When will be your next Park Run?
Thank you to Richard Spencer (parent, chair of the PTA and Park Run race director at Roundhay Park) who came to speak to the whole school this afternoon about the great, free, weekly Park Run events held locally.
We were impressed by the number of children who have already completed a Park Run event with one pupil achieving over 100 runs!
All you need to take part is to register for your personal bar code that is used at the event to record your position and time for the run. ThePark Run event is not a race. You are only trying to beat yourself by achieving a faster time each time you do it.
There is no commitment to attend every weekend: just turn up with your bar code when you can.
The course is fully marshalled and so children are able to run round with others as long as an adult accompanies them to the event.
- Junior Park Run (age 4-14 years – 2km course) 9am every Sunday
- Park Run (5km course) 9am every Saturday
- Local courses include Roundhay Park, Temple Newsam and Bodington (Brownlee Centre)
We’d love to hear your Park Run achievements – let your teacher know!
What is our new school charity?
We support our school charity for a year and it is now time to change our current school charity, Make-A-Wish.
This week, each class, discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.
Here were the class choices:
The final democratic decision was made by a vote by the School Council and the winning charity for 2018-2019 is WWF. We will support this charity for one year.
What is a force?
This week, Year 4 have been introduced to their new mini topic – ‘Forces.’
Did you know that without forces our world would be silent and immobile?
The lessons began with the children recognising that everything on Earth is powered by forces, pushes and pulls which act on our bodies and the things around us. Forces make things move and stop moving.
Having discussed pushing and pulling, it was time to demonstrate these forces using our bodies. Working with a partner, the children created their own push and pull forces. Some were easier than others!
Magnetism
Magnetism is an invisible force. A magnet attracts or repels other items.
We discussed that magnets come in different shapes and sizes: horseshoe magnets (the ‘classic’ magnets we see in pictures!), bar magnets and round magnets.
Each magnet has a south pole and a north pole.
Opposites attract: this means the north pole of a magnet attracts (pulls towards) the south pole of another magnet.
Likes repel: this means that the north pole of a magnet repels (pushes away) the north pole of another magnet and the south pole of a magnet repels (pushes away) the south pole of another magnet. The children were amazed to learn that the Earth is like a giant magnet, and there is a magnetic field all around us. The Earth’s North Pole is also a magnetic north pole: a compass points north towards the North Pole because it is attracted by the Earth’s magnetic field.
Iron is magnetic, so any metal with iron in it will be attracted to a magnet. Most other metals, like aluminium, copper or gold, are not magnetic.
A magnet can move an object without touching it. True or false?
Using iron filings, we tested different magnets to see if this statement was correct.
This got us thinking about whether or not the size of the magnet had an impact on it’s strength.
The class were asked to work scientifically to explore this. Using different sizes of magnets and paperclips, the children made predictions, tested magnet, recorded their findings and were then able to decide if size made a difference to strength. One rule was that paperclips were NOT allowed to be joined!
The bigger the magnet, the stronger the force?
The children were not shown how to carry out the experiment. I was really impressed with how they set about testing the magnets. All around the room it was great to hear some fantastic, scientific conversations taking place. They will be studying their findings in our next lesson.
“Let’s work slowly and add one paperclip at a time.” Devising a systematic approach!
Here are a few magnet activities for at-home learning:
Visit the library and look for information books on magnets.
Investigate how many paper-clips you can pick up with different magnets.
Explore magnets: what do they stick too? What items are magnetic? This could be around the house or outside around your local environment.
Do you have any magnets around the house? What are they used for? Can you investigate different uses for magnets?
Find out about how electricity and magnetism are linked.
Make your own fridge magnets and decorate them in any way you like.
Descriptive, Creative Writing
Some great examples of narrative writing typed up for Class News by Henka and Liam.
Dobby the Brave
by Henka
One miserable evening, the elves were gathered in the palace on top of the toadstool blundering about Fenris and what to do with the powerful, massive wolf. They figured that they needed a magical rope, forged by goblins, to tie Fenris up. A shrill voice broke the silence: “Let me go! I will get the rope and trap the mighty wolf!”. Dobby’s voice broke the sullen silence. Although Dobby barely had anything to help him except a hat, that allowed him to fly and a wrankin, a race of animals that have parts of different creatures – elephant, unicorn, snake, T-Rex, werewolf and sabre-toothed tiger. Although it is dangerous, it is quite gentle. Dobby ran out of the castle and set off to find the rope.
Dobby travelled far and wide looking for the golden rope. He passed valleys, crossed rivers and walked through deserts. When walking, he encountered villagers who pressed juicy plums and long baguettes into his cold and shaky hands. He ate these contentedly and carried on his journey. When they reached Neilfam, the home of frost giants and a really cold, windy and snowy place, was when Wig loses Dobby’s hat. He blew out his trunk which made the magical hat fly away and Dobby plummeted to the ground! Wig just managed to save his master but the hat was nowhere to be seen. Dobby sat and cried and cried and cried until he had no more tears to cry.
Crump and Wadela’s Adventure
by Liam
One freezing cold night, the fierce warriors met in their ruined house to make a plan to defeat the evil, ugly goblins. The warriors angrily and loudly discussed a plan.
In angry voices, the other warriors said Crump should go and get the diamond, shimmering crystal. Crump felt scared. But he wanted to see the crystal first, so he snatched Wadela’s hands and set off nervously. Crump walked through the gloomy, damp forest with his four-legged, horn-headed friend. For the next two days, they travelled across swing bridges, over steep mountains, shadowy lakes and icy rivers. As they travelled, people pressed smelly cheese, brown crusty bread and clear water into hands.
Cross Country
Update 28.11.18
Congratulations to Edris and Billy who have qualified as wildcard runners for the Leeds City Finals at Temple Newsam in February.
Well done to all the Key Stage 2 children who represented school in traditional cross country weather today at the Leeds East North East cross country event at Cardinal Heenan school. For some of the children, this was the first time they have taken part in a competitive event and spirits were still high despite the muddy and cold conditions.
Thank you to Mrs Small, Mrs Charlesworth and Mrs Maqbool who accompanied the children and for parents who helped with transport and gave support at the event.
We had a fantastic response to this event with over 50 children wanting to take part. Even though we managed to increase our numbers, unfortunately there were still children who didn’t get chance to participate this time. There will, however, be other competitive and participation opportunities happening over the year.
The end of the road……
Our big topic ‘Time Travel’ has now come to an end. From Roman roads and chariots, to Japanese magnetic trains, Year 4 have enjoyed their journey through time. We have studied so many different forms of transportation and the purpose for which they were designed.
The Year 4s and the Year 6s spent part of Friday morning talking about the learning in their books. 
They then fed back about what each other had learned and particular pieces of learning that impressed them.
Finally, we would like to share some of our learning that has been put on display in the classroom.
Creative homeworks
Last week, the whole school had the same Creative homework.
‘I know how to STOP bullying.’
This homework was set in response to our learning last week during anti-bullying week. Throughout the week, each class had the chance to talk about what bullying is, what the different types of bullying are and how can we STOP it:
Start
Telling
Other
People
Our school definition of bullying is, as agreed by our School Councillors:
Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.
We invited parents in to see how we celebrate and review our homework.
We began by looking around the room at each other’s work before sharing some that had stood out to us. There certainly was plenty of creativity on show.
It was impressive to see how many different ways the children thought of to get our message of STOP across.
Perimeter
This week, Year 4 have been learning about ‘perimeter.’
What is the perimeter?
The perimeter is the distance around the edge of a 2D shape.
Calculating the perimeter.
Children start to learn about perimeter in Year 4.
The age related expectations are that children can measure and calculate the perimeter of a rectilinear figure (including squares) in centimetres and metres.
We began by discussing various units of measure such as; millimetres, centimetres, metres, kilometers, miles and inches.
Using string to begin with, the class were asked to measure the length of each side of a shape by marking the string in the correct place. Next, the children carefully worked out the length of the string by measuring along a ruler. When all sides had been calculated, then they had to add these measurements up to find the perimeter.
7cm + 3cm + 7cm + 3cm = 20cm “I can use doubling to work out the answer.”
7 + 7 + 14 3 + 3 = 6 14 + 6 = 20
At this point, the children recognised that a rectangle has two long sides that are exactly the same length and two short sides that are exactly the same length, which means we only needed two measurements The class then thought about different ways they could work out the perimeter.
10 + 4 + 10 + 4 OR (10 x 2) + (4 x 2) OR (10 + 4) x 2
The perimeter of a shape is always calculated by adding up the length of each of the sides.
It was great to see some converting of measures happening without any prompting to do so.
“134 cm is the same as 1 metre and 34 cm,” commented Leo.
Boldden
In Year 4, the children have been looking at the features of a narrative. The basic purpose of narrative is to entertain and to gain and hold a readers’ interest. Narratives sequence people/characters in time and place but differ from recounts in that through the sequencing, the stories set up one or more problems, which must eventually find a way to be resolved.
There are many types of narrative. They can be imaginary, factual or a combination of both. They may include fairy stories, mysteries, science fiction, romances, horror stories, adventure stories, fables, myths and legends.
After reading the story of Blodden, the children studied the features of the tale and how it was set out.
To ensure that we could retell the story in detail, the class worked in groups to act out part of the Blodden adventure. Year 4 had to allocate parts to each other and rehearse as a team. They were asked to think carefully about how each character may move, speak and look.
We had some super performances and it was great to see everyone joining in.
School dinner feedback
We always welcome feedback on our school dinner menu.
As a result of pupil, parent and staff feedback, there are a number of changes we are implementing, as we work with Catering Leeds to prepare our next menu, for after February half term.
- There will be a jacket potato choice on Thursdays to give three main meal choices rather than the current two choices.
- We will be trialing meat free Monday on week 3 of the menu cycle.
- Jacket potato choices will continue to be the most popular fillings on a rotation basis – cheese, tuna and beans.
- Vegetable choices will continue to be the most popular ones selected by pupils.
School dinners are always an agenda item at School Council meetings so children are encouraged to use their pupil voice to provide feedback to their school councillors or via a suggestion slip in the Living and Learning box.
The menu will be circulated to parents and posted on our website once this is available.