School Meals
Our school dinner menu is usually changed on a termly basis but this is now changing to half yearly. Our new menu will therefore be from February 2017.
When we return from the Christmas holiday, we will start on Week 3 of our current menu until the new menu is introduced.
Birdfeeder
This week, one of our Reception children brought a new bird feeder into school. She explained to the class that she had noticed the old feeder had broken and she’d like to replace it. After choosing a few friends to help, she set off to find a suitable place to hang the new feeder. The front playground seemed like the best option. The birdfeeder was filled with sunflower seeds and hung up in the tree along with a Christmas star!
There will be some happy birds around!
Have a look around the front playground and see if you can spot it.
Thank you.
School Saving Club paying in session
Our next paying in date for School Saving Club account holders is Thursday 08 December 3.15-3.45pm. If you can’t make this date, the next one will be on Thursday 02 February at 3.15-3.45pm.
Children must be accompanied to the sessions.
Alternatively, you can bring money to the office in a sealed envelope marked School Saving Club for the attention of Miss Hale.
School Saving Club accounts can still be opened. Please ask at the office for an application form.
Children who are in currently in Year 3 will have their account credited by Leeds City Council with £10 once opened.
Physical activity – the facts
In August 2016, the Government released its Childhood Obesity Strategy. This document outlines actions which will address the rising rates of childhood obesity.
Yorkshire Sport Foundation have produced the following poster with statistics and key information from the strategy.
We continue to monitor and improve our physical activity provision (see our current PE Provision Plan (pe-and-sport-premium-2016-2017) and our previous PE Provision Plan (pe-and-sport-premium-2015-2016).
STEM week
The children enjoyed taking part in different STEM activities throughout the week.
Phonics mornings
Thank you for attending our Maths Mornings last week.
We hope you enjoyed them and found them useful.
Don’t forget this week’s Phonics Mornings.
Packed lunches
Struggling for ideas for a healthy packed lunch?
Change4life have some great tips and easy to prepare ideas based on the Eatwell Guide.
Also make reference to our Packed Lunch Guidance.
Anti-bullying tips
Thank you, Emma (Year 2) for recommending CBBC for lots of Anti-Bullying Week advice.
Phonics
Thanks to everyone who attended the learning workshop last week. We hope you found it useful.
During their phonics learning, your child will be learning the following terms:
Phoneme: The smallest unit of sound found within a word
Grapheme: how the sound is written e.g. h, ai
Diagraph: Two letters that make one sound when read
Trigraph: Three letters that make one sound
CVC: Stands for consonant, vowel, consonant
Segmenting : Breaking up a word into its sounds
Blending : Putting the sounds together to read a word
Tricky words: Words that cannot easily be decoded
At the moment children are learning their first 19 phonemes and the graphemes that represent them.
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 f ff (as in puff) ll (as in hill) ss (as in hiss)
They will use these phonemes to read and spell simple “consonant-vowel-consonant” (CVC) words:
sat, tap, dig, duck, rug, puff, hill, hiss
All these words contain 3 phonemes.
How you can help at home:
- Practise the phonemes together
- Articulate the sounds clearly and precisely, eg
mmm; ssss ; nnnn - Use the phonemes to make different words at home and play phonics games
- Read everyday with your child
- Attend our phonics mornings in the week beginning 28 November
Although phonics is important in teaching the mechanics of reading, reading is about much more. We also want children to read for pleasure. Reading to your child regularly will help them to develop a lifelong love of books and reading.
‘Power for good’
Next week is national Anti-Bullying Week.
The theme this year is ‘Power for Good‘ with the following key aims:
- To support children and young people to use their Power for Good – by understanding the ways in which they are powerful and encouraging individual and collective action to stop bullying and create the best world possible.
- To help parents and carers to use their Power for Good – through supporting children with issues relating to bullying and working together with schools to stop bullying.
- To encourage all teachers, school support staff and youth workers to use their Power for Good– by valuing the difference they can make in a child’s life, and taking individual and collective action to prevent bullying and create safe environments where children can thrive.
Our school definition has recently been reviewed by the School Council and remains unchanged.
‘Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, several times on purpose.’
We also encourage children to use their ‘Power for Good’, if they were to experience or witness bullying, by using another STOP message, start telling other people.
In class, children will discuss these aspects of bullying:
- Our definition of bullying (above)
- 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 bullying. The key message is to tell someone (start telling other people)
Recently the School Council responded to this question, ‘What would you do if you were bullied‘?
- ‘Start telling other people – tell someone who I trust and who I can talk to.’
- ‘I would tell someone I trust (family member, member of staff or friend).’
- ‘If I were bullied, I’d tell my parents, a friend, a teacher and if nothing changed I would phone ChildLine (08001111).’
- ‘I’d tell a teacher, maybe a friend and put in a worry in the ‘worry box’. Also, I’d tell a parent.’
- ‘I would tell anyone I trust: my friends, my mum or dad or a member of staff. They could sort it straight away.’
- ‘I’d tell my mummy and daddy.’
All classes have access to their class SEAL box or a whole school worry box where they can tell an adult any concerns about bullying or any other issues.
For further support, bullying resources can be found at…
- http://www.anti-bullyingalliance.org.uk/resources/disablist-bullying/resources-for-parents/
- http://www.childline.org.uk/explore/bullying/pages/bullying.aspx
- http://www.bullying.co.uk/advice-for-parents/
- http://www.youngminds.org.uk/for_parents/worried_about_your_child/bullying