Walk Leeds walking festival
Following our Walk to School week, Walk Leeds is a week-long walking festival from the 31 May to 07 June.
The Walks Diary lists all the walks taking place.
696 journeys on foot
As we come to the end of Walk to School Week, there have been 696 journeys to school on foot and the class competition was very close.
- Reception 118
- Year 1 107
- Year 2 80
- Year 3 111
- Year 4 107
- Year 5 100
- Year 6 73
So, winning by just seven journeys, Reception will receive the martial arts session with John from White Rose Martial Arts, who runs one of our after-school clubs, after the half term break.
Here are some comments made by children about their journeys to school on foot:
- ‘The walk made me feel happy and energetic.’
- ‘We enjoyed meeting friends on the way and looking at different types of houses.’
- ‘We felt safe because there were safe places to cross and a lolly pop lady too.’
- ‘I felt fresh, awake and ready to learn.’
- ‘We enjoyed talking about the day ahead.’
- ‘There was no cost involved and we picked up litter on the way.’
- ‘We made a difference by leaving the car at home.’
- ‘We had fun by learning spellings and times tables.’
- ‘It was quicker and we didn’t get stuck in any traffic.’
- ‘We had great talking time, time to plan the day and after-school activities.’
We’re sure you’ll agree these are all great benefits of walking to school. Have a look at our walk to school video for some more facts to persuade you to use a sustainable method of travelling to school, in turn reducing congestion at the school gates.
Well done to our Where’s Wally? competition winners, too.
Let’s hope these numbers increase over the summer months along with journeys by bike and scooter.
Walk to School Week
Walk to School Week will run alongside our themed week where children are encouraged to take a walk in the community on their way to school, maybe even picking up a piece of litter on the way.
Two walk to school competitions will run over the week – firstly, the return of our Where’s Wally challenge (using our walk to school website video) and also a reward for the class who make the most journeys to school on foot during the week.
Each day your child walks to school they should put a counter in their class’ totaliser jar. Even by parking further away from school your child could then to do the final part of their journey by foot. By Friday, the class with the most journeys to school on foot will win a martial arts session with John Weatherall, White Rose martial arts.
We hope you will support this initiative in helping children make a healthy start to their day and also helping towards reducing congestion at our gates.
Who do you think you are?
Our next whole school themed week, based around identity, diversity and community, will be taking place next week, from Monday 18 May 2015.
A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education.
Events during the week will include looking at our own identity including belonging and body image, diversity of people around us – this might include race, age, religion, disability, sexual orientation and gender. There will be various visitors to support this. Classes will also be getting out into the community working with local organisations such as our local charity, St Gemma’s Hospice; local care homes; Moortown Community Group; and taking pride in the local community by litter-picking.
Identity day
Following a suggestion from one of our school councillors, Friday 22 May will be a non-uniform identity day. Children are invited to dress in clothing that represents part of their identity, for example uniform from a club they attend; a team they are part of or support; or traditional dress to represent their heritage. We invite a £1 voluntary donation and proceeds will be shared between St Gemma’s Hospice and the Nepal earthquake appeal.
Who do you think we are?
Do you think you’d recognise some of our staff in their early years? This photo competition will run throughout the week with details to follow separately. Again, proceeds will be shared between St Gemma’s Hospice and the Nepal earthquake appeal.
We’ll keep you up to date about events during the week through Twitter and the class news pages on our website. It’s going to be a busy week!
Our website and Twitter continue to keep you up to date with key community events. Upcoming events include the Roundhay Park Fun Run on 20 June and the PTA Summer Fair on 04 July. We hope you can support these.
Phonics sessions
Thank you to all the parents who attended last week’s phonics sessions, the third of three rounds of ‘open mornings’ over the course of the year. Nearly all children had a dad, mum or other relative attend, taking the time to learn more about how we teach phonics and thinking about you can can support at home. Here are a few of the comments:
- “Love these sessions – they are very helpful. It’s amazing to see the class learning and seeing the improvements and progress over the year. Very effective in helping parents to help their children.”
- “The children were so well-behaved and paying attention. Great to understand more about how they blend words and to see how the class is progressing.”
- “Lovely session. Very informative and great to see the children working.”
- “Surprised at the level – much higher than expected.”
- “Loved seeing the techniques used to create sentences and understand them.”
As you can see, visitors found the session entertaining and informative. There were lots of comments about the high level of children’s learning.
Phonics mornings
We hope you can attend the third and final phonics morning this week.
The sessions will be on Wednesday, Thursday and Friday at 9am.
See you there.
Keeping safe and fit
John, from White Rose Martial Arts, demonstrated in the assembly today some of the skills that can be learnt at the karate after-school club, running again this term.
Pupils who have already attended the club confidently showed their karate techniques alongside some key messages about self-defence from John.
There was a lot of interest from the children so please contact John directly to secure a place for your child. Information can be obtained from the office or your child’s teacher. There is a free taster session on Tuesday 05 May but places are limited.
Writing
As you know, at the end of the year we’ll be assessing the children in 13 areas of the curriculum. One of these areas is writing. The early learning goal is:
Children use their phonic knowledge to write words in ways which match their spoken sounds. They also write some irregular common words. They write simple sentences which can be read by themselves and others. Some words are spelled correctly and others are phonetically plausible.
The children are all confident in recognising their letter sounds and now need to develop confidence in ‘having a go’ at writing. Remember, it doesn’t matter if words aren’t always spelt correctly as long as the children are recording the sounds they hear.
‘Tricky’ words like I, the, said, he, me need to be learnt and practised.
Please could you practise a simple sentence every day at home with your child. Bring their writing to school for us to celebrate.
If you have any questions, please ask.
Our new SEAL theme for this half term is…
…relationships.
This theme explores feelings within the context of our important relationships including family and friends.
It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of learning: self-awareness, managing feelings and empathy.
There is a focus throughout the theme on helping children understand the feelings associated with an experience that we all need to cope with at some time: that of loss – whether of a favourite possession, a friend, a family home, or a loved one. Although relatively few children are bereaved, most will experience losses of other kinds during their childhood; losing a home, losing friends because of moving house or changing schools, or losing a pet are examples.
We would therefore ask for parents / carers to alert us to any experiences your child has had that might make this area particularly difficult for them – for example, a bereavement.
Variety is the spice of life!
If you ask your child what they’ve done today, you may be surprised! From learning Mandarin to finding out about geysers, it was all going on. All the children were mixed up for the morning and took part in four different lessons – there are eight different lessons altogether so there will be some more mixing up going on tomorrow. These lessons have been part of our Enrichment Week where children have thought about a variety of subjects in lots of different ways. Here are some photos to give you a taste of what has been happening: learning Urdu or Mandarin, art work, music, PE, geography, programming and DT.
