News

Latest news from around the school

Election of a parent governor - voting now open

Posted on 11 July 2017 by Mrs Quirk

We recently wrote to all parents and carers regarding the Parent Governor vacancy, and to seek nominations.  As the number of nominations received exceeds the number of Parent Governor vacancies, it is now necessary to hold a ballot.

There are seven candidates and you may vote for one candidate only.  The ballot can be accessed via https://goo.gl/LUCBGF

The ballot closes at 12 noon on Tuesday 18 July 2017.

The attached letter provides full details of the voting process and the candidates’ statements.

David Roundtree, Head of Federation

School Saving Club

Posted on 09 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

The next School Saving Club paying in date is 13 July 2017 at 3.15-3.45pm.

If you’re unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be deposited to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Miss Hale.

This is the final paying in date for this year and dates for next year will be shared in September.

If your child would like to open account, please ask at the office.

Children's Day 2017

Posted on 08 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

Children’s Day 2017 takes place at Headingley Carnegie Stadium on Sunday 16th July. The gates for the event will open at 10am and close at 4pm; admission is completely free for everyone, as are the activities when inside the ground.

Families attending the event can make a suggested donation of £3 per adult and £1 per child attending on entry; all proceeds will support the work of Leeds Rhinos Foundation and Yorkshire Cricket Foundation.

 

Let's Ride

Posted on 08 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

Local HSBC guided rides for Leeds are now available to be booked online. There are a variety of rides available at different locations and by searching using a postcode you can then filter the results according to distance, ride level and who they are suitable for.

Making a healthy change

Posted on 07 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

As part of our SEAL theme of Changes, the SEAL statement next week is I can make a healthy change.

During the week, children will be encouraged to make a healthy change.  This could be physically or emotionally and may include:

  • being active after school rather than being on an electronic device
  • having water with a packed lunch rather than a sugary drink
  • having a water bottle at school every day
  • taking part in a Sports Leader session at lunchtime
  • bringing a piece of fruit for KS2 playtime and Year 3 swimming
  • dealing with a problem in a positive way
  • going to bed earlier

Another healthy change would be travelling to school in a sustainable way – walking, scooting and biking.

Children will also be completing the annual pupil health questionnaire for this week’s whole school homework and this should be returned to your child’s class teacher by Thursday 13 July.  Views and opinions from the questionnaire will enable us to consider future ‘healthy changes’.

Change4life, whose aim is ‘to motivate and support millions more people to make and sustain changes that will improve their health’, provides lots of ideas.

We look forward to hearing all about your healthy changes.

Supporting your child through a bereavement

Posted on 06 July 2017 by Mr Roundtree

Talking about bereavement with children can be hard. There’s a series of books that might help children learn about a number of sensitive issues. One book in the series is Frog and the Birdsong by Max Velthuijs, Andersen Press.

The book concerns Frog, who one autumn day discovers a blackbird lying motionless in the grass. Worried, he asks his friends what can be the matter. Very gently and simply, the animals begin to understand the meaning of death and the beauty of life in this moving story.

Thank you...

Posted on 05 July 2017 by Mrs Weekes

A note from Richard Spencer, chair of the PTA:
Thank you to Mrs Weekes and the staff who helped at the fair and in preparing for the fair (with the maypole, ukuleles, wake up shake up – Mrs Burke, Miss Marsden, Miss Hale, Mrs Freeman, Mrs Valentine, Mrs Taylor).
Many thanks to Mrs O’Malley and Mrs Russell for their work helping us to prepare and on the day coordinating things and counting up the money.
Thank you to Mr Roundtree for drawing the raffle and selling the half and half jar.
Thank you to the Reception children who did a great job with the maypole and the older children who helped to keep the maypole stable.
Thank you to Year 4 for playing their ukuleles. It was great to give them another opportunity to perform the music they’ve spent lots of time practising.
Thank you to the ‘wake up shake up team’ who did a fantastic job with the dancing and impressed everyone.
Thank you to the Year 5 sports leaders for running beat the goalie and shoot the hoop.
A few special thank yous for some individuals who really contributed to the successful running of the fair:
Ben Copeland for staying calm in the face of technical difficulties and making sure the wake up shake up team had music.
Theo Cawood for operating the PA very professionally, well done.
Ben, Theo, Martha and Pia for great teamwork setting up the chairs and stands for year 4 to play their ukuleles.
Evie Miller for helping to put the Year 3 classroom back in order.
Emre Sen and Sam Gibbins for excellent culinary skills preparing the fruit kebabs.
Mrs Burke and Mrs Maqbool for selling lots of curry.
And how could I forget Miss Rushbrooke slaving over a boiling pan of hotdogs!
And thank you to everyone who came along on the day.

Leeds Youth Voice

Posted on 04 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

Today, our Year 5 and 6 School Councillors attended the Leeds Youth Voice event at Leeds Civic Hall.

The event focused on Youth Voice within school, the community and Leeds as a city. During the day, the children enjoyed interactive activities about voting, democracy and representation, how to be active citizens, meeting and sharing ideas with pupils from other schools and sharing ideas on what makes an effective school councillor.

They even had an educational tour of the Leeds Council Chamber.

We look forward to hearing all about their day and their ideas at the next school council meeting.

Yellow Yorkshire Day 07 July

Posted on 04 July 2017 by Mrs Taylor

On Friday 07 July, we’re raising money for one of our school charities, Yorkshire Air Ambulance, by taking part in Yellow Yorkshire Day.

Children are encouraged to wear something yellow and bring a £1 donation.

A representative from Yorkshire Air Ambulance will be visiting school to talk about their important work in our county.

Apps update

Posted on 01 July 2017 by Mr Roundtree

A few days ago, we told you about a new SnapChat feature…

SnapMap lets users track other people’s location in real time – it shows exactly where people are in as much detail as the actual house. This might sound like a great idea, but just think about how vulnerable this could make a child using SnapChat. Within the feature, there is ‘Ghost Mode’ which enables you to hide your location. There are two ways which this can be turned on:

  1. Pinch the screen when you’re in selfie mode to bring up the SnapMap. Then, click the ‘Settings’ icon in the top right hand corner and set the phone to ‘Ghost Mode’.
  2. Click on ‘Snap Maps’ – ‘Settings’ – ‘Ghost Mode’.

Whilst we’re talking about apps, be aware of these ones, too…

Musical.ly and Live.ly are two other apps to be aware of. Musical.ly is a popular app where users can sing along to popular songs and upload them to the site. Live.ly is made by the same company and is a live streaming app where you can broadcast and communicate with others. This is a platform where comments and requests can be left for the users about their videos but, sadly, this has opened up inappropriate communication where young users are being asked to remove clothing and are being exposed to sexually explicit comments. Musical.ly also has some privacy controls which can be accessed via the settings option.

Roblox is a user-generated massive multiplayer online social gaming platform. Roblox’s chat facility has caused some concerns with parents reporting inappropriate comments to children.

Guidance for children using Roblox safely can be found via their safety/help page:

Check out the security information. Read the parents’ information.

It’s important that you talk to your child about using these apps. Most importantly, if they get a question or request that makes them feel uncomfortable, they should speak to a responsible adult immediately.

 

Please make sure that you know what your child is using – remember SnapChat and other similar apps are not recommended for children under the age of 13.