Living & Learning: Identity
This week and last week’s Living and Learning lessons have had a strong thread of respect running through them.
“Respect is important because people have different personalities and like different things like football or make up. You should never say nasty things about what they like. Or at school if you’re playing a game of tig, you should follow the rules and tag them respectfully,” explained Billy.
“Respect is when you treat someone fairly no matter what even if they have different beliefs to you. We should all try and get along,” stated Saahir.
“Respect is understanding why they like something. If you don’t like something, that’s fine but keep rude comments inside. You should support the people around you,” said Christina.
We took part in Identity Day which is an amazing opportunity to show who we are as people by coming into school wearing clothes that show a community we’re a part of.
Take a look at our fantastic choices!
We also explored our own identities in even more detail by creating our own unique identity maps. Take a look at some of the great examples below.
Can penguins fly?
In Friday’s assembly, I was reliably informed that penguins can’t fly but that they are very good swimmers. Just an example of the learning that has been happening in Reception.
They haven’t just been learning about penguins; one of the new phonemes in phonics was ‘ng’ and there has been lots of investigating about the number 5.
We hope that your child is enjoying the e-books – they’re showing excellent reading skills in school and they can show you at home that they are ‘readers’. Lots of practice in school means that they will be familiar with the e-books that they can see at home. Happy reading!
Change to PE days
Our PE days are changing from next week. We will now be doing PE on a Monday and Friday. The children should come to school in their school uniform on Thursday.
Please ensure that your child comes to school wearing the correct PE kit on Monday and Friday. If you have any questions about this – please refer to our uniform policy or speak to me.
Thank you!
Let’s get reading!
Another busy week in Reception and despite the disruption of Covid cases, the children have been amazing.
Thank you for your patience with regards to the e-books that we are using as part of our reading practice. As Mrs Burke has been unwell, there has been a slight delay but you’ll be pleased to know that each child has been allocated three e-books. This means they can read with you at home and show you that they are ‘readers’.
Normally, they’ll only get one allocated but we’ve made more available to keep you going and then hopefully, Mrs Burke will be back and we’ll get into more of a routine. In the meantime, enjoy the e-books and sharing them with your child.
If you have any issues in logging on, please ask a member of staff and we’ll try and sort it out for you.
As always, thank you for your support and patience.
Inheritance (like you’ve never seen before!)
In biology, Year 5 have been learning about inheritance and how characteristics are passed down from parents to offspring.
We used Mr Men and Little Miss to demonstrate our understanding of this. Check them out below!
Electrical Circuits
In today’s science learning, children were given the following components:
– two wires
– one cell
– one lightbulb
Without any instruction, children were asked to make the light bulb turn on.
See if your child can remember the components needed to make a complete electrical circuit that turns a lightbulb on!
Free White Rose Rugby event for all pupils
Gymnastics
On Thursday, Year 2 enjoyed their first gymnastics session with two gymnastic coaches. We showed great resilience, determination and team work during our PE lesson.
eBooks – an update.
First of all, thank you very much for your support and engagement with our new online reading books. I hope you have seen, as you were reading with your child this week, that they were reading more fluently and more confidently as a result of the changes we have put in place. I would just like to update you all on a couple of items regarding the new system.
Sharing books – the ‘sharing books’ are the books that your child will bring back from the library every Friday. Take time to enjoy these books and talk with your children about the story or information they contain. We have also been working hard on expression in reading so these books are a perfect chance for you to model good expression which your child can copy.
It is very important that these books come back to school every Friday so that your child can bring home two new books.
eBooks – From next week I will assign your child’s new ebook on a Thursday. This is to avoid your child having 3 new books on the same day (Friday).
I have heard that some people have had a couple of problems accessing the books on a laptop or tablet device. There is an app you can download for tablets and phones which would probably make the experience better. Search Collins ebooks to find the app. If you are still having problems, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Reading records – I would still like to see reading records once a week, on a Thursday, as it is an important line of communication about your child’s reading.
Additional books – I will release all the books from your child’s previous reading phase into their ebook library early next week. This is so your child can have additional practice reading fluently and with expression if they want to.
Thank you for all your support with this new initiative and, as always, get in touch if you need to.
Thanks,
Mr McGriffiths
Performing (and remembering) poetry
This week’s homework was to memorise the poem From a Railway Carriage by Robert Louis Stevenson.
Y6 performed their poems this afternoon and did so with voice projection, expression and a great pace.
We also had a chat about how we went about learning them. We came up with several different ideas. Some techniques worked for some people but others so it’s important that you try a variety of ways and see which one helps you retain whatever it is that you’re trying to remember!
Other memory techniques could be to come up with actions, make it funny or use the Roman Method of Loci method where you imagine yourself walking around a familiar place and finding items in each section of that place.
Have a discussion at home about what helps you remember something!