Leeds Fun Run 8th May
The Arena Group Leeds Fun Run is back for 2022, taking place on Sunday 8th May.
It offers a great opportunity to get families together, while staying and active and healthy at the same time.
Children of all abilities are encouraged to take part as they wheel, walk, jog or run the 1.3 km route around the city centre.
Catalan Soccer
This week, all classes are taking part in sessions led by Catalan Soccer.
Thank you to the Year 5 pupil, who currently attends Catalan Soccer sessions outside of school, who requested they came into school.
The classes have been brilliant and the coaches have fed back what a delight the kids have been to coach!
The coaches also commented how welcome they have been made to feel by your staff and teachers, so a huge thanks for that!
If your child enjoyed their session, please contact Catalan Soccer to find out more about the classes and holiday camps they run in Leeds.
Welcome to the summer term!
Welcome back. We hope you had a great Easter break.
This term in Reception our theme is, ‘Life on Earth’.
Our learning will include;
Mini-beasts
Children love a bug hunt! This term, we’ll be hunting for bugs and finding out all about them. As a scientist, your child will observe how various creatures develop from butterflies to frogs. Using books and ICT, they will also use their investigation skills to find out more about bugs that are all around us. Your child will also be use their imagination to create their own mini-beasts. Children will work together to design their own mini-beast hotels.
Your child will study the artist Alexander Calder and create their own representation of his butterfly work.
Amazing animals
Where does a tiger come from? In this theme, your child will find out! We’ll find out where our favourite animals originate, finding the country on the map. We’ll look at its environment and your child consider how it is different from where we live. As an artist, your child will mix colours to create an animals’ camouflage patterns. They’ll create their own landscapes for various animals using our small world resources in the classroom, and they’ll create their own scenarios and storylines for their play.
Me and my body
We want our school to be a happy and healthy place at all times. Keeping healthy is the key message in this theme. Your child will learn how important exercise is and how our body feels during and after we exercise. They’ll learn about eating healthily and why this is important; they’ll become aware of the importance of five portions of fruit and vegetables each day. Your child will try new fruit and vegetables and prepare simple healthy foods. They’ll find out how important it is to brush their teeth and what happens if we don’t. As an artist, your child will learn to draw a face and then a figure with increasing detail.
Phonics
We will continue following Little Wandle revised Letters and Sounds. The children will be learning to read longer words, compound words and words with adjacent consonants.
PE
For the rest of the term, PE will return to Wednesday and Friday.
Big Walk and Wheel
Thank you to all the families who have supported the Big Walk and Wheel over the last two weeks.
Overall, we were placed 150th in the small school category, out of 643 schools, with a daily average of 74.29% of journeys to school being active. In Northern England, we were 18th out of 107 small schools. Well done to everyone who took an active journey to help to achieve this.
Over the two week period we actively travelled 1,358 times!
It would be great for these active journeys to continue. Travelling actively (walking, park and stride – Marks and Spencers car park, scooting or biking) is a safe and healthy start to the school day.
Growing!
The children have been busy planting seeds and bulbs in our outside area. We have planted beans, sunflowers and a selection of different herbs.
Phonics
This week the children will be reading longer words such as carrot, ladder, bigger and rabbit. They will be practising blending words in their head using the digraphs and trigraphs; ai ee igh oa oo oo ar or ur ow oi ear air er .
Maths
This week, the children will use practical contexts to sort objects according to different criteria. They will be encouraged to notice different attributes in groups of objects – such as colour, size or function – and to describe what they notice. They will apply their sorting skills to numbers and investigate ways to sort Numberblocks. By using their knowledge of doubles, they will begin to practically explore even and odd numbers.
Have a great Easter break!
It’s Spring!
Last week we visited Moortown Park to look for signs of Spring. After a walk around the park we enjoyed some time on the playground. Back in the classroom, the children drew maps of our journey.
Literacy
Our focus book this week is ‘Jack and the Beanstalk’. The children will retell the story and learn about traditional tales.
We will be planting beans and sunflowers and tidying up our outside area.
Maths
This week the children will be learning to recognise and talk about doubles within 10.
We will be using the stem sentence, ‘4 is made of 2 and 2. Double 2 is 4.’
Phonics
We are continuing to learn to read words with digraphs (two letters making one sound). This week our words will include the digraphs ai, ee and the trigraph igh.
NSPCC Speak out Stay safe
During our recent Staying Safe themed week, all pupils took part in the NSPCC Speak out Stay safe learning featuring Ant and Dec and Buddy.
We are proud to receive our certificate to recognise this.
Reception Mathematicians
Last week the children demonstrated a fantastic understanding of number through a range of activities. They used the language more, less and fewer to compare numbers and sets of objects.
This week the focus will be consolidating their understanding of the composition of numbers. Composing and de-composing numbers involves the children investigating part–part–whole relations, e.g. seeing that 7 can be made of 5 and 2. The children will deepen their understanding of a whole being made up of smaller parts through games and practical experiences.
Writing
It has been wonderful to see the children enjoy writing and having the confidence to ‘have a go’.
Reading
The children are really enjoying their reading practise sessions. I hope you are impressed with their fluency and confidence when reading their e book.
Please let us know if you are having any problems logging in or accessing these books.
Big Walk and Wheel
Get set… we’re taking part in Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel 2022 (the new name for Big Pedal), the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting challenge. The challenge runs from 21 March to 1 April. It’s free and we would love everyone to be involved.
What do you need to do?
Encourage your child(ren) to walk, scoot or cycle to school on as many days as possible during the event. Park and stride (parking your car further away from school, for example, Marks and Spencer car park and walking, scooting or biking the final part of the journey) also counts.
Why we are taking part
As a happy and healthy school, Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is a great way to build physical activity in children’s daily routine which is important for their physical health and mental wellbeing.
Active school runs also help to reduce congestion and air pollution outside the school gate. A 2021 YouGov study showed nearly half of UK children worry about air pollution near their school. Children thought active travel was the best away to bring down these pollution levels.
Plus there are some great prizes to be won every day if we get enough children taking part!
Useful resources
To help you prepare, Sustrans has developed a handy free guide packed with advice, games and challenges to help you have hassle-free cycle, walk or scoot to school.
Download your free family guide here.
This week in Reception
We had a busy week last week and really enjoyed seeing all of the children’s costumes on World Book Day.
Phonics
We have learnt all the phonemes we need this year and during the next few weeks, we will be practising reading longer words and gaining fluency.
Reading
The children are doing really well with their reading and becoming more fluent and confident. Remember, they will have read their reading practise book four times before it is assigned as an e-book. We are aiming for fluency and your child should not need to blend the words.
I hope you will be impressed with how fluent they are becoming.
Any problems with accessing the e-books, please let me know.
Maths
This week we will continue to look at comparison and using the language of ‘more than’, ‘less than’ and ‘equal to’ to describe the relationships between numbers.
‘Less than’ is used instead of ‘fewer than’ when the focus is on each number’s position in the counting sequence.
Considering equal quantities and equal distribution will prepare the children for the meaning of the equals (=) symbol.
