Bike to School Week
This week, it is Bike to School Week. Bike to School Week is a week long event designed to showcase the benefits of cycling to school.
Have you been inspired by the current UCI Road World Championships to get on your bike? Could you make biking to school one of your active methods of travelling to school this week?
To link with Bike to School week, our Year 1 class will be completing their Balance, Pedal, Go bike training this week.
If you are wanting to explore the area further by bike, this West Yorkshire Cycle map can help to find recommended routes.
Finally, have you visited the local Brownlee Centre? Take a look at some of their Let’s Ride sessions.
Somebody swallowed Stanley
Somebody Swallowed Stanley is a brilliant picture book telling about the tale of Stanley – a jellyfish unlike other jellyfish, because he is a plastic bag – and what happens to him when creatures of the sea try to eat him. Some manage to spit him back out, but one of the creatures isn’t so lucky, until a brilliant young man comes along and saves the day. The book has provided a great link to our current materials science topic.
This week, we brought the story to life with a drama session led by Sam and his team from Leeds Playhouse. We enjoyed fun games and we became the characters from the story. It was great to see the creativity of the children and how they were taking ‘safe risks’ with their learning.
If your child enjoyed the session, Leeds Playhouse run drama classes for children on a Saturday (details will be coming home in book bags). They have asked us to pass on the following message.
If any of the young people who would like to join Playhouse Youth are from low income households they can apply for a bursary by contacting Ellie Manners (playhouseyouth@leedsplayhouse.org.uk).
Lexia
Today, the children have brought home information about Lexia and a reminder of their login and password.
Lexia is a computer based program that builds reading skills and complements your child’s learning in class.
Where possible, we encourage the children to access Lexia at home to support this learning. Your child will make much more progress if they can regularly use this programme at home on either a computer or tablet.
Children should aim to achieve Level 9 by the end of Year 2.
If you have any problems accessing Lexia at home, please let us know.
As always, thank you for your support in continuing learning at home.
Place Value
Year 5 have had a brilliant start to the year in all areas of school! They have thoroughly impressed with their appetite for learning and improving.
For Maths in particular, we have been looking at place value. The children have been using an array of methods to support their learning.
We have been using Denes, number lines, bar-models, counters and part-whole models to really show off how many different ways we can represent numbers!
In another area of the curriculum, we have enjoyed diving into our new class novel – Marianne Dreams. This has been the main focus for our Art topic, where we have incorporated artistic techniques such as cross-hatching, stippling and gradient into our artwork.
Ask your child what media has been used in the pieces of art above!
Platinum award
At the end of each year, schools are invited to apply for their School Games Mark. The School Games Mark rewards schools for their commitment to and development of competition, school sport and physical education.
We’re very proud to announce that our application has been verified and we have been awarded Platinum award.
Platinum award is open to schools who have achieved Gold award for the previous four years.
We have achieved this award due to encouraging a large number of children to participate in sporting activity; providing a variety of different sports; partaking in competitions; involving children in leadership activities and having many local links with external clubs and establishments.
Thank you to staff who have accompanied children to these events or run after-school clubs this year. Thank you also to Mrs Russell who provides excellent administration of our clubs and sporting events and competitions. Thank you as well to all parents/carers who have helped with transport and supported at our events this year.
Finally, well done to all pupils who have tried out a new physical activity either at an after-school club or as part of a competition or participation event and to those children who have represented our school so well this year.
06 September 2019
The homework this week is Practice Makes Perfect and due in Thursday 12 September.
I can write sentences.
As we begin our learning in Year 2, we’d like to know what the children want to learn during this year and what their interests are outside of school. Their responses should be in full sentences.
Here are some reminders of what to check for when writing each sentence.
- Capital letter at the start
- Full stop at the end
- Finger spaces
- Does it make sense?
Our handwriting guide shows the correct letter formation to support this writing. Please ask if you would like a printed copy of this guide.
Signing off: Highlights of Year 5
Our homework this week was creative: I can show my highlights of the year. In true Y5 style, the homework was smashed out of the park.
Some decided to show their favourite subject, like Serenity’s mini art gallery to represent her creative learning…
… or Laila’s Lego rounders pitch to represent PE and our trip to Roundhay Park.
Some created amazing posters to represent lots of different highlights…
… like World Book Day, our trip to the Bradford Media Museum or our several themed weeks across the year just to name a few!
Others made a countdown to rank their highlights…
… like Will’s Top Five which included our courtroom reenactment, 5/6 production and both our class novels…
… and Maggie even created hers using PowerPoint which was incredibly funny and emotional at the same time! “Does Miss Wilson really live in the cupboard and will she have to move house to the ‘apartment’ next door over the summer? We will never know.”
For some reason, many of the class had latched onto the fact that I can’t speak properly sometimes and I mix up my words. Once, I was trying to say “Dan had” and ended up calling him “Dad” in class. Hilarity ensued.
Another classic was asking everyone if they had a “spare purple pen” that came out as “spurple pen” and with it a long-running joke was born. Here it is being demonstrated by a larger than life homework submission.
Lots, lots, lots of the class mentioned how their highlight was simply bonding and spending time with their best friends, as demonstrated by Poppy and Kirsten’s ace collage.
Well done everyone, yet again! I could have posted everyone’s homework but these were just a couple of the brilliant ones.
My personal highlight has been getting to know each and every one of you and learning so much but having a good laugh along the way. I couldn’t ask for a better class to take up to year six for your last ever year of primary school. Enjoy the summer and I’m excited to see you all in September for our best year yet!
Miss Wilson x
Author visit
This morning Hayley, came in to class to tell us about her book Emma Bright and the super food fight.
As well as being a really fun and exciting story, it has lots of positive message about a healthy lifestyle.
Later in the session, we created our own superfood heroes on paper plates.
Library books, reading at home and LEXIA
As we near the end of the year, we have made the children aware of any outstanding library books. Do pop into the classroom if you want to check the title of a book you still have at home. All library books should be return next week.
Many children have reached their end of Year 2 LEXIA target (Level 9 certificate). It would be great to get all the children closer to this target so please continue to work on LEXIA at home if you get the chance.
We have been running a read at home challenge this term with lots of children earning rewards once they have read ten times. Again, if your child is close to their next reward, please encourage them to read at home and put their book and reading record in the basket on Monday and Thursday.
Well done to Isla, Noah F, Lily, Rizwan, Harry, Jack, Iris and Jake who have read and read at home this term – fantastic!
Reading books and reading records will be collected from next Wednesday.
Residential… finally!
After much editing, emailing and formating, I finally bring you a taste of what your children experienced on residential. Apologies for the delay! Year 6 had a great time and were a credit to the school, you and to themselves. Many members of staff at Robin Wood remarked upon their manners a number times.
We did all sorts over the three days and here’s an idea of what it was like.
