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Creative homework

Last week’s homework was to show what plants you could see around and we had some really creative responses. Well done, Year 2.

What have governors done this year?

Our Governing Body Chair, Mrs Becky Lawrence, writes:

Work the Governing Body has undertaken this year includes:

The Chair of our Resources Committee, Andy Miller, has been leading the discussions with Leeds City Council in planning how the school will make use of the land that has been acquired as part of the new housing development behind the school site.

Rachel Greenhalgh has been reviewing how the school makes use of Pupil Premium funding (money that is received from central Government to support learning for disadvantaged pupils) and monitoring the impact of how this money is spent.

Jackie Sykes is our Link Governor with the School Council. Jackie has been attending School Council meetings to ensure that the Governing Body hears issues that are concerning children in school, and to help school councillors understand the Governing Body’s role in leadership and management of the school.

The Governing Body as a whole has reviewed our working practices and identified some areas where we could be more effective. We have drawn up plans to improve our approach to succession planning; to create more consistent induction processes for new governors; to better define the responsibilities of each distinct governor role; and to undertake a skills audit to inform our training needs.

Vivienne Gaskin has picked up the role of link governor for the Early Years and has observed lessons and met with our school improvement adviser. Vivienne has enjoyed seeing the fantastic learning taking place in Reception.

This year governors have also been involved in:

• recruiting new teachers;
• seeing that end of key stage tests are administered in line with the Department for Education’s rules;
• setting a budget for the next three years and monitoring the in-year budget position;
• monitoring attendance levels and agreeing strategies for improving attendance;
• ensuring the school fulfils its health and safety and child safeguarding requirements;
• monitoring the educational attainment and progress of pupils across the school; and
• setting and measuring performance objectives for Mr Roundtree.

Much of our work over the next year will be around developing our newer governors and enabling existing governors to share their skills so that we are building up a knowledgeable and effective team.

Tennis training

Have you been watching Wimbledon?  New tennis lessons are starting at Roundhay Park next week.

What’s happening this week?

The big event this week is our school trip to Harlow Carr. We’ll be going on Wednesday for the whole day so don’t forget that all of the children will need packed lunches. It’s going to be hot – hot – hot! We have school hats to protect our heads from the sun but it would be a good idea to send your child with sun-cream and a water bottle (in addition to a drink in their lunch) and make sure they’re in a skirt or shorts. As we make our way around the gardens, we’ll be spotting the well-known plants that we’ve been learning about as well as seeing what new plants we can find.

Maths – We’re revisiting fractions and time this week. Help at home by asking what time it is and making sure your child is using an analogue clock. o’clock, quarter past, half past and quarter to are important but we also need to be able to read 5, 10, 20 and 25 past and to the hour.

English – We’re finishing Year 2 with a long narrative project inspired by a picture book with no text. Reading short stories (picture books) will help the children pick up on story-telling language and find adjectives and sentences openers they can use in their own writing.

Maths morning!

Ruler rules

Now we can compare lengths and order them, it’s time to get better using a ruler.  After comparing different lengths and putting them in height order, we learnt how to use a ruler properly so that we could check whether our ordering was accurate.

Good choices lead to good times

This is what happens when we make good choices – we get extra playtime in the front playground.

Into the woods….

Yesterday, we went for a walk to the top of Shadwell Lane and found a little woodland area.  We spent an hour looking at the different trees, finding different leaves and sketching.  We’re so lucky that we can find an area like this so close to school.

26 June 2015

This week’s homework is practice makes perfect.  As the visit to Harlow Carr is on Wednesday, please make sure the homework is handed in by Thursday 02 July.

There are a list of words for the children to practise and then they are asked to use the words in different sentences.

26 June 2015

Here are this week’s spellings.  There will be a spelling test on Friday 03 July.