Basketball Come and Try, Thursday 19 November
We have a few spare places to come to the basketball come and try event at Roundhay School on Thursday 19 November.
- What? Basketball session led by Leeds Force basketball club
- Where? Roundhay School
- When? Thursday 19 November, 3.30pm-5.30pm
- Who? Open to all KS2 classes
Please contact the office if you are able to come to this event. Children will be supervised at the session but need to be dropped off and collected from Roundhay School.
Enjoying the library
We took our English lesson to the library today, exploring different types of story openings in the perfect surroundings. DAD helps our writing – description, action and dialogue. We compared different books and their beginnings.
Homework that’s ‘out of this world’
As always, Year 5 have really impressed me with this week’s homework. We were tasked with showing what we know about the solar system and we had some fantastic ideas: informative books, puzzles, models and diagrams adorned our classroom. We really enjoyed exploring each other’s work.
Here are some we really wanted to show you at home.
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Malham
We had a fantastic day in Malham last Monday (2 November) due to the great weather we enjoyed and the great geography learning we did (both physical and human).
On our return, we wrote a newspaper article to inform others about our day so, rather than tell you about it myself, I’ll show you a couple of the reports we wrote alongside some great pictures.
Look at how drastically the weather changed along our journey!
Finally, we returned from our fairytale land of blue skies and warm weather back to foggy Leeds.
Top vegetable choices
If your child chooses school dinners, they are served two portions of vegetables or vegetables and a portion of salad with each meal. As we are all aware of the importance of eating vegetables, all children have been consulted on their favourite vegetables based on the vegetables that currently feature on the school dinner menu. The most popular choices will now feature more regularly on the menu.
We would also like your views on school dinners. Look out for the school dinner survey due to be sent out next week.
Some great PE
With a new half term, we’re changing focus in our PE lessons. Students from Leeds Beckett University joined us today and we really enjoyed their session. It tired us out and was great fun, too! We look forward to working with them each Wednesday this half term. 
Don’t forget to always have your PE kit in school on Mondays and Wednesdays.
Welcome back
A quick welcome back for the second half term. We’ve got an exciting run up to Christmas, kicking things off with our trip to Malham Cove and then taking on a new and exciting topic.
Topic – Mission to Space
We’re leaving Holidays behind for the second half of the Autumn term and jetting off into space. Tim Peake is to be the first English astronaut to go to the International Space Station in December of this year and Year 5 and 6 are joining many primary schools across the country on a project that looks into what he will experience there, culminating in his launch on 14 December. Through Science, English and Maths, we’ll boost our understanding of Space and try to answer the many questions we already have about it.
To help at home, see what books you can find at the local library or research the project at home by googling ‘Tim Peake Space Project’ to find out more.
Maths
Alongside many space-related maths ventures, over the next couple of weeks we’ll be learning about multiplication and division. We need to be able to multiply numbers up to 4 digits by one or two digits (4653 x 3 or 2353 x 22) and divide up to 4 digit numbers by one digit (3603 / 3). It’s also important for us to understand the terms ‘factor’ and ‘multiple’ and to know and recall prime numbers.
To help at home, use Mathletics multiplication and division activities for extra practice and see what real maths you can get up to together. Maybe you’ve got a recipe to make 12 butterfly buns and you need 500 for a wedding! There’ll be some multiplication to get what you need for that from the shops.
English
The half term begins with our imaginations in overdrive as we take on the challenge of writing adventure stories set in Space. We’ll practise speech punctuation and complex sentences before planning our own stories and then making them into exciting adventures to be enjoyed by each other in our reading area.
To help at home, point out and pick up on descriptive language in the books your child is reading and discuss how they could use this in their own writing. Keep practising spellings and make sure that their meanings are understood and they can be written correctly into a sentence.
Great deforestation homework
A little late due to technical difficulties, but our deforestation homework was too good not to share with everybody.
We enjoyed looking at each other’s and discussing the different ways we’d each decided to present our information.
Now take a look yourself…
An active half term
We’ve started the year with plenty of physical activities. Here are some of the highlights.
Rugby World Cup
In September, the Rugby World Cup came to Leeds and we were lucky enough to win tickets to watch Italy play Canada at Elland Road. There was a great response to our prize draw for tickets and our three lucky winners enjoyed the World Cup experience.
Active Schools
This year as part of our investment of the Primary PE and sport premium government funding for schools we have joined the Leeds Active Schools programme. Their mission is to promote and develop, through collaboration and partnership, a sustainable system for physical activity, PE and sport that enriches the lives of all children and young people. Already this year, as part of this programme, we’ve had the opportunity to take part in some great events.
Big sing Big dance
A group of our Year 3 pupils were part of over one thousand children from across Leeds who took part in the Rugby World Cup Big dance Big sing event in Millenium Square.
Singing and dancing to the Rugby World Cup theme tune ‘World in Union’, the event was to celebrate the rugby matches in Leeds.
- ‘I loved it and I tried my best.’
- ‘It was exciting when we did the dance.’
- ‘I enjoyed using the rugby balls for the dance and singing the song, too.’
Rugby World Cup fanzone
As part of the celebrations for the Rugby World Cup, a number of children had the opportunity to be involved in the fanzone in Millenium Square. There was a carousel of activities including rugby activities and inflatables, a practical Tagtiv8 session and a visit to Leeds Library to meet author Tom Palmer. Tom writes sports novels for children, including the Rugby Academy series.
- ‘I really enjoyed the event. It was fun, especially the bit with Tom Palmer.’
- ‘I loved it! I especially enjoyed when I won the rugby ball. It was so good I want to do it again.’
- ‘I enjoyed playing pass with my friends and learning how rugby started.’
Brownlee Triathlon
Harewood House recently hosted the Brownlee Triathlon. Following this, a number of our children took part in the children’s Brownlee Triathlon held at the John Charles Centre.
The event involved a 30m swim, 1km cycle and a 400m run and was attended by Jonny Brownlee.
- ‘It was the best sporting event that I’ve ever done.’
- ‘It was great and was very challenging but in a good way.’
- ‘I have never done a triathlon. It was amazing, especially the fact that I met the Brownlee brothers.’
Football
This year we continue to be part of the Leeds School Football Association leagues for Year 4, 5 and 6, led by Mr Lawton and Mr Catherall. Here is a summary of their season so far.
The ‘Moortown Dragons’ (Year 4 football team) are learning quickly what it means to be part of a team: sticking together, working for each other, and keeping smiles on everyone’s faces. In our most recent game, they showed off some sharp passing as a team, gritty goalkeeping displays, and capped it off with a couple of stylish goals. ‘Make friends, make friends, never, never break friends!’
In the short time we’ve had, the Year 5 footballers have impressed with their passion for the game. They’ve started to show their desire to work for each other, and we’re looking forward to a good run of matches after half term. If they can show half the skills that they demonstrate daily in the playground, and keep looking out for each other, they’ll go far indeed.
The Year 6 football team have grown in confidence throughout each of their fixtures so far this year. With an emphasis on teamwork, enjoyment and working hard (on and off the ball), each team member has improved significantly. Their continued development as a team was, perhaps, most evident in the recent game against local rivals Gledhow. Well done to all! Keep it up and you’ll soon be rewarded for your efforts.
Events to look forward to next half term include more football matches, Leeds North East sports hall athletics competition, a Come and Try basketball session at Roundhay, cross country and a health-themed week, too.
Thank you to all parents who support with transport and accompanying children to these events.
Well done to all our competitors and participants who have represented the school.
Y5 assembly
Thank you very much for attending the Y5 class assembly this week – I know Miss Rushbrooke was really sorry to have missed it.
Here are a few of your comments:
- “Well done. Could hear them all. Most informative.”
- “Wonderful speaking and great percussion.”
- “Great debate and very informative.”
- “Fantastic! Great confidence!”
- “Loads of great facts showing how much they’ve learnt.”