E-Safety and Art
Year 2 have been learning about safety both on and off line.
First, we watched a cartoon, specifically produced for young children, from the Thinkuknow website. The aim of the Lee & Kim: Animal Magic cartoon is to teach 5-7 year olds about personal information and the importance of keeping this secure both online and off. The cartoon follows the adventures of two children, Lee and Kim, who are playing an online game where they interact and play with different people using animal avatars. The online safety messages from the cartoon and storybook are reinforced by SID, a superhero in the cartoon who helps Lee and Kim navigate the online game safely.
Ask your child about the characters in the cartoon.
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Key issues covered
- what personal information is and the importance of keeping personal information private
- being polite and courteous online
- how to identify adults you can trust
- where to go for help
Following this, the children logged on (safely) and got to work with some computer art. The aim was to paint a picture of their own ‘Wild Thing’ that will form part of a non-chronological report being written in class.
Diwali
Every Wednesday afternoon, Year 2 are taught RE by Mrs Bharath. Recently, the children have been learning about the religious festival – Diwali.
What is Diwali?
Diwali a five-day festival of lights, celebrates a number of themes, including joy, forgiveness, knowledge, the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, and the legend of Rama and Sita. Put simply, the festival represents the triumph of good over evil.
Hindus, Sikhs and Jains both in India and across the world take part by decorating houses and public spaces with thousands of lights, candles and colourful designs. As well as the bright colours and glittering lights, there’s music, dancing, delicious food and a cresting wave of community feeling.
Today, the children made Diva lights. Working hard to create the shape, the class then decorated their light with all things sparkly.
School Council elections
We have recently launched this year’s School Council election process. Our School Council is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers.
Here are some of the qualities our school councillors think are needed to be an effective school councillor.
- use the 8Rs for learning
- be respectful and polite
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- share and be confident with your ideas
- let others speak
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school
Our current whole school homework is all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections next Thursday 24 October.
Living and Learning: Rights and Responsibilities
This Living and Learning statement is a really important one for helping us to live in a respectful, responsible way. It can relate to lots of different aspects of life. Having rights links well with British Values (Individual liberties).
In our Living and Learning session this week, we considered the rights we have but also the associated responsibilities.
Responsibility is one of our 8Rs for learning that we have been learning about this half term.
For example, we have the right to think and believe what we wish to so we have the responsibility to respect other people’s thoughts and beliefs.
We have the right to food, and the responsibility to make our own healthy choices.
We have the right to play, and we have the responsibility to play safely and sensibly with our friends.
We have the right to learn, and we have the responsibility to follow our school rules.
We also heard about the inspirational young woman from Pakistan, Malala Yusafzai, who claimed her right to an education.
Help at home by encouraging your child to think about their rights and responsibilities outside of school.
Raising money for WWF
In Year 2, we are supporting our school charity, WWF, by adopting a polar bear (as voted for by the children). The adoption costs £30 for the year and so we have been thinking about how to raise this money.
After only deciding yesterday that we would bring in any spare 1ps and 2ps, we were amazed this morning to see how many children had remembered this and started to fill our tube. Thank you for your support!
Here is the latest update from WWF on the polar bears we are supporting.
‘WWF is pleased to announce that the collaborative polar bear patrol model is successfully reducing the number of conflicts between people and polar bears.
Since introducing the programme in 2010, WWF and the Hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, have dramatically reduced the number of polar bears killed by people protecting themselves and their property. An average of eight bears were killed each year before 2010, but that’s now dropped to one per year, despite an increasing frequency of encounters between people and polar bears.
Polar bear patrols have also advanced in Russia and Greenland. Your support helps to provide funding to reduce instances of conflict between polar bears and communities, including hiring guards to patrol communities and scare away bears. ‘
Bonfire night themed menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Tuesday 5th November. Please contact the office, as soon as possible, if your child would like a school meal on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
We are constructing.
Last week, Years 1 and 2 joined forces to begin their work on constructing boats. The children chose from a range of materials and were able to use these appropriately.
The children were supportive to one another offering help if needed.
My boat is not very secure. I’m going to add more tape.
How can I make the mast more stable?
I wonder if this material is waterproof?
The finished products were amazing!
Supporting your child’s learning
Thanks to everyone who attended the learning workshop last week. We hope that we were able to answer any questions that you had and that you feel able to support your child’s learning at home.
Remember, short chunks of time will work best to keep your child focused and interested. Try learning a few spellings or times table facts a night rather than looking at them all at the same time; listen to your child read for 10 minutes but then read to them too; and make sure they see you read for pleasure, even if it is a newspaper or magazine.
Here is the powerpoint that was used for the workshop. Please come and ask if you have any questions.
School Savings Club paying in dates 2019/2020
Did you know we offer a School Savings Club in association with Leeds Credit Union?
The account is open to all children and it is free to set up. As there is not minimum deposit requirement, it is a great way for your child/children to learn the importance of money.
As an extra incentive, Year 3 pupils who open an account, or who currently have an account, will be credited with £10.
We offer paying in sessions every half term where you can bring along any savings to be paid into your child’s account.
The paying in dates for this year are at 3.15-3.45pm on the following dates (the penultimate Monday of each half term).
- 14 October
- 09 December
- 03 February
- 23 March
- 11 May
- 06 July
If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Mrs Tiffany.
To find out more about the accounts or if your child would like to open account, please enquire at the office.
Living and Learning: 8Rs for learning
This week is our final week of 8Rs learning (responsible, risk taking, resilience, resourceful, ready, responsive, remember and reflect) as part of our weekly Living and Learning sessions. Of course, these characteristics are referred to throughout the year across all subjects to promote good learning behaviour. The parent’s guide to the 8Rs can help to reinforce this at home.
After covering all the 8Rs over the past few weeks, Year 2 worked in their groups to discuss which of these characteristics are most important. There were no right or wrong answers and the children were able to talk through their choices with a good understanding and reasoning.
‘You need to be responsible for your own learning because it is your job.’
‘If you are not ready, you can’t learn.’
‘If you don’t remember your learning, you can’t learn more.’
