in foods and to make us more aware of what children are consuming.

Public Health England, which runs the Change 4 Life campaign, hopes the Sugar Smart app and campaign will help combat tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes and encourage families to choose healthier alternatives.

sugar smart

New SEAL theme…Good to be me

Helping children to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’.

Our new SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme for this half-term, Good to be me, focuses on three main areas of learning:

•Self-awareness – feeling good about yourself, taking risks.

•Managing Feelings – understanding feelings, and why and how they lead us to behave the way we do – particularly the feelings of being excited, proud, surprised, hopeful, disappointed, worried and anxious and standing up for yourself –assertiveness skills, standing up for your views.

•Empathy

This theme explores feelings in the context of the child as an individual, developing self-awareness and helping the child to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’. The theme is about understanding our feelings as well as considering our strengths and weaknesses as learners.

As part of our current mini topic, What’s the matter?, children will also ask ‘What’s the matter?’ from a social and emotional point of view, understanding feelings and thinking about how they can solve problems.

The key ideas and concepts behind the theme of Good to be me are:

Building emotional resilience

Children need to become resilient if they are to be healthy and effective life-long learners.

Coping with anxiety and worrying

Worry and anxiety are major features in many children’s lives. Many children have good reasons to be anxious. Exploring worries is important.

Calming down

Although getting stressed, anxious or angry are important and useful emotions, sometimes these feelings can be overwhelming.

Assertiveness

The theme encourages children to become assertive – that is, able to recognise and stand up for their rights while recognising and respecting the rights of others.

Understanding feelings and how they influence behaviour

The theme explores the relationship between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ and the way each impacts on our behaviour. It looks at Flight or Fight rapid response to situations of threat and our responses to feeling threatened /under stress.

‘I respond to difficult situations in a positive way’ is the first SEAL statement for this theme.

Swimming returns on 12 January

A reminder there is no swimming tomorrow or for the first week of next term.  The next swimming session therefore will be on Tuesday 12 January.

At the play session last week, it was great to see all the children in the big pool showing great confidence in the water.

Following our Health themed week, it was also noticeable to see the increase in healthier snacks for after swimming with some children bringing fruit they had purchased from the tuck shop earlier in the day. Please also ensure your child has a water bottle at school (in addition to one in a packed lunch) to take to swimming.

In case you get chance to go swimming over the holidays, Leeds Let Get Active offers free swimming sessions at local leisure centres.

LLGA Logo on yellow1

Latest competitions

Cross country and athletics events in our new sports kit – thanks PTA!

We’ve had a busy end to the term with two recent competitions.

Firstly, our Year 5 and 6 cross country teams braved the elements in traditional cross country weather to take part in the Leeds North East competition at Cardinal Heenan.  Despite the conditions, all the children were keen to compete and a special well done to Gloria, finishing 14th in her race.

cross country 2cross country 3cross country 4

Back indoors was the second round of the Sports Hall Athletics competition at Roundhay School. Unfortunately we didn’t progress to the next round but the children never gave up and there were lots of cheering and encouragement to support the team.  Well done to all children who took part.  They’ve learnt lots of new track and field events in the process.

We certainly looked the part with our new school polo shirts and hooded tops purchased by the PTA.

photo 1 (84)photo 3 (64)

8Rs for learning

…reflection.

This week we complete our 8Rs SEAL theme and encourage children to reflect on this.

Resilience, resourcefulness, readiness, responsibility, risk-taking, responsiveness, remembering and …reflection.

This week we complete our 8Rs SEAL theme.  Children will have the opportunity to not only reflect on their learning in general but also reflect on how the 8Rs supports their learning.

Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about how they learnt, why they learnt it, when they’ll use their learning, how they would teach this to someone else, what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today…

Can your child remember the 8Rs and the associated animal?

Health highlights

Our health themed week has been filled with visitors and learning, providing a variety of experiences for the whole school.

Our health themed week has been filled with visitors and learning, providing a variety of experiences for the whole school.

  • ‘It was really educational and fun.’
  • ‘I enjoyed health week as there were so many activities.’
  • ‘I learnt a lot about sugar in foods. I learnt about drugs: good or bad.’
  • ‘One of my highlights was judo.  We learnt different skills and it has now inspired me to take classes out of school.’
  • ‘I did learn a lot and now I am even healthier than before.’
  • ‘I learnt how to cope with emotional health.’
  • ‘I learnt how to make sure I have my 5 a day.’
  • ‘I learnt how to choose the right food.’

We would like to thank the following for their support with our themed week:

Finally, thank you to all staff and pupils who have fully engaged with all the learning throughout the week.  Take a look at the Class News sections of the website to find out what each class have been doing.  We have enjoyed a fun-filled week.

For further information about keeping healthy have a look at change4life, KidsHealth, NHS choices, Leeds Let’s Change and Leeds Let’s Get Active (for advice on more local health issues).

And an extra note from Mr Roundtree: Thanks, once again, to Mrs Taylor for organising such a wonderful themed week.