Living and Learning: I know we’re all the same and we’re all different
Last week, in Year 2 , we have read the book ‘Elmer’ by David McKee and considered things from another’s point of view. How might Elmer feel about being different from the other elephants? Why did Elmer want to look like the other elephants? How do the other elephants view Elmer?
Through this book, the children were able to discuss how the elephants are the same and different. We have applied this to ourselves too.
Help at home: What similarities and differences are there between all the people in you family? Encourage you child Say what they really like about someone else and why.
Class assembly
The children have been working hard to get ready to share their learning at our class assembly tomorrow, 6th March.
See you at 2:40pm.
We hope you enjoy it!
The Secret Garden
It was a pleasure to welcome M&M productions to perform ‘The Secret Garden’ for us. It’s a classic story (written in 1911!) about resilience and friendship. They gave it a modern twist with some familiar songs – it was very entertaining!
What a start to the week it was! Keep your eyes peeled for what we get up to on World Book Day, this Thursday.
Help at home by discussing what your child liked about the performance using the pictures above! Can your child retell the story?
We loved it!
Y2 – I really liked it because Master Colin was able to walk. He believed in himself.
Y6 – It was funny and had all the things a play should have. I’ll definitely be checking out the book from the library.
Y3 – The sign language song was cool and interesting!
Y5 – I liked the show because they had a creative way to change the scene. They had a great voice projection.
Big Walk and Wheel
We are taking part in the 15th year celebration of Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting challenge. The challenge runs from 11-22 March 2024. It’s free to take part and we would love everyone to be involved.
Last year, in our category of small primary schools, we finished in 24th place out of 514 schools with an average of 91.14% of our journeys to school being active. We achieved the highest national (24th) and Northern England (5th) ranking out of those schools in Leeds taking part.
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 can also be included if you park at Marks and Spencer or further away from school and walk/scoot or bike the final part.
Why we are taking part
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 journeys 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. And that 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 to walking, cycling or scooting to school. It is packed with advice to help you have hassle-free journey to school.
Download your free family guide using this link: https://www.sustrans.org.uk/sign-up-to-receive-your-free-school-run-guide/
For more information about the event go to www.bigwalkandwheel.org.uk . Enjoy the challenge!
Skipping school
This week, Year 2 had a great skipping afternoon with Katie from Skipping School and the children showed great perseverance and resilience during the session.
We learnt all the Year 2 skipping individual and group skills that we’ll be performing at the Year 2 skipping festival in June. More details to follow.
If your child would like to buy a skipping rope to practise these skills at home, they are available in class for a subsidised cost of £3 per rope. We are subsidising the cost with the PE and Sport Premium as a way to encourage physical activity out of school.
Cross country star
Congratulations to our Year 3 runner who represented Leeds today in the West Yorkshire cross country final. Competing against pupils from Calderdale, Bradford, Wakefield, Kirklees and Leeds, he ran a fantastic race at Temple Newsam and should feel very proud of achieving a top 15 finish.
Being biologists and safe online
For our science learning this week, we used secondary sources to find out about animals that live in polar and desert habitats. Using non-fiction books and the internet, this gave us chance to put into practice some of our safer internet day learning. Not everything we read on the internet is true.
We could check more than one website to see if it tells us the same thing.
The National Geographic website is a website I’ve heard of. We could look at that one.
The children were also being safe online by showing an adult if something popped up on the screen before continuing.
Help at home: have a look at a non-fiction book at home with your child. Ask them how to use the contents and index pages.
Times tables rock stars
Welcome back!
This week, all children will be receiving their login details for Times Tables Rock Stars. These are the same logins as for Numbots.
In Year 2, the children learn the two, five and ten times tables and these are the tables that have been assigned to the children. There will be division questions related to those times tables too.
Soundcheck is used in Key Stage 2 to check all the times table facts up to x12 so this isn’t recommended in Year 2 as the children haven’t learned these other times tables yet.
We encourage the children to continue to use Numbots too to help to secure their addition and subtraction number facts.
Another resource to support times tables and other number facts is Hit the Button. This is a great, fast-paced game and children can choose which times tables or number facts to work on during each game. This game is free to play online.
If you have any further questions regarding the resources mentioned, do not hesitate to contact us.
Living and Learning: Safer Internet Day
This week, it was Safer Internet Day and we spent the day focusing on these two key areas of online safety.
- I know that some things online may not be true (people and information).
- I know that I shouldn’t share personal information online.
We used a few different texts to support this learning and our daily poem too.
Hot seating the characters helped to think about their feelings and actions.
This video also reinforced key messages about not everything online is true (this could be people or information) and the importance of not sharing any of your personal information.
Throughout this learning, we reinforced the message that if the children were unsure or something didn’t feel right they should always Start Telling Other People and let a trusted adult know.
We talked through this sequence of seeking help.
Help at home: Can your child tell you the key messages from the texts we read?
Also, our online safety section has further support available for parents.
Living and Learning: being safe
Being safe is a key part of our Living and Learning curriculum including a Staying Safe themed week coming up next term in July.
Year 2 learnt about being safe around the concept of consent (giving and receiving permission) in particular with their friends.
We use the term consent in different contexts in class including asking consent to post a photo of a child or their learning online. In this learning, we had some different permission scenarios to discuss and we did some role plays to test out some ways of asking for consent and what to do.
Help at home: look at the following prompts and talk this through with your child.
We also took part in the NSPCC Speak out Stay Safe online assembly.
During the assembly, we heard about different situations where children might not feel safe.
We thought about which grown-ups would be good to talk to in school and out of school (start telling other people). Brothers, sisters and friends would also be good to talk to and discuss feelings but telling a grown-up (over 18) would be the best thing to do to get help.
Our Living and Learning box, in the classroom, is another way the children can speak out and write down any worries.
We also heard about Childline – ask your child to show you the way to remember the number.
Help at home: Buddy Zone, on the Childline website, has some games and activities for the children to do.
