Bones are us!
You might be interested to know about a free Science lecture, ‘Bones are us‘, at Leeds Metropolitan University coming soon: “A fun and interactive exploration for children and parents”. It’s aimed at 7 – 11 year olds, although siblings may also attend.
The lecture is on Saturday 17 March 2012 from 10:15am to 12:00noon (this includes a break). It will be held in the James Graham Building, Headingley Campus, Beckett Park. Parking is free and a map will be provided on request, or visit http://www.leedsmet.ac.uk/about/files/campusmaps.pdf
All children must be accompanied by a parent/carer.
If you’d like to book places, contact Leeds Met directly:
- phone: 0113 812 5907 / 5473
- email: y.rayner@leedsmet.ac.uk
Our homework policy
Our Homework Policy was written to support and engage as many learners as we can, and to provide opportunities for others – family, friends – to support in a positive, constructive way. It’s great to see more and more children are putting more and more effort into their homework. Recently, a few parents have asked about expectations. I hope the following will clarify what we can expect and what you can expect:
Talk Time
Teachers have noticed that, in some instances, a lot of time has been taken on the presentation of the Talk Time homework. Children are welcome to do this although it is not necessary. The purpose of Talk Time homework is to encourage a conversation around their current learning. Any notes made in their homework book should simply be there to aid them as a prompt when it is discussed in class the following week. For this reason, teachers tend to give verbal feedback during their talk time session in class. We want our children to be expert talkers, using a variety of sentences and expressions, and able to back up their points or disagree with others in a polite way – this is more important than written notes for Talk Time. Simply: it’s hard to be a good writer if you’re not a good speaker, so Talk Times using ambitious words, useful phrases, interesting sentences is the best way to support your child.
Creative
This is where your child’s creative juices can flow! Creative homework is an opportunity for your child to choose whatever they want to demonstrate some learning. For example, the Y3 and Y4 homework this week is Creative: I can show what I know about food chains. Your child could present all their learning in so many different ways, from a diagram with notes to a story or comic strip. Parents’ and carers’ role is to support, encourage, help but (obviously) never to take over and do the homework! Teachers always look forward to seeing how creative children can be. If you notice the work has not been marked, please don’t worry. Teachers will have looked at and celebrated the homework in another way – the work might have been viewed by the whole class using a visualiser which allows the work to be projected to the whole class and a discussion of ‘stars and steps’ will happen. Peer assessment is also effective – children are very able to share what’s good and what needs improving! These sorts of verbal feedback strategies are often more effective than a written comment because it’s more instant and it makes sure the child understands (and their work is praised publicly!).
Practice makes Perfect
This is similar to what you might consider traditional homework: it may be a worksheet or a writing task (such as Y5’s current homework: I can write instructions). Practice Makes Perfect is useful homework when something has been taught in school but needs consolidation. The work should be fairly straightforward for the child as there should be no need for new learning, so just some encouragement from you is needed. However, it would be a great time to get your child to teach you – they should be able to explain the key points or processes! We use this type of homework less often because usually the best practice is where a teacher can keep feeding back and presenting new challenges when they see it as appropriate. Teachers mark these activities in line with our marking policy.
As always, please ask if you’ve any questions or concerns.
Hobby Half Day
Check out our fantastic photos of our first Hobby Half Day!
Children from Year 1 to Year 6 had the opportunity to participate in an afternoon of learning something new. The activities ranged from everyday baking and cooking to the unusual: creating their own carbon footprint.
Green Fingers in Y5
On Monday 17 October, a group of Y5 children did some fantastic work in our local community. We have created a partnership with Moortown in Bloom and over the past few months we have been helping them develop a patch of land at the end of Stonegate Road and Scothall Road. Here are some of the children in action!
Attendance
You’ll know that as a school, we monitor attendance closely. Last year, we met our attendance targets, which is great news.
The attendance record for your child’s class – last year’s Y4 class – was broadly the same as Leeds overall, but there were two areas we’d like to improve this year:
- the class’s attendance was lower than other schools of a similar nature,
- the amount of unauthorised absence was significantly higher than similar schools, and even higher than Leeds overall – sadly, this was caused by a few individuals taking term-time holidays.
Please keep an eye on your child’s attendance. Research shows that too many absences affect not only learning but a child’s social and emotional aspects of learning.
Visit to Allerton Grange City Learning Centre Tuesday 27 September
As part of our Themed Week, Staying Safe, Year 5 will be visiting Allerton Grange on Tuesday 27 September between 9.30am and 2.30pm.
During their visit, the children will be working in the adjacent learning centre, looking at safety-themed photography.
Your child will need to bring a packed lunch for the visit.
Staying Safe themed week 26 September
We are looking for parents / carers who have a job related to safety.
If you can spare some time, during our Staying Safe themed week (26 September), to come in to talk to the children about how safety affects your work please speak to your child’s class teacher or leave a message at the office.
Thank you.
New SEAL statement and theme
As we start the new school year, our SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme focuses on New Beginnings and ‘I can make someone feel welcome‘ is the statement for this week.
New Beginnings
New beginnings allows children the opportunity to discuss and reflect on how they or others may feel in a new situation or setting. This SEAL theme offers children the opportunity to see themselves as valued individuals within a community, and to contribute to shaping a welcoming, safe and fair learning community for all.
The key areas of learning throughout this theme are empathy, self-awareness, social skills and motivation.
Through discrete SEAL lessons, circle times and across the curriculum, children will explore feelings of happiness and excitement, sadness, anxiety and fearfulness, while learning (and putting into practice) shared models for calming down and problem-solving.
New beginnings supports the development of a learning community in each classroom where all members feel that they belong. Class contracts, produced at the start of the year, allow children to contribute to how they feel they can achieve a safe and fair learning community.
The Really Big Summer Adventure
Change4Life have launched their new campaign to run throughout the six week summer holiday to inspire children and their families to increase their physical activity and healthy eating.
Year 3, 4 and 5 will be receiving their Really Big Summer Adventure maps this week full of daily activities, weekly challenges and gold medal rewards to keep active all summer long.
However, all children, parents and carers are encouraged to use the Change4Life Fun Generator with over 100 fun activities to keep children up and about during the summer holidays.
Have a happy and healthy summer!
Bike Week
Last week, during Bike Week, over 120 journeys were made to and from school by bike.
All the names of children who cycled to school have now been entered in the Leeds City Council prize draw to be held on Monday 04 July with tickets drawn by the Lord Mayor.
Good luck to all those children.
It’s great to see children continuing to use their bike after bike week has finished as a healthy way to travel to school.