Friday 22 November 2019
This week, the whole school has the same Talk Time homework: Which charity should our school support?
Next week, a charity will be decided for us to support for the year ahead – for example, when we have a performance, we’ll collect money for this particular charity. What charity does your child think we should support?
You could talk about:
- what a charity is
- why charities are important
- what sort of work they do
- charities that have meaning to your family, to school or the community
- national and international charities and their work
Next week, each class will vote (because in our school we make democratic decisions) for the charity they would like to support to form a shortlist. Then, our recently elected School Council will decide which charity we will support for the next year.
Christmas themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 12 December. Please contact the office, before 28 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
Digital Mapping
Our geography topic for this half term is: Where in the world am I?
We kicked off our topic in Moortown Park with a treasure hunt.
The children learnt lots about map reading, compass reading, using a trundle wheel, teamwork and more.
This week we have been focusing on digital mapping through the use of Digimap.
The children have been able to locate places of interest and map their routes to and from school!
Living and Learning: STOP bullying
This week is anti-bullying week and Year 2 have been considering this across different areas of our learning.
In our reading lesson, we read through our school definition of bullying and considered words we weren’t sure of. We spotted the important message of STOP – several times on purpose.
We also used our inference skills, and our school definition, when looking at this photo to consider what might be happening and whether this is bullying?
‘We can see the children are hurting the feelings of the boy on the ground.’
‘We know the boy who is sitting down is unhappy and upset because of his face and his head is down.’
‘We don’t know if this is bullying as this is one time and bullying is when it happens several times on purpose.’
Thank you to all the families who supported Odd Socks Day. There were all different sizes, patterns and colours of socks on show and it was great that the children could express themselves and celebrate their individuality while raising awareness of bullying.
Andy Day, CBeebies star and his band, Andy and the Odd Socks, has again written a song for Odd Socks Day. This time it is called “Change”, based on this year’s theme Change Starts With Us.
Finally, we considered what to do if any children were bullied, again based on the STOP message – start telling other people.
All the children considered who they would tell if this was happening to them.
As noted in our new child friendly anti-bullying policy, the message is clear.
STOP bullying – bullying is wrong!
We’re a happy and healthy school.
Creating Characters
This half term, our focus in writing is description. This week and next, we’re learning about character descriptions. Today, we read some character descriptions and we even designed our own character to describe to someone else and see whether they could recreate it.
We realised that we had to:
- use comparisons
- use adjectives
- describe bit by bit
- go in a sensible order
Talk about your favourite characters at home and see whether you can take on the character description challenge too.
Living and Learning: 8Rs
Having reflected on all eight Rs for learning, Year 4 decided they learnt most about resilience this term in our tower building lesson.
As a team, we had to try and build the tallest tower but it kept getting knocked down. Despite our frustrations, we had to encourage each other to carry on and start again. We talked about situations that make us feel like this and strategies we had to help us to keep going.
At home, see if we can tell you what the 8Rs are and ways we can showing we’re using them in our learning.
World Mental Health Day
Yesterday was World Mental Health Day, and Y6 did some research to find out more.
First, we learnt what makes efficient search terms. Challenge your child to explain! Take a look at this RIC:
For example, to find out the answer to this question: “What is the population of people living in Leeds, West Yorkshire, this year?” you would use much more efficient search terms. Ask your child what they would enter into the search engine.
Next, we focussed on being safe online by discussing bias (ie paid advertising vs factual content), quality of life (ie were these web pages contributing positively to our lives?) and protecting ourselves (ie not entering passwords/email addresses, avoiding pop ups). We researched some questions about World Mental Health Day using effective search terms, a variety of search engines and trusted websites.
Some important information we found out is that mental health can affect everyone. To look after yourself you need to:
- know you’re not alone
- understand it will pass
- talk about your worries
- keep active
- get enough sleep
Healthy Schools revalidation
We are proud to continue to be a happy and healthy school.
‘Congratulations on re-validating your Healthy Schools Status using the School Health Check tool, indicating that your school has self-evaluated whole school health. This demonstrates that your school is continuing to embed and improve provision against the four core areas of Healthy Schools.’
Health and Wellbeing service, Leeds City Council
Our re-validation was based on the four core areas of Healthy Schools –
- Personal Social Health Education (PSHE)
- Healthy Eating
- Physical Activity
- Emotional Wellbeing and Mental Health
A visit will be arranged later this year to externally reassess this self-validation.
This status is valid for three years before re-validation is necessary (August 2019 – August 2022). During this period, a visit will be arranged to externally reassess your self-validation. Once the school has had a successful reassessment, you will then receive a Healthy Schools plaque and feedback report. In the meantime, we do recommend that you update the School Health Check on an annual basis.
Science and dance
Monday afternoon is when Year 2 become scientists. With the help of our materials monster, we’ve been busy learning lots about everyday materials.
This week, the children were provided with a selection of objects and they were asked to generate some questions of what they wanted to find out.
We decided to test whether we could change the shape of the objects by squashing, bending, twisting and stretching (one of the science objectives for Year 2).
Here are some of the working scientifically objectives we covered as well.
I can ask simple questions and recognise that they can be answered in different ways.
I can observe carefully, using simple equipment.
I can perform simple tests.
I can identify and classify.
I can use my observations and ideas to suggest answers to questions.
I can gather and record data to help in answering questions.
Following on from this learning, Year 2 used their bodies in dance to show some of these properties. Can you guess which of the poses show ‘stretch’, ‘bend’, ‘squash’ and ‘twist’?
Aldi Kit for Schools
Aldi’s Kit for Schools promotion is giving twenty primary schools the chance to win £20,000 to kick-start a health legacy for their school.
What’s more, every school who enters by completing their Aldi’s Kit for Schools poster will also receive an exclusive school sports kit! Help us collect stickers with every £30 you spend in store and fill up our school’s poster to give us a chance to win. Please bring your stickers to the school office before the promotion ends on the 3rd November. Thank you for your support.
