A fantastic start!
We have had a fantastic start to the year with all the children settling really well into their new school. There have been lots of smiles and laughter and very few tears!
Thank you for helping with this and preparing your child for this exciting time.
Workshops
Thank you to everyone who has attended our recent Zoom sessions to help you support your child at home. Watch the phonics session and the Early Years introduction. (And apologies for the distracting cursor in the latter – maybe that’s a nervous habit of Mr Roundtree!
The next workshop will be on Tuesday 28 September at 6pm. This reading workshop will explain how we teach reading in Reception and how you can help at home.
PE
PE will begin the week beginning 20 September. Your child should come to school in their PE kit on Wednesday and Friday.
Isolation learning
This will be emailed to you each week and is only for those children who are having to isolate because of COVID.
A few other things
Please make sure your child brings a water bottle and bookbag to school every day. You may want to send a change of clothes for your child which can be left at school.
If you have any questions or concerns please let us know. We are also keen to hear of any ‘wow’ moments, achievements and interests your child has.
Fantastic week!
Year 1 have had another excellent week at school and have shown great learning and listening skills. They were given their first class treat this afternoon for their wonderful learning behaviour, some time out in the sun playing on the front playground equipment. Well done everyone!
In writing we have been looking at the book Lost and Found more and we thought about how we would feel if a penguin knocked on our door! The children produced some wonderful sentences, making sure they used a capital letter and full stop.
In maths, we have been continuing to practise counting backwards and forwards to 100. We even counted how long it would take someone to deliver a message to Mrs Weekes and come back (we got to 97!). Keep using Numbots at home to continue to support your child’s learning.
Thank you for sending all your children’s reading books back this Friday, they have all been changed and are due back in on Tuesday.
Have a great weekend,
Mr McGriffiths
Living and Learning
Hi everyone,
This week in Living and Learning, Year 4 began learning about the 8Rs. The children were introduced to eight different attributes that will help them to be strong and successful learners.
As a class, we discussed how we all use the 8R’s in our everyday life and especially at school:
- They are all very responsive by listening to instructions. This in turn, makes them ready to learn.
- The children are being resilient in maths lessons when learning column addition. They aren’t giving up when it gets tricky!
- They are being resourceful by using atlases to label the counties on their maps.
- They reflect on their work at the end of each lesson by saying what they have learnt and something that they have found difficult or not.
- They have been taking risks when contributing their own ideas to the lesson.
- The class is being responsible and remembering what is expected of them when in school.
Help at home by talking about these 8Rs and linking it to the children’s actions and activities outside of school!
Reading Records
Hi everyone!
Today, Friday 17th September, your child was sent home with a brand new reading record. Now you might be thinking, ‘Hang on! My child hasn’t used one since Y3!’. Although this might be the case, we’re excited for all the ways your child can engage with reading at home in these new Reading Records.
The new Reading Records offer the following benefits:
- it is a place for children to record the books/texts they’ve read and rate them out of five stars
- there are a range of activities your child will accomplish throughout the year based on what they’ve read (each week, details of this task will be on your homework letters)
- it gives children a chance to enhance their love of reading during our weekly Book Club sessions in school
- it gives children ownership and responsibility of their reading
- there are loads of exciting challenges to complete to become a Reading Challenge Champion
- it can be a place for parents to share with teachers the wonderful reading their child has been doing at home.
This week, the activity your child should complete based on their reading is…
Draw It
You can find more details about this in the activities section of the reading record.
Any questions, please ask!
Happy reading!
Where in the world am I?
Challenge your child with some quick-fire questions that we’ve been learning about at school:
- What’s the capital of England?
- What’s the capital of Scotland?
- Name the four countries of the UK.
- What’s the capital of Northern Ireland?
- What’s the capital of Wales?
- What’s the name of our county?
- What’s the name of our continent?
Notice the use of my capital letters – why are they used here?
Our Science and Geography vocabulary
This half term, our Science focus is States of Matter and we are chemists!
Take a look at our list of vocabulary that we’ve been learning about in class. How well would you say you know their definitions?
Some of them are quite tricky. Can you remember the actions we’ve done in class?
| dissolve | when a solid mixes with liquid to make a solution | |
| mixture | two or more substances that can be separated | |
| chemical reaction | a process in which one or more substances are converted to one or more different substances
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| soluble | when something can dissolve | |
| solvent | usually (liquid) that does the dissolving | |
| reversible | a change that can be undone or reversed
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| insoluble | when something can’t dissolve | |
| solution | mixture of solid and liquid (you might not be able to see the solid)
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| irreversible | a change that can’t be undone or reversed
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We’re also Geographers this half term and we’re learning about urban green spaces and city expansion.
What small activities could you do at home to help you remember this list of vocabulary?
| national park | an area set aside by the government for the preservation of the natural environment | |
| six figure grid reference | contains six numbers which give a precise location on a map | |
| city expansion | also called urban sprawl, this is the increase in a built-up area | |
| urban green space
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any vegetated land or water within an urban area | |
| carbon stores
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places where carbon is stored in the environment | |
| quantitative data
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data which can be written in numbers | |
| qualitative data
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data that can be written in words, not numbers | |
| soundscape | a qualitative record of the sounds in any environment | |
| sampling | a way of collecting fieldwork data without measuring everything |
I know the 8Rs!
This week in Y6, we’ve been focusing our attention on the 8Rs.
Challenge your child to name them as quick as they can!
Not only have we made some bright and colourful posters to remind ourselves of these important learning behaviours…
…but we’ve also been threading them through our classroom atmosphere all week. Here’s what Y6 think.
“They’re sort of like school rules but fun extras. They’re easy to remember because of all the Rs and they help your learning all round,” said Leah.
Billy continued: “They’re important because you’d struggle if you didn’t use them. If you’re not resilient, you’d always give up and never be able to do anything!”
“They help people’s memories and they’re great rules to live by. They encourage you to take safe risks and become more confident,” explained Edris.
“They always help. For example you need to be ready so that you’re concentrating and you always have what you need,” stated Ashton.
Reading records!
Hi everyone,
Reading records!
Last week, Year 4 were sent home with their new and exciting reading records! These records are to help Mrs Maqbool and I (Miss Birch) keep track of the children’s reading progress.
The new reading records key info:
- Each time one of the children signs out a new book to read from the library, they can make note of these in the book and rate them out of 5 stars.
- I’ll choose an activity for the whole class to complete on their chosen book each Friday. More information on these activities are inside the record. I’ll post this on class news as well!
- The children will need to bring in these reading records every Friday for our Book Club lesson where we’ll discuss their books and develop their love of reading.
- The children’s grown-ups will also need to write a short comment sharing with us the lovely reading their child has been doing at home.
- It’s also fab as it will give the children ownership and responsibility of their reading!
I hope this is all clear and I’m really looking forward to seeing their progress.
Any questions, please ask!
Great learning at home
Every week, the children will be rewarded with any Lexia and Numbots certificates they have achieved. Well done to all the children who have already started this learning at home. Remember just 10/15 minutes a day can really support your child’s reading and phonics (Lexia) and their recall of addition and subtraction number facts (Numbots).
In Year 2, we are aiming for the children to achieve up to Level 9 for Lexia and Diamond level for Numbots. All logins remain the same from Year 1 and they have been sent home with your child’s homework book last Friday.
Here are the first certificates for Year 2!
Lexia
Congratulations to Aliza and Saavi who have achieved their Level 6 certificate.
Numbots
Congratulations to Talha who has achieved his Copper level certificate. We also have a class leader board for the children who have earned the most coins in the week. Here are this weeks’ results.
1st Roshni
2nd Talha
3rd Saba
Keep working hard at home and we look forward to lots more certificates throughout the year.
If you’ve any questions about this learning at home, please ask.
Netball coaching and half term camps
We are looking forward to having some coaching in school from Elite Netball Academy in the next few weeks.
Elite Netball Academy run weekly netball classes on a Saturday morning at Gateways school and they have an early bird offer for their October half term camps held locally at The Grammar School at Leeds- £25 per day if booked by 17th September.