Living and Learning: Democracy
With the School Council elections this week, Year 2 spent our Living and Learning session considering what is democracy and how we can become involved in democratic decisions.
Democracy, one of the British Values, means ‘rule by the people‘. It comes from the Greek words dêmos (people) and krátos (rule or strength).
Democratic means people having a chance to say what they think should happen.
In class, we have already been taking part in democratic decisions. At the start of the year, the children voted when deciding what class animal to adopt from WWF and also when choosing its name. We also discussed a future class vote to decide our next whole class reward when we complete our class ladybird spots.
Ask your child about this text and what problem was solved democratically. How did Roshan react?
Well done to all the children who spent time preparing and then presenting their School Council speeches this week. All the children gave confident speeches with lots of great ideas to make changes at school.
In the election, the children voted at our polling station, using their ballot paper, for who they thought would be the best person for the job.
We are proud to announce that Danny and Theo were successfully elected and they will be representing our class this year. Well done!
All children can still use their pupil voice to make suggestions for the School Council meetings by telling their school councillors or putting a suggestion in the Living and Learning box.
4Rs not the 8Rs
This week, as we come to the end of our materials science topic, we welcomed members of the Leeds City Council Waste Recycling team to talk about waste and recycling.
Firstly, we learnt about the different bins we have at home and what should and shouldn’t be put in each bin.
We’re used to the 8Rs of learning but in terms of waste, we learnt about the 4Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.
‘To reduce food waste, you could put your leftovers in a box and have it later.’ Betsy
‘If your clothes are too small, you could take them to a charity shop to be reused.’ Evie
Next, we did a transformation activity to look at how some materials can be reused. Did you know Tetrapaks (such as some milk and juice cartons) can’t be recycled in the green bin but there are now recycling points, around Leeds, where they can be taken.
We followed a set of instructions to transform a Tetrapak into a purse!
How do we manage waste at school?
- Each class has a recycle bin to recycle paper and card.
- We reuse paper by having a scrap paper drawer in class.
- We recycle our milk cartons every day.
- We try to reduce food waste by allowing children to choose their main meal choice at the start of the day.
- In Year 2, we have our Ecobrick for any plastic that can’t be recycled.
Next, we met some some of our own waste recycling advisors who had to deal with some waste scenarios.
We finished with Busta and Pong’s song to recap the important message of recycling.
What a great informative session we had!
Here are some questions to discuss with your child.
- What colour is the recycling bin in Leeds?
- Which bin should you put nappies in?
- Which bin should you put food waste in?
- What is the brown bin for?
- Where could we take old clothes?
- Where does glass go?
- What can be reused?
- What are the 4Rs?
- Why do we need to recycle?
Living and Learning: Democracy
Having discussed the importance of voting following our homework last week, school council elections will take place this week. We talked about the importance of voting for who we thought was the best candidate once we’d heard all of the speeches. We understand that our friend won’t always be the best person for the job and how our secret ballot allows us to vote fairly.
School council speeches will take place on Wednesday 23 October and the children will vote in the morning on Thursday 24. New school councillors will then be announced in an assembly at the end of the day on Thursday.
Living and Learning: I Am Resourceful
During our living and learning sessions about the 8R’s of learning, the children were taught many new skills which will help them in their independent learning. Here, the children were thinking about the important skill of being resourceful. The children were given some tricky maths problems and were asked to complete them choosing their own resources to help them solve the problems. Hopefully, the children will continue to select resources from around the classroom which will aid their learning in lots of other lessons.
E-Safety and Art
Year 2 have been learning about safety both on and off line.
First, we watched a cartoon, specifically produced for young children, from the Thinkuknow website. The aim of the Lee & Kim: Animal Magic cartoon is to teach 5-7 year olds about personal information and the importance of keeping this secure both online and off. The cartoon follows the adventures of two children, Lee and Kim, who are playing an online game where they interact and play with different people using animal avatars. The online safety messages from the cartoon and storybook are reinforced by SID, a superhero in the cartoon who helps Lee and Kim navigate the online game safely.
Ask your child about the characters in the cartoon.
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Key issues covered
- what personal information is and the importance of keeping personal information private
- being polite and courteous online
- how to identify adults you can trust
- where to go for help
Following this, the children logged on (safely) and got to work with some computer art. The aim was to paint a picture of their own ‘Wild Thing’ that will form part of a non-chronological report being written in class.
Multiskills at Roundhay
On Wednesday, some children joined in with a multiskills event at Roundhay Secondary Campus.
We worked our way around a number of activities which tested our speed, agility, aim and resilience and tried to beat our own score each time. The children were fab and enjoyed their time there.
Living and Learning: 8Rs
From the beginning of this year, Year 5 have been involved in Living and Learning sessions every Tuesday afternoon. Within these sessions, the children have been exploring the 8Rs and how they can contribute to a positive working environment.
Recently, Year 5 worked together to reflect on the 8Rs for learning by writing their thoughts and ideas down on large pieces of poster paper.
Living and Learning: Rights and Responsibilities
This week, we’ve been discussing rights and responsibilities. We’ve explored what rights we have as children and what responsibilities go with these rights.
Here are some of the points that have been discussed. See whether your child can tell you the right or responsibility that goes with each one.
Rights
- to be educated
- to be healthy
- to be happy
Responsibilities
- to bring my homework
- to be a good role model
- to be kind to others
Diwali
Every Wednesday afternoon, Year 2 are taught RE by Mrs Bharath. Recently, the children have been learning about the religious festival – Diwali.
What is Diwali?
Diwali a five-day festival of lights, celebrates a number of themes, including joy, forgiveness, knowledge, the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, and the legend of Rama and Sita. Put simply, the festival represents the triumph of good over evil.
Hindus, Sikhs and Jains both in India and across the world take part by decorating houses and public spaces with thousands of lights, candles and colourful designs. As well as the bright colours and glittering lights, there’s music, dancing, delicious food and a cresting wave of community feeling.
Today, the children made Diva lights. Working hard to create the shape, the class then decorated their light with all things sparkly.
School Council elections
We have recently launched this year’s School Council election process. Our School Council is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers.
Here are some of the qualities our school councillors think are needed to be an effective school councillor.
- use the 8Rs for learning
- be respectful and polite
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- share and be confident with your ideas
- let others speak
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school
Our current whole school homework is all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections next Thursday 24 October.