Leeds Cross Country final
We were very proud of our five Key Stage 2 children who took part in the Leeds Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam today.
In muddy, slippy conditions they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing against the best runners from across Leeds.
We’ll wait to hear if we have any qualifiers for the next round, the West Yorkshire Final.
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
Drop Down Morning
Every half term we have a drop down morning. This is a morning where we dedicate our learning time to recapping and revising topics we have already covered in different year groups. Today, we went over previous History, Geography and Design Technology topics. We do this in order to keep this knowledge fresh in the children’s minds so that they can easily recall it and use it in future learning.
We looked back over what makes a good design criteria and came up with our own design criteria for an umbrella.
We looked at Ancient Greece and considered why it was such a golden age for innovation (something that links really clearly to our topic on the Early Islamic civilisation).
Finally, we recapped what we had learnt about York and Venice and how the two cities are both dealing with similar problems.
The children really impressed with their knowledge retention and engagement.
Help at home by asking what the children remember about these subjects.
Living and Learning: British Values
In Living and Learning, we have been discussing the different British values: democracy, individual liberty, rule of law and respect and tolerance. This week, we have focussed on individual liberty and respect and tolerance.
Year 5 answered these questions:
We are all free to do what we want but this has to be within the law.
What would happen if everyone just did their own thing?
What do we have the right to?
We have the responsibility to…
Whilst we have individual liberty as one of our British values, we need to ensure we are showing respect and tolerance of others.
Why is this important?
What would our country be like if people didn’t show this?
Help at home: Discuss how respect and tolerance link to the protected characteristics. How would you answer the questions above?
Reading – Viking Boy
This week in Reading, we have been focussing on our new class novel for this term: Viking Boy by Tony Bradman.
On Thursday, we created Top Trumps cards about the characters that we have met so far. We used our retrieval and inference skills. Retrieval to create a fact file about the person and inference to rate them in each category (strength, bravery, Viking skill, loyalty and importance to the story).
We then played a game of Top Trumps. The children really enjoyed it!
Help at home: Can your child summarise what has happened in the book so far? Who are the main characters?
Spring term after-school clubs
UPDATE 21.01.26
The following clubs have availability and can still be booked.
Tuesday
Foot-Tech Football Y1-Y3 – last 3 places
Table Tennis Y3-Y6 – last place
Wednesday
Foot Tech Games Reception-Y3 – last 2 places
Dodgeball Y3-Y6 – last place
Thursday
Wake up Shake up Y4-Y6 – last place
The after-school clubs for next term will be available for booking on Monday 29th December ready to start w/c 12 January.
We hope your child/children can get involved with our extra-curricular activities. We will update you with club availability after the holidays.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the after-school clubs.
Food technology – tomato and lentil soup
On Monday this week, Year 5 made tomato and lentil soup! We worked in small groups to prepare the ingredients and then cook them. We made sure that we washed our hands and wore our aprons for hygiene reasons.
We used the bridge cutting method and the claw cutting method to cut up our ingredients. These methods are the safest way to cut food as they help us from hurting ourselves.
After the soup had simmered, we all had a taste and the reaction was, on the whole, very positive!
Help at home: Have your child show you the bridge and claw cutting methods. Why not try making the recipe at home? It has been sent home with your child.
Guided Reading Week 6
This is the last week we our group reading books. All books need to be read to the end by Wednesday 17th December.
Thank you.
Basketball Christmas camps
City of Leeds Basketball Club, who run one of our after-school clubs, are holding Christmas camps locally over the holidays.
Leeds Rhinos festive match
The annual Wetherby Whaler Boxing Day Challenge against Wakefield Trinity is back again this year; and alongside the match children and families can experience family friendly festive fun as Father Christmas will once again take over game day proceedings before returning to the North Pole.
The match day will also feature Santa’s elves and a sing along with Frozen Princesses Anna and Elsa. Plus children can also take part in our half time snowball fight lead by a certain Christmas loathing Grinch!
Use the link to find out more and purchase tickets.
Writing
This week we had some visitors in to the classroom. Year 3 had been writing a narrative and Year 5 were their audience. We were very happy to welcome our Year 3 friends into the classroom and to listen to their writing.
I was really impressed with how the Year 5 children showed maturity, kindness and patience when listening to the Year 3’s read their work. They made some fantastic positive comments on their work .
Elsewhere in writing we have been looking at the 4Ps of handwriting: pencil grip, posture, paper position and pressure. We all checked our pencil grip and our posture before handwriting. We made sure our paper was positioned at a slight angle and we applied the right amount of pressure to the paper with a sharp pencil.
Help at home by asking your child to explain to you what the 4Ps of handwriting are. Maybe they could check that you follow them all?