New SEAL theme – Good to be me
Our new SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme for this half-term, Good to be me, focuses on three main areas of learning:
•Self-awareness – feeling good about yourself, taking risks.
•Managing Feelings – understanding feelings, and why and how they lead us to behave the way we do – particularly the feelings of being excited, proud, surprised, hopeful, disappointed, worried and anxious and standing up for yourself –assertiveness skills, standing up for your views.
•Empathy
This theme explores feelings in the context of the child as an individual, developing self-awareness and helping the child to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’. The theme is about understanding our feelings as well as considering our strengths and weaknesses as learners.
The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:
Building emotional resilience
Children need to become resilient if they are to be healthy and effective life-long learners.
Coping with anxiety and worrying
Worry and anxiety are major features in many children’s lives. Many children have good reasons to be anxious. Exploring worries is important.
Calming down
Although getting stressed, anxious or angry are important and useful emotions, sometimes these feelings can be overwhelming.
Assertiveness
The theme encourages children to become assertive – that is, able to recognise and stand up for their rights while recognising and respecting the rights of others.
Understanding feelings and how they influence behaviour
The theme explores the relationship between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ and the way each impacts on our behaviour. It looks at Flight or Fight rapid response to situations of threat and our responses to feeling threatened /under stress.
‘I respond to difficult situations in a positive way’ is the first SEAL statement for the theme of Good to be me.
Party Time
The party season has now officially started! Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 danced and jigged their way through the afternoon with a few games thrown in. It was a great way to finish off the term – looking forward to non-uniform day tomorrow with lots of fun things planned. Here are a few photos of the fun and games this afternoon.
Happy Christmas everyone.
Amazing learning!
At the end of the first term in Year 1, it seems appropriate to say well done to all of the children for the fantastic start to Key Stage 1 they have had. We have been regularly surprised by contributions to learning and have said “wow” several times when we have seen what children are achieving. We could mention everyone separately so would just like to say well done to everyone and wish you and your family best wishes for the approaching holiday.
Here are some brilliant examples of homework from last week which show how much support parents are giving. Thank you – it makes our job easier when we know learning is continuing at home.
Christmas Party
It’s that time of year again when we get our party dresses out and our posh trousers on and dance the afternoon away at the Christmas party!
KS1 and Reception will be having their Christmas party on Thursday 18 December in the afternoon. Your child can bring their party dresses and/or posh trousers (and anything else they want to wear) in a named bag so that they can get changed at lunchtime. Please make sure that all children come to school in their uniform as normal. You may think that they will not be able to get ready themselves – believe me, they can. However, there will be help at hand for zips, tights and any other difficult item!
Please do not send any food – there will be a party snack provided.
Thank you.
Keeping our teeth healthy
Year 1 and Reception have been visiting Year 2 to learn about how to keep their teeth healthy. The children had great knowledge on what they needed to do to have healthy teeth and we tested just how well they were brushing their teeth by using a plaque disclosure tablet. We found the parts of our teeth that we needed to brush most and then brushed for two minutes until they were squeaky clean. We did look a little odd with our purple mouths though!
Several times on purpose
Alongside our Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds themed week it has been national anti-bullying week.
Our school definition has been discussed by the School Council and has been amended, 10.11.14, to incorporate the stop message.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
Following a whole school assembly, Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team have delivered Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and in class children have discussed these aspects of bullying:
- Our revised definition of bullying (above)
- Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
- What to do if children experience bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
Bullying resources can be found at…
- http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying
Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied ‘…I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’
All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds
Our themed week, Healthy Bodies, Healthy Minds, has been filled with visits and visitors providing a variety of experiences for the whole school.
We would like to thank the following for their support with our themed week:
- Heart Research UK
- d:side (drug education)
- Betty Sutherland tai chi
- White Rose martial arts
- Chapel Allerton squash and tennis club
- Leeds United
- Molly Cawthorn (Leeds United ladies)
- Leeds Rhinos
- Tesco Seacroft Farm to Fork trail
- Jhardine Farrell who delivered ‘respecting everybody’ circle times
- Leeds anti-social behaviour team
- Year 6 for taking over PE lessons for the rest of the school
- Mr Catherall for introducing the teachers to our new whole school sport, tchoukball
- parents/carers who talked about their health related job to different classes
- Public health resource centre for the loan of resources and providing health related leaflets
Finally, thank you to all staff and pupils who have fully engaged with all the learning throughout the week. Take a look at the Class News sections of the website to find out what each class have been doing. We have enjoyed a fun-filled week.
For further information about healthy bodies and healthy minds have a look at the Kids health website and Leeds Let’s Change for advice on more local health issues.
And an extra note from me, Mr Roundtree: I’d like to also thank Mrs Taylor for continuing to organise wonderful, packed themed weeks around being healthy or staying safe. She puts an incredible amount of effort into ensuring our pupils enjoy some wonderful learning opportunities from staff and visitors.
Healthy bodies, healthy minds
What a fun filled week of learning about keeping healthy bodies and healthy minds. We’ve had a variety of visitors throughout the week and we’ve been out and about too. Year 1 have certainly been resilient and taken some safe risks as part of their learning. Take a look at what we’ve been doing…
Using the Eat well plate we learnt about the importance of eating lots of fruit and vegetable (5 a day). Did you know this could be fresh, frozen, dried, tinned or fresh juice. Ask your child how big a portion is.
We named lots of different fruit and vegetables, tasted some dried fruits and then learnt the bridge and claw cutting techniques to create our own Mr Potato Heads.
Breakfast is said to be the most important meal of the day. A healthy breakfast gives you energy to start your day and your learning. We loved our porridge and banana slices – hopefully there have been some requests to have this at home.
When learning about ‘healthy’ drinks, we found out that water and milk are the best drinks to have to keep us hydrated. We couldn’t believe the amount of sugar in some of these other drinks aimed at children.
Now time for some physical activity which also helped us to relax our minds – tai chi and karate.
We’ve been busy doing other physical activities too – dance at Allerton Grange and Year 6 took over our PE lesson.
D:side visited us on Tuesday and we met Q who had come to found out about humans. We learnt about parts of our body and their functions, healthy foods and the safe use of medicines.
A highlight of the week was our Farm to Fork trail at Tesco. Starting in the bakery we saw the process of making bread and we even brought some back to school to taste.
Next was the fish counter.
At the cheese counter, we tried two different types of cheese: Wensleydale and Cheddar.
We learnt about lots of different fruits and vegetables – some we had never seen before.
Finally we took a look inside the fridges and freezers. It really was freezing!
We’re looking forward to seeing all your homework to show how to keep a healthy body and healthy mind.
Ronnie the Rhino and the Challenge Cup!
Yesterday, we had a fun-packed assembly from two Leeds Rhino Coaches who recapped some very important messages about how to have a healthy lifestyle. They introduced us to their friend Ronnie the Rhino – who had successfully changed his unhealthy lifestyle by eating a more balanced diet and doing lots more exercise. We were also very lucky as Ronnie had brought in The Challenge Cup which the Leeds Rhinos won recently.
We can be artists
As you know, the homework last week was “I can be an artist.”
These pictures certainly show that all of Year 1 can be artists. These are just a few examples – well done to everyone and thank you for your efforts with this homework and during this topic.
