New SEAL theme – Changes
This SEAL theme tackles the issue of change and aims to equip children with an understanding of different types of change, positive and negative, and common responses to it.
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
We begin this half term with a focus on manners: I don’t talk with my mouth full.
Subsequently, I can get better at my learning is the first SEAL statement to launch the theme of Changes.
Safety, health and social benefits of walking to school
In association with Leeds City Council and Living Streets we are taking part in this year’s Walk to school week. We all know how congested the area around school can be at the start and end of the school day and so this week we are asking children to take part in the Leeds City Council Ben E. Fit competition.
Children who walk, or scoot, to school or walk part of their journey (at least five minutes, maybe by parking further away than usual) every day will be entered into a prize draw.
On Wednesday, Leeds City Council will deliver a whole school Walk to school assembly followed by pedestrian training for Year 1 and Year 2. We also start our scooter skills training this Friday for some of our Key Stage 2 children.
Why walk to school?
Our walk to school video has lots of facts and tips about walking to school.
According to Living Streets, there are many benefits to walking to school related to health, safety and the environment.
Time and money
- Trips to and from the school gates by car waste thousands of hours of parents’ and other road users’ time and cost an average of £400 per family per year
- At the peak time of 8:35am on week days in term time, the school run generates approximately 21per cent of all trips by urban residents in the UK
- 16% of school journeys under a mile are driven to school. This distance could be walked in 20 minutes
Safety
- Driving the school run denies children the chance to develop road safety skills, independence and an understanding of their local environment
- Child pedestrian collisions on the walk to school peak at about 12 years of age. This could be due to parents not preparing their children for travelling independently and practising road safety skills when their children are younger
- Parents of children who are driven to school overestimate the risks of abduction and ‘stranger danger’ while underestimating the risks of traffic
Benefits for your children
- Children who walk to school are actively engaged with their community and have better knowledge of their local area
- Children who walk to school have wider social networks: In a study by Living Streets, 84 per cent of the children who walked to school reported always or sometimes meeting up with classmates on the way to school, while only 66 per cent of those who were driven to school had the opportunity to do so
- Walking to school improves children’s social development in future years
- The more contact children have with their natural environment, the higher they score in tests of concentration and self-discipline
- Short-term and even superficial exposure to natural areas through brief walks have been found to have positive effects on mood, reducing feelings of anger and anxiety
- An American study found that after as little as five minutes of moderate to vigorous activity (i.e., running, walking), children were able to concentrate more
Health benefits of walking for parents and children
- 24.5 per cent of adults and 14 per cent of children (aged two to ten years old) in the UK are obese and obesity can reduce life expectancy by 9 years on average
- Young people who are obese are likely to have lower levels of fitness, suffer from social discrimination and have low self-esteem and lower quality of life
- Research has suggested that, without appropriate intervention, overweight or obesity could affect as many as nine out of ten adults and two out of three children by 2050
- Walking one mile (1.6 km) can burn at least 100 calories of energy and walking two miles (3.2 km) a day, three times a week, can help reduce weight by one pound (0.5 kg) every three weeks
- Three out of ten boys and four out of ten girls do not cover the recommended minimum of one hour a day of physical activity
- Children who generally travel to and from school by car, bus or other vehicle are more likely to be overweight at age 5 than those who walk or cycle
The environment
- The school run is adding two million tonnes of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere every year
- It is estimated that 17% of the total school carbon emissions can be attributed to school travel
This curry is the best…
Year 5 and 6 have been creating vegetable and chick pea curry. Here are some of the quotes about what we thought:
‘Amazing…awesome…surprisingly nice…I don’t usually like curry…this curry is the best…really, really enjoyed this.’
In conclusion, this is a quick, easy and flavoursome recipe so we encourage you to try it yourself. If you don’t like some of the ingredients, you can change them. Next time, we might add extra spice, chicken, tomato, quorn, peas or sweetcorn. We hope you enjoy this as much as we did.
Vegetable curry
Ingredients
- 1 onion
- 1 pepper
- 1 courgette
- 150g mushrooms
- 1 clove garlic
- 1x15ml spoon oil
- 2x15ml spoons curry paste
- 2x15ml spoons tomato puree
- 200g chickpeas, canned (drained)
- 1 can coconut milk (reduced fat)
Method
- Peel the onion
- Slice the mushroom, courgette and pepper
- Heat the oil in a saucepan and fry the onion, garlic, mushrooms, pepper and courgette for 5 minutes
- Stir in the curry paste, tomato puree, chickpeas and coconut milk
- Simmer for 20 minutes
- Serve with rice and / or naan bread.
Is there a new teacher in Y1?
You could be mistaken in thinking there is a new teacher in Y1! However, if you look carefully you will see that one of the children has let me have a rest. Lots of Y1 have brought books in this week to read to each other. It’s great to see how confident they have become.
Incidentally, can you see the questions on the interactive whiteboard? These questions are about our forthcoming Big Topic – the questions are from the pupils – they help us to plan what to teach during the topic!
Egg rolling… in the snow!
Despite the weather, egg rolling still happened in the back playground on Thursday. A path was cleared so there were no snow drifts to contend with and there were some eggstraordinary egg rollers. Here are the winners from each class.
Have a relaxing break.
Super Science Day!
My task during Super Science Day was to make slime by causing a chemical reaction to happen between different materials. The children worked brilliantly together to make some pretty disgusting, gooey slime!
Spring has sprung!
Spring has sprung…well it’s supposed to have done.
Even though spring is not quite here, Year 1 have been springing all term and have made a lot of progress. The learning continues to impress us along with the changes we are seeing in attitudes and general behaviour. Here are some of the changes we have seen this spring term:
- Abdullah and Pohnum are trying to be much more independent
- Daanyaal and Abigail are making fantastic progress in maths
- Matteo, Nico, Hibba, Harry and Pippa are impressing us with their use of phonics
- Archie, Owen and Elias have been learning some new art skills
- Megan has found a new talent: creating art using photos
- Grace and Oliver have become our new school councillors and have already been to a few meetings
- Handwriting is no longer a chore for Zach and Enya – we’ve seen a massive improvement
- Noah and Aleena have noticeably improved their listening skills while Sam and Stan have taken on more responsibility
- Neive and Hannan showed some great writing skills when writing instructions (Neive was allowed to be bossy!)
- Well done to Matthew: he has improved his spelling scores this term
- Pavan and Saleem have made excellent contributions to our SEAL lessons showing how we should think about other people
- Isobel, Edward and Nishaan have started to take ‘safe risks,’ meaning that they are contributing more and not so worried about making mistakes
As you can see, we’ve been very busy this term. Have a relaxing holiday and come back for more learning on 15 April.
Super Science Day Talk Time
We don’t normally set specific homework tasks in the holidays, but we encourage you to spend some time discussing the nine science activities your child will have taken part in, especially considering what they have learnt. The learning objectives were:
- I know that dyes are made up of other colours
- I know why objects float
- I can create a gas with a solid and a liquid
- I know that static electricity creates a charge
- I know about irreversible changes
- I know the effects of a chemical reaction
- I know what exercise does to my body
- I am aware of acids and alkalis
- I know what happens when you mix water with oil
Check out the pictures from the day to help jog your child’s memory of each activity… Can they match the learning objective to the photo?
More Super Science Day
Is it magic? No! We learnt that opposite charges attract so the balloon’s negative charge is attracted to positive charges on clothes, hair and walls. This is what makes them stick to each other.
Super Science Day
We used static electricity to make the can roll without touching it!
