Living and Learning
As we return to school, we begin our Living and Learning theme with a focus on manners: I can greet someone politely.
We’ll then continue by thinking about the ‘8 Rs for learning’. This theme is about promoting good learning behaviour for your child.
Each week, we’ll focus on two different ‘Rs’. We use an animal to symbolise each ‘R’, which might help your child remember all eight – can your child remember which animal matches the correct ‘R’?
You can support your child at home – we’ve listed a few ideas to help you below. Ask us if you’ve any questions or comments.
Download top tips for promoting the 8Rs for good learning behaviour.
I can show I am ready to learn.
Make sure your child is at school for a prompt start of 08:50.
Make sure your child has had plenty of sleep so they are alert and ready to learn at all times.
Encourage your child to ask lots of questions – that shows they want to learn!
I respond to feedback.
Ask your child if they remember their ‘stars’ and ‘steps’ in English and Maths.
I take a safe risk.
Talk about the difference between a safe and unsafe risk. At school, we want your child to take a safe risk by having a go at answering, even if unsure; trying something new and attempting harder learning.
I take responsibility for my own learning.
Provide time and space at home so your child is able to organise themselves: their PE kit, reading book, homework, spellings and tables… Don’t organise everything for them!
Make a link between rights and responsibilities: your child has the right to a great education, but needs to be responsible for their own learning.
I am resourceful.
Encourage your child to be organised so they can play with a range of different toys.
Encourage your child to try new ways to solve a tricky problem.
I am resilient.
Encourage your child to keep going! Set a tricky challenge or puzzle for your child to do.
Encourage your child to think of different ways of doing things.
Don’t let your child win when they play a game – they need to experience losing, too!
Celebrate mistakes as opportunities to learn – be happy that your child found some learning hard and encourage them to ‘bounce back’ and learn from the experience.
I remember.
Make sure they have time to learn spellings, number bonds and times tables – a little practice daily is best.
Play memory games:
Kim’s game: show them objects for 30 seconds… can they remember all the objects?
Can they build up the sequence, ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple and a bike.’… ‘I went to the shop and I bought an apple, a bike and a cucumber.’ etc … Take turns!
I reflect about my learning.
Talk with your child about what they’ve learnt, asking questions about:
how they learnt
why they learnt it
when they’ll use their learning
how they would teach this to someone else
what learning might link with what they’ve learnt today etc
As well as covering the 8Rs for learning, pupils will also learn about their rights and responsibilities.
Finally, we end the half term learning about democracy (one of the British Values). All children have the opportunity to experience democracy in our annual School Council elections. More details to follow.
Our full Living and Learning long term plan is available on the health pages and you can keep up to date with our weekly Living and Learning statements on the parent noticeboard in the playground and also on the school calendar.
Another year has past ….
Mr Owen, Mrs Pearson and I would just like to take this opportunity to say thank you to all the children for a great year. We have really enjoyed teaching each and every one of them. Many thanks also for all the end of term gifts. We never expect presents but are very grateful for your generosity. Before we sign off for the summer, we would like to share our ‘Plastic Free Under the Sea‘ display with you. The artwork was added to over several weeks and we are sure you will agree, the end result is eye-catching!
We hope you all enjoy the summer holidays!
Signing off: Highlights of Year 5
Our homework this week was creative: I can show my highlights of the year. In true Y5 style, the homework was smashed out of the park.
Some decided to show their favourite subject, like Serenity’s mini art gallery to represent her creative learning…
… or Laila’s Lego rounders pitch to represent PE and our trip to Roundhay Park.
Some created amazing posters to represent lots of different highlights…
… like World Book Day, our trip to the Bradford Media Museum or our several themed weeks across the year just to name a few!
Others made a countdown to rank their highlights…
… like Will’s Top Five which included our courtroom reenactment, 5/6 production and both our class novels…
… and Maggie even created hers using PowerPoint which was incredibly funny and emotional at the same time! “Does Miss Wilson really live in the cupboard and will she have to move house to the ‘apartment’ next door over the summer? We will never know.”
For some reason, many of the class had latched onto the fact that I can’t speak properly sometimes and I mix up my words. Once, I was trying to say “Dan had” and ended up calling him “Dad” in class. Hilarity ensued.
Another classic was asking everyone if they had a “spare purple pen” that came out as “spurple pen” and with it a long-running joke was born. Here it is being demonstrated by a larger than life homework submission.
Lots, lots, lots of the class mentioned how their highlight was simply bonding and spending time with their best friends, as demonstrated by Poppy and Kirsten’s ace collage.
Well done everyone, yet again! I could have posted everyone’s homework but these were just a couple of the brilliant ones.
My personal highlight has been getting to know each and every one of you and learning so much but having a good laugh along the way. I couldn’t ask for a better class to take up to year six for your last ever year of primary school. Enjoy the summer and I’m excited to see you all in September for our best year yet!
Miss Wilson x
Author visit
This morning Hayley, came in to class to tell us about her book Emma Bright and the super food fight.
As well as being a really fun and exciting story, it has lots of positive message about a healthy lifestyle.
Later in the session, we created our own superfood heroes on paper plates.
Superfood collage
We’ve been looking at the paintings of Guiseppe Arcimboldo in art lessons this half-term. This links well with our food topic as Arcimboldo was famous for drawing different fruits and vegetables to create portraits. 
Using these paintings as inspiration, we created our own collages using actual fruit and vegetables. First we designed our portraits and then we made them. 
Finally, the children devoured their creations! 
Junior snooker summer holiday club programme
Northern Snooker Centre will be running six sessions to introduce snooker and billiards to young people aged 10-16 this summer holiday, coordinated by a WPBSA World Snooker Coach.
These fun and engaging group sessions are aimed at new players, as part of a new national programme funded by Sport England. Each session costs only £1 to attend.
The club is a member of the national club scheme, which means it meets the governing body standards of safeguarding and equality, as well as adopting a Code of Conduct to ensure the right setup for juniors, overseen
by a Club Welfare Officer.
This is a fantastic opportunity to try an inclusive sport in an exciting and dynamic environment.
Great fun bowling
Last night, Year 6 had a lovely time bowling. Thank you for dropping them off and picking them up promptly!
Enterprising times
This week, as you may have noticed, Year 6 have been out in the playground after school raising money for the school charity and to contribute towards their leavers’ hoodies.
They’ve thoroughly enjoyed coming up with stalls to run and have had a great time working with customers. Our last day is today so come along and try out a stall you haven’t had a go at yet or just treat yourself to another ice cream!
Living and Learning: Physical Health
As well as our current learning about healthy food, we have been thinking about other aspects of health including physical health.
The Government Childhood Obesity Plan has set out the ambition for all children to achieve 60 minutes of physical activity every day – 30 active minutes in school and 30 active minutes out of school.
We considered different ways to achieve these recommendations.
Outside of school
- Walk/bike/scoot/park and stride to school
- after school clubs
- other sports clubs
- parkrun
- swimming lessons
- walking a pet
- playing in a park
- playing out/in the garden
- jumping on a trampoline
- skipping
- going for a walk
At school
- being active at playtime and lunchtime
- skipping
- playing in the MUGA
- Wake up Shake up
- Super Movers, GoNoodle, imoves active breaks in class
- using the climbing wall
- using the front playground
Picnic in the park
Well done to all the children today for designing and preparing all the parts of their picnic.
We’ve used lots of food preparation skills over the last two days and it was great to enjoy our trip to the park as the finale to our food topic.
‘The food was delicious.’
‘I enjoyed the cooking but some of it was tricky. It is hard to cut pieces the same size.’
‘The cooking was great fun.’
‘We got to play on the money bars, swings and skip.’
This learning has helped the children to understand what is needed for a healthy packed lunch based on the Eat Well Guide. We also have our Packed Lunch Guidance in case some of the children move to packed lunches in Year 3.
Hopefully you might get chance to enjoy another picnic in the park over the summer holidays (and get someone to make it for you!).
