School Council elections
Our School Council elections will take place tomorrow, Thursday, 19 October. All children have the opportunity to vote at our polling station using the following instructions.
Before voting, please read the following:
- Vote once for one person.
- Place one X only on this ballot paper beside the name of the candidate you have chosen.
- Do not write or mark anything else on the ballot paper; if you do, your paper will be invalid and your vote will not be counted.
- When you have marked the ballot paper, fold the paper and place it in the box provided.
Votes will be counted tomorrow and our new School Council will be announced at the end of the day. This will be made up of two children from each class with the highest number of votes.
Good luck to all our candidates.
City of Leeds basketball
City of Leeds basketball club recently led a PE session for Year 5 and delivered our basketball after-school club in the summer term.
Here are details of their sessions available locally.
There is also a new girls-only session at Allerton High School on Monday evenings, 6pm – 7.30pm, ages 7 – 14 years. The first two sessions are free and then it is £5 pay to play.
Bonfire themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Friday 03 November. Please contact the office, before Wednesday 18 October, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
- Posh dogs in finger rolls or Vegetarian meatballs in finger rolls
- Curly fries
- BBQ baked beans
- Rocket lolly
- Fresh fruit and yogurt
School council elections
Our school council elections will take place next Thursday 19 October.
In an assembly this week, our current school councillors told us what characteristics are needed to be an effective school councillor.
These included:
- use all the 8 Rs for learning
- be respectful
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- tell the truth
- be confident with your ideas
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- make good choices in class and around school
Watch out for the whole school homework this week all about the election and democracy.
Allerton Grange PE
This afternoon, we made the short trip to Allerton Grange for our PE lesson. We were taught a range of sports by some Year 10 sports leaders. As always, we were fantastic ambassadors for our school and this was appreciated by the sports leaders and their teachers. Well done, Year 5!
Thanks to our class photographer for the afternoon: Farai.
Rugby
For the last four weeks, during our PE lessons, we’ve been learning all about rugby. Visitors from Leeds Beckett University and Roundhegians RUFC have taken over our PE lessons to teach us the skills needed to be rugby players. It was great fun and I know the children had a great time.
If your child is considering playing rugby outside of school, which I strongly encourage, there are a number of clubs in the local area. The closest to school is Roundhegians RUFC. Roundhegians are an established club that are well known in Yorkshire rugby for their thriving junior section. Training is on Sunday mornings and children of all abilities are welcome.
Exploring, and writing about, the Arctic!
Last week, we continued our Explorers topic by combining our topic and writing lessons.
In writing, we looked at some examples of reports and picked out the key features. Then, we discussed writing our own report about the Arctic (we’ll write this next week). We made a brief plan, splitting our report into four sections, and decided what we’d need to find out.
In our topic lessons, we began our research. First, we made notes about where the Arctic is and what it is (To be able to describe the physical features of an area). It was useful to practise our note taking and summary skills as we learnt all about the size, climate and physical make-up of the Arctic region.
In a different lesson, we read about two explorers who both claim to be the first person to explore the Arctic on foot (Who was the first person to explore the Arctic on foot?). We used our reading skills to find key information in each text, answered a range of questions and pretended to be roving reporters interviewing each person. We then had a debate about who we believed.
This week, we’ll continue our research by asking ‘What lives in the Arctic?’ and ‘What does the future hold for the Arctic region?’.
Is there too much money in football?
Yesterday, in our reading session we used our debating to skills to answer the question ‘Is there too much money in football?‘. The debate came about because of an article we read last week in First News.
The children were given some information and had to collate this into a table in their books. We had to think about our own arguments whilst considering an alternative viewpoint so that we could put forward a better argument.
It was great to hear what the children thought, especially where pay in other professions was concerned. Most agreed that whilst footballers have a relatively short career, they shouldn’t be paid as much as people in other, more important professions: doctors, nurses, police officers, fire fighters, paramedics and even teachers!
The skill of debating is a useful life-skill and one that we’ll focus on throughout the year. Help at home by encouraging your child to form opinions about a range of things: things they’ve seen on the news, something they have read, something they like or dislike, political issues, social issues. Be sure to encourage your child to consider an alternative viewpoint as well.
Arctic Explorers
In topic lessons this week, we’ve been exploring the less explored. We learnt about the first British woman to climb Everest and then delved right to the deepest part of the ocean: the mariana trench.
Then, we set sail to the Arctic. After discussing what we knew (and didn’t know) about it, we imagined that we were at a research camp, ready to set out on a day-long expedition. Working in the Arctic requires lots of calories so we worked in groups to plan what food we would take with us. We had to think about eating enough calories (3305kJ) to have enough energy for the journey; taking enough for all four members of the team to eat; and ensuring we stayed within our expedition budget of £60.
The children found the task difficult but worked well and resiliently together.
Amazing Grammar Learning
This week, we’ve been learning/revising loads about grammar and punctuation. To ensure the children were actively learning, we spent the week making a PaG board game. Each day, we focused on a specific area of grammar (word classes, punctuation, sentence types) and at the end of each lesson we prepared test style questions for each area.
Today, we enjoyed playing our games. Obviously, we weren’t just playing; without realising we were learning. It was great to see children helping each other learn whilst having fun.
