Inspired by the Tour de France?
What an amazing spectacle the Tour de France has been this weekend.
If you have been inspired to get on your bike then next week we are having a bike, scooter and walk to school week alongside our Staying Safe week.
Each day this golden lock will be placed on a random bike or scooter, in our storage area. If it is your bike or scooter you will be the lucky winner of a £20 voucher, kindly donated by the Chapel Allerton branch of Edinburgh bicycle cooperative.
On Wednesday, from 8:30am, Edinburgh bike cooperative will be visiting school for a Dr bike event. Children who bring their bike to school can have a free bike maintenance check to ensure their bike is in its best condition. Edinburgh bike cooperative will be with us all morning checking bikes and also providing bike maintenance sessions for Year 5 so they can maintain their own bikes.
Would you like to explore cycle routes across the city? Leeds City council have produced a series of local cycle maps. Additionally, Go:cycling offer a range of free cycling services.
Tour de France
After going to have a look at the amazing bikes at the front of school…
Year 1 wanted to find out some more about the Tour de France.
- ‘Did the first race start in France?’
- ‘Why is it so long?’
- ‘What colours will the bikes be?’
- ‘How many people will be part of the Tour de France?’
- ‘Why are girls not allowed to ride?’
- ‘Who is taking part this year?’
- ‘Who won the Tour de France last year?’
So we decided we needed to ask the experts: Year 4.
Year 4 came to teach us lots of facts and information from their Tour de France topic. They had even written quizzes and made leaflets for us to take home. Thank you Year 4 – you were great, well-prepared teachers!
Oh we did like to be beside the seaside.
Year 1 and 2 donned their sunhats, sun-cream and flip-flops for a day on the beach last week and oh what fun we had!
Once we arrived, we set off on the long downhill trek to the beach and settled ourselves on the sand to have a play and eat our lunch.
Unfortunately, a particularly vicious seagull stole Mrs Maqbool’s sandwich!
After lunch, it was time to get ourselves wet and have a paddle. We all had a great splash around and then had a quick change as the tide was coming in.
Once we were all dry, we moved the other side of the beach where the tide wasn’t in yet and where the ice-cream van was parked. Everybody had an ice-cream with a flake. The most popular flavour was mint-choc-chip whilst the teachers favoured cinder toffee. Yum!
It was a beautiful day and we were all sad to have to leave the beach to climb up the hill to the coach again to head back home. I don’t know about Year 1, but Year 2 were surprisingly lively all the way back home. Hopefully, they were then tired out for bed at the end of the day.
Farewell to Nothing
Today, we said farewell to Nothing by having a celebration of the time he has spent with us. There were party games and food and a chance for the children to say a message to Nothing before he left to return to his family.
- ‘Hope you have a nice time with your family.’
- ‘Hope your family look after you.’
- ‘I hope you have enjoyed visiting our school.’
- ‘I’m sorry that you are leaving.’
The children have thoroughly enjoyed the Nothing project and have shown great understanding and learning.
- ‘I know we don’t pick things up and eat them.’
- ‘We need a healthy diet.’
- ‘There are things we need and things we want.’
- ‘Don’t talk to strangers.’
- ‘All medicines are drugs but not all drugs are medicines.’
Thanks for coming to visit us, Nothing.
Seaside sing-a-long
Year 1 have been getting in the mood for our upcoming seaside trip with a seaside-themed singing session. A sailor went to sea, sea, sea is one of our favourites and Mia even taught us the clapping rhyme to go with the song – great partner work.
Our new SEAL theme for this half-term is…
…’Changes’.
We begin the half term with a focus on manners: I use good table manners. Adults in school, including lunchtime supervisors, will be looking out for children who show good table manners – not talking with their mouth full and using their cutlery correctly. What other table manners can you think of? Ask your child to add their suggestion to their class SEAL box.
Following this, the Changes theme aims to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common responses to change.
It aims to develop knowledge, understanding and skills in three key social and emotional aspects of living and learning: motivation, managing feelings and social skills.
The key ideas and concepts behind this theme are:
- Change can be uncomfortable, because it can threaten our basic needs to feel safe and to belong
- Change can also be stimulating and welcome
- Both adults and children can experience a range of powerful and conflicting emotions as a result of change – for example, excitement, anxiety, uncertainty, loss, anger, resentment
- Worries about change can be made worse by uncertainty, lack of information, or misinformation and lack of support from others
- People’s responses to and ability to cope with change are very variable, and might be influenced by individual temperament, previous experience of change, and the nature of the change – chosen or imposed, expected or unexpected, within our control or out of our control
Some children may welcome most forms of change and dislike routine and predictability. Other children may find even small changes very difficult.
Within school, children, who are coping with or have undergone significant change, are supported in a variety of ways:
- Our positive ethos within school
- Support systems, from staff and peers, for children who have undergone change or who maybe new to the school
- SEAL and circle time sessions where children feel safe to talk about their feelings
- Class SEAL boxes for children to record any concerns
- Preparing children wherever possible for planned changes for example, a change of class teacher, Key Stage or even school
Roundhay Football Tournament
The Roundhay 7 a side tournament is well under way. The Year 5 team have a win and a draw from their first two games!
Nothing (or little Toby)
Year 1 had another visitor this week. It was Nothing.
Nothing is the main character in the book we have been looking at in our SEAL lessons. When his family move house and leave him in the attic, Nothing becomes lonely and afraid. Helped by big Toby, Nothing is reunited with the rest of his family at their new house. We have used the story to think about how Nothing might have felt and how the children might feel if they were in similar situations, developing empathy skills. The children can certainly recognise a wide range of emotions.
‘He might have felt uncomfortable,’ suggested Pia.
‘When he was reunited Nothing would have felt brave,’ Ethan thought.
We invited Nothing to visit our class and this week the children were so excited to meet him. Making sure Nothing felt safe and welcome in the class, we introduced ourselves.
As part of the project the children will be taking Nothing home overnight and we will continue to look at how to look after Nothing – what might he want but more importantly what are his basic needs.
Word journey to word island
To launch our Seaside topic, Year 1 took part in ‘Word journey to word island’, an outdoor activity day focusing on language and literacy skills. Led by Annie Berrington of Get out more, we took an imaginery journey to discover a new island. The children responded brilliantly and really got into their roles as crew on Captain Annie’s ship. They produced some fantastic writing including poetry using adjectives and similes. Here are a few images from the day.
Upcoming sporting events
Sports & Active Lifestyles Fair
Find out what sports clubs and physical activity opportunities are available in our area for all children, young people and adults. This is a great opportunity to come as a family or with friends and take part in sport / activity taster sessions and watch sports demonstrations from local clubs.
- When: Thursday 5th June 2014
- Time: 5:30pm – 7:30pm
- Where: Roundhay School
Roundhay Park Family Fun Run (1K & 5K)
- When: Saturday 7th June 2014
- Time: 10:00am
- Where: Roundhay Park
REAP and Roundhay Live are starting the celebrations of Le Grand Depart early with this community event, full of family fun, music, food and cycling.
- When: Sunday 22nd June 2014
- Time: 12:00pm-5:00pm
- Where: Roundhay School
For further information about any of these events please ask at the school office.
