Christmas dinner menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 13 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 26 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Investigating numbers
This week the children made up superhero stories to help with their understanding of number.
They placed the small world superheroes in different places and were encouraged to use sentences to explain.
“There are two superheroes in the house. There are three superheroes in the garden. There are five superheroes altogether.”
Supertato learning
This week, we’ve really engaged with the story, ‘Supertato‘.
The evil pea escaped from the freezer again – but luckily we made our own Supertatos to protect the classroom.
Unfortunately, some vegetables were frozen in ice and the children had to investigate how to free them.
Ask your child to retell the story and take care! Check the peas are not escaping from your freezer!
Living and Learning: Anti-bullying week ‘Choose Respect’
This week, all classes have been learning about different aspects of bullying during national Anti-Bullying Week.
Thank you to those families who supported our Odd Socks Day on Monday, celebrating that we are all unique.
At their first meeting, our new School Council reviewed the school definition of bullying and this remains unchanged.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
In addition to this definition, each class has considered the following.
- Types of bullying – cyber-bullying and prejudice-based bullying related to gender, sexual orientation, race, religion and belief, special educational need and disability
- What to do if children experience or witness bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
STOP can stand for two key messages: the definition or the problem (Several Times On Purpose) and the solution (Start Telling Other People).
All classes have access to their class I want to say box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
Our whole school homework this week, will allow children to consolidate this learning and show what they have learnt in a creative way.
We encourage you to discuss this learning with your child and for further support, bullying resources can be found at…
- https://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/tools-information/advice-parents
- https://www.kidscape.org.uk/resources/
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- https://www.internetmatters.org/hub/news-blogs/get-involved-in-anti-bullying-week-2018-choose-respect/
- https://www.nspcc.org.uk/preventing-abuse/child-abuse-and-neglect/bullying-and-cyberbullying/keeping-children-safe/
- https://www.childline.org.uk/info-advice/bullying-abuse-safety/types-bullying/
- https://youngminds.org.uk/find-help/feelings-and-symptoms/bullying/
Odd socks day
We launched anti-bullying week today by taking part in Odd Socks Day.
There were all kinds of sock colours and designs on show celebrating the fact that we are all different and unique. Thank you for supporting this.
Here’s some of the Year 2 selection.
New kit awarded from Premier League Primary Stars
Following our application to the Premier League Primary Stars Kit and Equipment Scheme, we’ve heard our bid has been successful!
As a result, we’ll receive a new kit for school later in the year. This will be of great use for the football team and for other competitions.
School Council, when they meet for the first time on Wednesday, will be discussing the possible team colours. The final choice will be made democratically: each school councillor will vote for their favourite.
Which would you choose?
Phonics
Thanks to everyone who came to the phonics mornings last week. We hope you found them useful. Please don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions.
In Phase 2 of our phonics programme (Letters and Sounds), children will be taught the phonemes (sounds) for a number of letters (graphemes), which phoneme is represented by which grapheme and that a phoneme can be represented by more than one letter, for example, /ll/ as in b-e-ll. We use Jolly Phonics actions to help children remember these phonemes. Each week the children will bring a set of letters home to learn. Please practise these every day and keep them in their book bag for us to add to.
Your child will be taught how to pronounce the phonemes correctly to make blending easier.
Sounds should be sustained where possible (e.g. sss, fff, mmm) and, where this is not possible, ‘uh’ sounds after consonants should be reduced as far as possible. (e.g. try to avoid saying ‘buh’, ‘cuh’).
Set 1: s a t p
Set 2: i n m d
Set 3: g o c k
Set 4: ck (as in duck) e u r
Set 5: h b l
We will begin learning ‘tricky words’ this week which are words which are not phonetic. Please help your child to read these by recognition. The first tricky words are the and to which we will be sending home for the children to learn.
Now the children have knowledge of some letters and their sounds, try to encourage them to write words independently. This might just be the initial sound of a word. Let them write something important to them. This could be a label for their drawing, a list or a letter to a friend.
October active travel prize winners
We’ve awarded the final voucher prizes for our October active travel prize draw.
Well done to Isla, Year 2, and Jasraj, Year 4, who won the week 4 and overall October month prizes for travelling to school in an active way.
The Living Streets’ WOW interactive travel tracker allows children to record, in class, their daily journey to school and children will continue to be awarded themed badges at the end of every month for travelling actively.
An active journey includes:
- walking
- scooting
- biking
- park and stride
We want to reduce the number of cars outside school so if you do have to travel by car, we recommend parking away from the school gate maybe at our preferred park and stride location, Marks & Spencer.
As always, keep safe while travelling.
School Council 2018-2019
Meet our newly elected school councillors, chosen democratically by their class.
Their first meeting will be held next week. On the agenda is to discuss bullying (as part of anti-bullying week), Takeover Day and to consider what they might want to spend their library and class reward budgets on.
All children are encouraged to make suggestions to their school councillors (by posting their suggestion slip in each class’ Living and Learning box) for ideas/concerns to be discussed.
Anti-bullying week – odd socks day
Next week is Anti-bullying Week. This year’s theme is ‘Choose Respect’ and we will be joining in with Odd Socks Day on Monday 12 November.
This day is to raise awareness of our differences, individuality and personal choice. There is no need for any payment – your child should simply wear odd socks and join in the fun!
Thank you for your support.
