The Big Pedal is back!
Get set… we’re taking part in Sustrans Big Pedal 2018, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge, that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two (or three) wheels for their journey to school.
The Big Pedal will run alongside our year round Living Streets WOW sustainable travel initiative where the children record how they travel to school on our daily travel tracker.
The Big Pedal challenge focuses on journeys made by bike and scooter and runs from 23 April to 04 May. We would love everyone to be involved.
The details
On each day of the challenge, schools compete to see who can record the greatest number of pupils, staff and parents cycling or scooting to school. Our best five days will determine our final position in the challenge. We’ll be competing against other schools right across the UK, and if we clock up the most bike and scooter journeys, we’ll win!
Why we’re taking part
It’s a great way to get more of our pupils travelling to school on their bikes and scooters. We will be competing to become one of the UK’s top schools for two-wheeled journeys and will be in with a chance to win prizes including bike and scooter stunt shows and fantastic cycle and scooter storage.
What’s next?
All you need to do is encourage your child(ren) to cycle or scoot to school every day during the event, and join them on their way.
If you do need the car to bring your child(ren) to school, you could park further away from school and bike or scoot the last part.
Living and learning – Healthy minds
- 16 April I can name emotions.
- 23 April I recognise emotions in myself and others. Being aware of different emotions – both positive and negative – is an important basis for good mental health.
- 30 April I show empathy. Talk to your child about empathy, both in real-life situations and also when discussing characters in a book, film or TV programme.
- 08 May I can describe ways to calm down. We all get worked up from time to time – how do different people calm down?
- 14 May I use calming down strategies. Calming down strategies might include any of the mindfulness techniques children have been taught or counting to ten, going for a walk, getting a glass of water – discuss what works for you and your child?
- 21 May I recognise mental health is important. We want our children to be happy and healthy!
This text is a great introduction to the topic of mental health for children.
Welcome back
We hope that you all have enjoyed the holidays. The spring term was a very busy one indeed. Below are a few quotes from the children’s most recent feedback forms.
- “I loved learning about past famous explorers.”
- “PE is great fun and we are really good at working in teams.”
- “I really like how much reading we do. We have lots of different reading types in our classroom.”
- “I feel that my fractions work has really improved. I wasn’t sure at first but now I get it.”
- “I find writing hard. The teachers help me and encourage me to check and edit my work.”
- “I love DT. We had made rafts, monsters, dens, been archeologists, and lots of cooking.”
Our summer term, once more, is packed full of learning.
Mini-topic: Electricity
Electricity is the theme for our learning for the next few weeks. We’ll identify common appliances that run on electricity, construct a simple electrical circuit, identify and name its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers.
Big-topic:
This term, we won’t be learning through a big-topic. Instead, we’ll have several mini-topics. In Science, we’ll learn about the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans. Also, identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.
In History, we’re going to study The Egyptians – a fascinating period of time to explore and discover! 
Reading:
We’re starting the term with a class set of our new novel ‘Ottoline and the Yellow Cat.’ 
With a child each having a book, we can all follow the story much more easily and share the reading. We’ll explore the language, themes, context and our own opinions of this much loved story.
PE:
Kits are needed in school every Monday and Friday. Some children are not bringing the correct kit to school. Please ensure you are aware of the uniform policy. If you are unsure have a look on the website or check with one of us.
Herd Farm
We’re all very excited about our upcoming visit to Herd Farm. Please call in if you have any further questions regarding this.
As always, remember to call in if there’s anything we can support with – we are happy to help where we can.
Creative Homeworks
Here are our favourite creative homeworks from this week.
Year 2 and Year 6 assessments
The STA has published an information leaflet and two videos for parents/carers of children in Year 2 and Year 6 about national curriculum assessments. The purpose of these materials is to help you understand more about the end of key stage assessments that will be administered in primary schools in May. (The end of Key Stage 1 is Year 2; the end of Key Stage 2 is Year 6.)
The materials provide basic information about the purpose and format of the tests, how parents can best support their children and how results will be reported.
2D shapes!
This morning, we’ve been making 2D shapes on geo-boards. Not only is this a good way of exploring shapes, it also helps with children’s fine motor skills.
First of all, we made some different quadrilaterals:
Next, we focussed on pentagons. Look at all the different types of pentagons we made: 
After that, we made some hexagons:
Finally, we used rulers to draw our own quadrilaterals:
Kahoot
This week, we’ve been looking over our tests from last week to find out where we went wrong and to understand how to improve.
One fun way we did this was to use the online learning games website Kahoot!
If you want to try it at home, you can make your own quizzes about anything at all! (Yours doesn’t have to be about grammar and punctuation like Miss Wilson made!)
Jess said: “Kahoot is very fun because you get to do quizzes and you work as a team to try and win the quiz. I like those sorts of things.”
Emma described Kahoot in three words: “Fun, competitive quiz.”
Ethan L said, “It’s exciting because you answer the question and you can see where your team is coming, like first, second or third and you can see how many points you’ve got.”
Each question was based around the themes of the grammar test we did last week so after we’d spotted our mistakes we had another go using the online quiz. We could chat about why certain answers were correct but also why certain answers couldn’t be correct.
Here are some screen grabs from our online grammar review!
The question appeared with four possible answers below. Children, in teams of two using an iPad between them, clicked on the correct corresponding answer on their device. Bonus points were awarded for speed!
Each round showed a summary for how many teams were successful.
Some questions were harder than others, especially under a time pressure.
These ones proved to have the widest spread of answers but this gave us lots to discuss about which answer was correct and more importantly why.
The scoreboard kept us on our toes and it was very exciting when your team name popped up! Notice how we used usernames instead of our real names. As Kashif said, “Real names are private information online.”
At the end of the quiz, we found out the winner. 18/20 isn’t bad at all! Well done to everyone for their enthusiasm and contribution!
Discovery Zone – University of Leeds
Year 6 went to the University of Leeds on Tuesday to take part in the Discover Zone, part of Leeds Festival of Science. We travelled there on the 7A from Moortown Corner which was all part of the excitement and then walked through town to the university. Thanks for getting your child to school early so that we were able to do this.
It was a fantastic morning and we got to experience so much incredible Science – all of the children loved it. The favourites seemed to be making mini rockets using vinegar and bicarbonate of soda (which produce carbon dioxide when mixed) and investigating the effects of obesity and smoking on our ability to exercise.
Using technology in the classroom
The children are hunting for tricky words using a QR reader on the iPads.
Space art!
We’ve had a busy morning painting, printing and making space-themed art!
