Takeover Challenge Day
Takeover Challenge day is on Friday 23 November
What is Takeover Challenge?
Takeover is a fun engagement project which sees schools and organisations across England opening their doors to children and young people to take over adult roles.
It puts children and young people in decision making positions and encourages schools and organisations to hear and act upon their views and ideas. Children and young people gain an insight into the adult world and schools and organisations benefit from a fresh perspective about their work.
Recently, our new School Council discussed how children could be involved in ‘taking over’ at school. Therefore on Friday, takeover activities will include serving school dinners (representatives from Year 4), working in the school office (representatives from Year 5), leading assembly (representatives from Year 6) and accompanying Mrs Weekes on a learning walk around school (representatives from Year 5 and 6).
In addition there will be opportunities within class where children will takeover. For example, taking the register, spelling/times table tests, parts of lessons, PE warm ups and guided reading.
Check our class news pages to see this in action.
Christmas dinner menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 13 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 26 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Living and Learning: Anti-bullying week ‘Choose Respect’
This week, all classes have been learning about different aspects of bullying during national Anti-Bullying Week.
Thank you to those families who supported our Odd Socks Day on Monday, celebrating that we are all unique.
At their first meeting, our new School Council reviewed the school definition of bullying and this remains unchanged.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
In addition to this definition, each class has considered the following.
- Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
- What to do if children experience or witness bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
STOP can stand for two key messages: the definition or the problem (Several Times On Purpose) and the solution (Start Telling Other People).
All classes have access to their class I want to say box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
Our whole school homework this week, will allow children to consolidate this learning and show what they have learnt in a creative way.
We encourage you to discuss this learning with your child and for further support, bullying resources can be found at…
- https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/advice-parents
- https://www.kidscape.org.uk/resources/
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/news-blogs/get-involved-in-anti-bullying-week-2018-choose-respect/
- https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/bullying-and-cyberbullying/keeping-children-safe/
- https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/types-bullying/
- https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/feelings-and-symptoms/bullying/
Topic maths
We’ve already learnt lots about transport through the ages and today we linked our topic with some maths. Year 4 have shown a lot of interest and curiosity regarding one of the biggest transport tragedies of all time – the sinking of the Titanic. We held a debate to discuss whether or not it is right to retrieve artefacts from the sunken ship. Does this help us to appreciate how items from the past can help to understand history?
With a focus on how the lives of wealthy people were very different from those of poor people, the children studied the class system on board the Titanic. After examining a cross section of the famous boat, we had a much clearer view of each class and whereabouts they were situated on board.
Did more first class passengers survive the disaster?
In order to answer this question, the children had to collect and record some information about the capacity of the lifeboats. Then, using this data, Year 4 had to present their findings in the form of a bar chart. Next, after looking at the total available capacity of one boat, they had to work out how many 1st, 2nd, 3rd class passengers were in the lifeboat and how many crew.
The children were then able to calculate the amount of empty spaces there sadly were on lots of the lifeboats.
At the end of our lesson we discussed icebergs. Having already created one over night, the class looked closely at the iceberg in water.
“Most of the ice is under the surface of the water,” commented Ethan.
Harris added, “Ninety per cent is underwater.” A fact he already knew!
We discussed that each iceberg is unique. They float low in the water due to the sheer weight of the ice, which is why the tip of an iceberg is no measure of what lies beneath. Quite a scary thought!
Super Skipping
This morning, Year 4 took part in a skipping workshop. The children were taught many different skipping styles, some of which were really quite complicated. However, this did not deter the class! Instead, the approaches taken by the children were full of both resilience and determination.
Later in the year, we’ll be taking part in a skipping competition alongside other schools.
Odd socks day
We launched anti-bullying week today by taking part in Odd Socks Day.
There were all kinds of sock colours and designs on show celebrating the fact that we are all different and unique. Thank you for supporting this.
Here’s some of the Year 2 selection.
Sport at Allerton Grange High School
Last week, Year 4 walked to Allerton Grange High School for a sports session. We were all impressed with the organisation demonstrated by the older students. Year 4 were engaged right from the start thanks to the motivating energy from the leaders. It was great to see the high school students interacting with all the children and offering support to those who lack confidence in sport.
Thank you, Allerton Grange!
New kit awarded from Premier League Primary Stars
Following our application to the Premier League Primary Stars Kit and Equipment Scheme, we’ve heard our bid has been successful!
As a result, we’ll receive a new kit for school later in the year. This will be of great use for the football team and for other competitions.
School Council, when they meet for the first time on Wednesday, will be discussing the possible team colours. The final choice will be made democratically: each school councillor will vote for their favourite.
Which would you choose?
Allerton Grange sports leaders
Over the year, Year 2-Year 6 will visit Allerton Grange to take part in PE sessions organised by their sports leaders.
There are many benefits of these sessions:
- Allerton Grange sports leaders have the opportunity to practise and develop their skills with a class
- the sessions support our positive relationship with Allerton Grange
- our pupils visit a local high school
- the children get to enjoy a PE session in a different environment and see positive role models (the leaders)
- the sessions give a positive image to physical activity
- pupils reinforce their road safety knowledge as they walk to Allerton Grange
Topic – Did wealth matter?
LO: RIC
To link reading to our current topic (Time Travel – Transport), the children in Year 4 were asked: “Did wealth affect the way people travelled?”
One of the history age related requirements for Year 4 is that, children recognise that the lives of wealthy people were very different from those of poor people.
With this in mind, the class were given a RIC reading starter as a fifteen minute activity at the beginning of our topic lesson. You have probably heard your child talking about RIC reading activities. These sessions are fairly short and the children have just three questions to answer all with a different focus. This is done independently and, when complete, we discuss the responses to the questions. Purple pens are used to mark, correct, edit and improve answers.
This was our topic themed RIC this week.
Retrieve (fact finding)
What can you see, that is the same, in all three pictures?
Interpret / Inference
Would you need to be rich to stay in these rooms? Explain
Choice (language, structure, presentation, thinking about the choices made by the author/director/artist)
What do you think the illustrator is trying to do by showing these images?
R I can see beds, doors, mirrors, walls and pillows.
I Yes. They look like bedrooms from old Victorian houses. The third one looks like it would cost a lot of money.
One bedroom looks posh because it has a sofa in. The top room looks very small. I’m not sure if that is a sink or a toilet? Rich people wouldn’t have a toilet next to a bed. Two of the rooms look comfortable because they are bigger.
C I think the pictures show what Victorian bedrooms looked like. Maybe how much houses cost and how big they were? They are all different sizes and only rich people had a sofa in their bedroom. To show that if you had a lot of money you could have a bigger house.
After this activity, we discussed the class system in Victorian times and the impact wealth had on peoples’ lives. I questioned the children more about the images.
“Where do you think they were taken?
What have they got to do with transport?
Are they all in the same place?”
There were some superb responses and the children were intrigued to find out more. With a few clues, I informed the class that the rooms were all cabins on the Titanic! This then created lots more discussion about the famous disaster. Next, we will look at a cross section of the ship and where each type of cabin was situated. Did this affect survival rates?