Author: Mrs Taylor

What a great few days of cross country action! On Friday, twenty four Key Stage 2 children took part in the North East School Games Cross Country festival. It was great to be back competing after such a long break.

All the children put in 100% effort and we had some fantastic results which will hopefully mean a number of children will qualify for the Leeds finals once we hear the final results.

Thank you to parents who helped to accompany the children, to Allerton Grange for transporting us and lastly to all the children who competed so well and supported and encouraged each other.

I really enjoyed it.

I just enjoy running.

It was my first time but I just kept going.

It was tough but once I’d done it I felt like I’d achieved something.

It was really fun. It didn’t really matter where you came. You just tried your best.

On Saturday, a number of children took part in the Leeds Schools Athletics Association cross country race at Prince Henry’s, Otley. Well done to all children who took part and represented to school.  Once again, it was great to hear about the team spirit and support for each other.

We have continued to have an anti-bullying theme to our learning this week.

One Kind Word has been this years’ key message and we created our own kindness wall to spread this message.

Our fluency text this week, which we read daily, is based on our child friendly anti-bullying policy. As part of these sessions, we discuss the vocabulary used in the text. We often use word hippo to check any definitions or to find synonyms for words to help us to understand their meaning.

Another reading activity involved understanding word definitions where the children had to sort the words into bullying and anti-bullying words.

This reading activity is called a RIC where the children answer questions about the text – some answers may be in the text (retrieval questions), others may need some more thought and interpretation.

Alongside discussing what bullying is, we considered how someone might feel if they were being bullied and how it would affect their mental health. The children generated a great list of emotions when thinking about this.

Finally, we reinforced the importance of the STOP message in our school.

STOP stands for two things:

• the definition of bullying: Several Times On Purpose
• the solution for bullying: Start Telling Other People

Well done Year 2 – you have showed great understanding around the subject of bullying.

It was great to see so many odd socks today – thank you for supporting this start to anti-bullying week.

Odd socks day is a great way to celebrate what makes us all unique! Odd Socks Day is held in partnership with Andy and the Odd Socks. Have a listen to their song for this year.

The theme for this year’s anti-bullying week is One Kind Word. One kind word can lead to another and today we sent a wave of kindness through the class by giving compliments to each other. We saw how kindness fuels kindness. We also made some kindness pledges.

 Look back tomorrow for more learning about how to STOP bullying.

We are pleased to invite KS2 children to compete in an upcoming cross country race as part of the Leeds Schools Athletics Association cross country programme of Saturday morning races. Children will compete against pupils from other Leeds schools.

The race will take place at 10am on Saturday 20 November at Prince Henry’s Grammar School, Otley.

There are opportunities for Year 3 and 4 girls and boys (under 9) to race 900m and Year 5 and 6 girls and boys (under 11) to race 1500m. Once your child has completed their race, you are free to leave the event.

Please note, parents/carers are responsible for taking and supervising their child/children.

If your child is interested in taking part, please respond to the the message recently sent out.

We look forward to pupils representing our school at this event.

There will be one more Saturday morning race this year – Saturday 6 March 2022 at Middleton Park.

If you are unable to take part, you may want to join the free Sunday morning junior parkruns held locally at Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam and Boddington.

Our recent Living and Learning focus has been all about mental health. Teaching about mental health and emotional wellbeing is now statutory as part of Health Education.

In Year 2, our learning has included:

• we all have feelings
• solving friendship problems
• managing difficult emotions

Emotions are feelings. They can change all the time. We all experience a whole range of emotions, from anger to happiness to fear. We even managed to create an A-Z of emotions.

Feelings can be shown on people’s faces and bodies. For example:
• Can you show a happy face?
• What does an angry face look like?
• How do we look when we are excited?
• Can you show a happy body?
• What does an angry body look like?
• How does our body look when we are excited?

We discussed which feelings these characters might be experiencing and whether they might need help with their feelings.

Next, we thought about a story about friends using a ball of string as the friendship chain.

The friendship chain is passed between friends to show how the friendship could have started. One day, there might be an argument between the friends (the string would get tangled). The argument got worse and the friends fell out (the string was cut between the friends). The friends decided to try and make the friendship again (tie a knot in the string).

This was a very visual way of looking at friendships. The children thought about what sort of things can cause friendships to break and what can make friendships stronger.

Self care techniques can also help us to look after our own mental health.

Here’s a reminder of the wellbeing bingo we looked at in Year 1. These are all great ways to support our mental health and hopefully some of these can be ticked off during half term.

Finally, further information about mental health can be found on the Public Health England (PHE) ‘Every Mind Matters’ website providing NHS-endorsed tips and advice to help children and young people’s mental wellbeing and equip parents and carers with knowledge to support them.

Due to a change in the timetable, we will now visit the library on Fridays instead of Mondays.

The children will choose a book to keep for a week (or longer if they wish). Children should take responsibility to return their library book to school after this time to be ready to choose a new book.

Have you visited local libraries nearby at Moor Allerton or Chapel Allerton?

Reading books will continue to be changed on Tuesdays and Fridays. Daily reading at home is very important to support your child’s reading fluency and understanding. Please comment in your child’s reading record book to show they have finished their book.