Developing pattern awareness
This week we have been busy making patterns. Spotting patterns is important for identifying many different kinds of mathematical relationships. Children find pattern activities engaging and enjoyable and once they begin to spot patterns they see them everywhere!
Encourage your child to make and spot patterns at home. They could make patterns with toys, sticks and leaves and engage in printing and sticking activities.
Moving on to secondary School: A road safety guide for parents and carers
Safer Roads Leeds have produced this useful guide to support Year 6 children and their parents/carers with their new journey to secondary school.
For many children, starting secondary school is the time when they experience travelling independently for the first time. You and your child should know when they have the skills and are ready to travel independently and safely, and it is a good idea to start to think about your child’s new journey with them well beforehand.
- Talk to them about how their feel about their new journey.
- If possible, do the journey with them before term starts.
- Is there a safer, quieter, more pleasant option?
- Think about potential hazards.
- Make sure they’ve got a list of family and friends’ telephone numbers in case of emergency.
- Keep a list of the names and numbers of your child’s friends.
Your child will travel to and from school around 400 times each year; the start of secondary school is the perfect time for your child to establish safe and sustainable travel habits that will stay with them for the rest of their life!
Part 1 Planning to walk
Walking to school is a brilliant to way for your child easily to get some exercise, develop independence and clear their head ready to concentrate. Once they start secondary school, your child is likely to be walking alone or with friends, and so they need some extra help to make sure they’ve got the skills to do so safely – especially if they’ve been driven or escorted to primary school.
Here’s how you can help:
- Plan a safe route with your child. Google maps is a great tool – you can drag the little ‘peg kid’ to explore at street level and find safe crossings.
- Will you pass the cymbal challenge? Watch the three short (and fun!) films about road safety that local schools made for transition students. Search ‘You Look… but do you see? Leeds City Council’ on YouTube. There’s an
audio challenge too. Use these to find out more about what your child knows (or not) about phones and roads. - What else do they think might help keep them safer? Discuss things such as thinking for themselves, choosing safe places to cross and not messing about near busy roads.
- Children who are late often take more risks – help your child get into the habit of getting their things ready the night before and leaving plenty of time to walk to school.
- Is there a roundabout or junction on the route? It isn’t always easy to know where cars will come from; make sure your child understands how cross safely. The same goes for crossing between parked cars. This extract from the highway code covers these and other important reminders
for pedestrians of all ages.
Remember, it only takes 15 – 20 minutes to walk a mile, and your child will enjoy all kinds of short-term and long-term benefits from walking to school.
Part 2 Planning to use public transport
Your child may not be used to travelling by public transport on their own, so there are a lot of things to consider. Even if they are, the journey to secondary school is likely to be a new one. Here’s how you can help:
- Find out whether your child knows how to find out about buses, how to hail and stop the bus safely, and how to wait until the bus has moved on before crossing the road. Could you practice this together?
- Discuss what they think it means to behave safely / dangerously on public transport.
- Children who are late take risks – help your child get into the habit of getting their things ready the night before (Travel pass? Money?) and leaving plenty of time to get to school.
- Go through some ‘what if’ scenarios. What if the bus is late? What could they do if friends are messing about on the bus? What if they leave something on the bus?
- Use Google maps too; you can drag the little ‘peg kid’ to see what the roads look like where the bus stops. If your child needs to cross the road, remind them to move to a safer crossing place (zebra, pelican etc.) or wait until the bus has moved on, and then find somewhere where they can see clearly.
If it’s too far for your child to walk or cycle to school, using public transport is a great next option.
Part 3 Planning to cycle
If your child is lucky enough for cycling to be an option, your support and encouragement are vital. Here’s how you can help.
- Make sure your child can cycle well enough for the road. Find out more from Cycle North.
- Look at Google Maps to find a local off-road route or quieter streets. The West Yorkshire Cycle map includes a journey planning tool and also highlights recommended routes across the city.
- Cycle the route together if you can.
- If your child’s route to school can’t avoid junctions or roundabouts, they can always get off and walk.
- Check that your child knows how to do a basic check to make sure their bike is in good working order; do the brakes work properly? Are the tyres pumped up? Does the bell work? It might be a good idea to have the bike checked in a proper bike shop every so often. Here’s a great video to show you and your child how to do a basic ‘M-check’ to make sure their bike is safe to ride. Help your child organise the right kit: helmet, fluorescent and reflective clothing, and a set of lights for winter.
Cycling isn’t just good for getting to school; your child may soon realise how easy it is to get about to all kinds of places by bike – they can even take their bike on some trains (link to info?)
Part 4 Planning to travel by car
Drivers have a huge part to play, particularly at a time when children may be unescorted for the first time, and perhaps be distracted by new phones, new friends, new routes, new timetables and new experiences – and all this when their brains still can’t accurately judge speed. Here’s how you can help:
- Inconsiderate school-gate parking generates the greatest number of school-transport related complaints we receive and creates danger for everyone.
- Crossing between parked cars is one of the biggest causes of child pedestrian casualties; talk to your child about how to do this safely if they must; better still, make sure you don’t create these conditions yourself.
- Remind your child about the importance of wearing seatbelts, whether you are with them or not. Most schools in Leeds now have 20mph speed limits, to help keep children safer.
- Could you consider car-sharing?
- Or perhaps drop your child off a bit further away, so that they, too, can reap the many benefits of walking part of the way? You could even drop them at a friend’s house or central meeting point so they can walk in together.
- Make sure your child knows how to get of the car and cross roads safely. They should always get out on the pavement side, not into the road.
So if your child has no other option but to travel by car, there’s a lot those who drive them can do to help keep everyone safe.
Cooking Halloumi Tikka Masala
As Year 6 will be moving into secondary school soon, they’ll be becoming more and more independent. To help with this, we’ll be cooking this term, practising a number of essential skills: bridge method, claw method, grating, mixing, frying, using the oven and food hygiene.
This week, half of the class made halloumi tikka masala and all of them thought it was delicious! Have a go at home too – we’ve sent the recipe home.
I can show a moral choice.
This week’s homework was Creative and we explored what a moral choice is. We had a great range of examples: choosing to tell the truth; paying people according to the ‘worth’ of their job; standing up to bullies; choices politicians have made; and many more.
Here are some the class nominated to be shown on our website:
Ethan created a comic strip about standing up to your friends making bad choices.
Isaac’s story was about the consequences of lying.
Isabella explored choices that are made which result in gender inequality.
Ripley explored the difference in wages and whether they had been allocated morally.
Amrit thought about choices Barak Obama made in his career as President.
First News
Reading the newspaper is a great way to start the day!
Every Thursday, the children collect the paper as they come into class and settle down to read. Following this, we always share some of the articles that have been of particular interest. This week, we enjoyed articles about plastic pollution and ocean awareness. These linked well to our current studies about the environment.
Skipping festival tomorrow
Year 2 are all set for their skipping festival tomorrow afternoon at Leeds Trinity University.
This is an opportunity for all the class to be part of our team at a fun event with other Year 2 classes. All children know the event they will be taking part in and they will also support their friends and watch some great skipping skills.
We will be leaving school by coach at 12:20pm and all children need a packed lunch to eat at school before we leave. We will be arriving back at school at approximately 4.30pm, dependant on traffic.
Your child will need their PE kit in school and they should also bring a fruit snack and have their water bottle in school to take with them.
The class have learnt many new skills since their initial skipping workshop and they have worked hard to improve their personal bests for each skill.
There will be chance to see some of these skills at a skipping assembly next Wednesday 19 June at school. This is weather dependent and parents and carers are invited to come and watch at 2:30pm, if the weather is fine, and we can show off the skipping skills in the playground.
We do still have some skipping ropes available for sale for the children to continue to work on their skills at home. These are at a subsidised cost of £2 per rope (normal price £5). Please ask if you would like to buy a rope.
Good luck to all the children tomorrow!
Skipping day
One of the ways we have invested our PE and Sport Premium, over the last two years, is our partnership with Skipping School. This has supported children to learn new skipping techniques.
With skipping equipment available for pupils to use at playtime and lunchtime, this is one of the ways they can achieve their active 30 minutes in school every day.
Year 2 and Year 4 have taken part in skipping festivals this year and Jodi, from Skipping School, will be working with our remaining classes on Wednesday 19 June.
There will be a whole school skipping assembly at the end of the day and if the weather is dry, this will be held in the playground and parents and carers are invited to come and watch the skipping skills on show.
Please note that if the weather is wet, the assembly will need to be indoors and, due to space restrictions, we will not be able to accommodate parents and carers in the hall as well as the skippers.
After the skipping assembly, skipping ropes will be available for sale at a subsidised price of £2 rather than £5 from outside the Year 2 classroom.
Plastic Pollution: Ecobricks
Year 4 are going to be learning about the impact plastic is having in our oceans. How does it get there? What harm does it do to the marine life?
What can we do to help?
Plastic is really useful and we use it every day.
But what happens after we throw it away is causing a big problem for our planet. There are lots of easy ways you can cut down your single-use plastic, but what should you do with the plastic that you can’t avoid? Ecobricks are an ethical way of using up the plastic that can’t be recycled and won’t break down.
Today, the children have set up an Ecobrick station in the classroom.
What is an ecobrick?
An ecobrick is a building block made entirely from unrecyclable plastic. It’s created by filling a plastic bottle with clean, dry plastic until it’s packed tightly and can be used as a building block.
Ecobricks can be used in all sorts of sustainable building projects, which makes them a great way to dispose of plastic waste that would otherwise end up in landfill, and potentially, the ocean.
To find out more follow the link below.
https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/news/news-archive/2019/what-is-an-ecobrick
Lotherton Hall
We had a great time at Lotherton Hall yesterday. The sun shone briefly and we stayed mostly dry!
The children enjoyed watching the penguins being fed and hunting for minibeasts.
Remember to ask your child to share their highlights.
Lotherton Hall
Don’t forget our trip is tomorrow! Please send your child with a waterproof coat and packed lunch.
You can find the guidance for packed lunches in the health section of this website.