One of your 5 a day for free
Our weekly fruit tuck shop runs on a Tuesday playtime. It’s for Key Stage 2 children, with a charge of 20p per portion and a pre-payment option available.
Today, as part of health week, all children, including Reception and Key Stage 1, were invited to an extra tuck shop free of charge. This gave children who might not normally come to the tuck shop the chance to try it out.
It was great to see everyone enjoying a fruit-filled playtime.
Healthy packed lunches
As it is health week, copies of our Guide to Healthy Packed Lunches have been given out at lunchtime today as a reminder for children who choose to bring a packed lunch to school.
We encourage at least one piece of fruit or vegetable in packed lunches and snack items occasionally, as a treat, but aim for healthy options. Lots of learning has taken place in health week looking at quantities of sugar in drinks and the importance of drinking water to keep hydrated. We therefore encourage water which is freely available for packed lunch children.
There were also some prizes for healthy packed lunches.
5-a-day
This morning, we worked with children from Y1 and Reception class thinking about what foods count toward your daily target of 5 portions of fruit and vegetables. We then tasted had time to taste some!
Read some good guidance about this.
It’s all about health
This week is the first themed week of the year and it’s all about health.
Over the week classes will work with different visitors to school including:
- d:side (drug education)
- Catering Leeds (food nutritionists)
- Leeds Force basketball
- Leeds City Council road safety team
- Tsukuru Judo Academy
- Leeds University dental students
- Rachel Frazer – Yoga teacher
- Heart Research UK
- Dr Natwar – Corner House dental surgery
- Claire Sparrow – pilates teacher
There will be lots of learning in class too – hand washing, body image, emotional health, 5 a day and much more. Keep an eye on our class news pages to find out more.
On Monday 23 November, 3:00-3:30pm, there will be an information session for parents, led by d:side, where you can find out more about the drug education sessions delivered to each class this week. No need to book – just come along.
Phonics mornings
Thank you to everybody for attending the phonics sessions last week. The children really enjoyed having you there to share in their learning.
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.
At the moment the children are enjoying ‘Room on the broom‘ by Julia Donaldson and ‘In the witch’s kitchen‘ by Nick Sharratt.
Phonics feedback
Mrs Burke and the other Reception staff were delighted to welcome nearly all parents / carers into the classroom this week to watch the Reception children learn phonics – so important in developing reading and writing skills.
Parents who visited either on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday gained an insight into the general teaching that goes on in Reception, but more specifically learnt about how we teach phonics and how they should support their child’s learning at home:
‘It was useful to see the step-by-step process in which the children are taught so that I can attempt to support in a similar fashion at home. It was helpful to hear the language used in context (grapheme, phoneme etc).’
‘Very informative and well-organised. Definitely helps with how to support at home.’
Lots of parents left impressed by the children’s learning behaviour:
‘I was happy to see how well the children are engaged.’
Finally, we asked how we can make these sessions even better. We had a couple of suggestions – a longer session was suggested, and the session a little bit earlier in the year. We’ll consider these, although in previous years we’ve tried different things and this seems about right for most people. One parent suggested that we should remind others ‘that phonics is not the be all and end all’ and that we should ’emphasise the importance of reading for fun’ – we agree. The purpose of the session was kept quite specific, but Mrs Burke will include some reminders about this in subsequent newsletters because we certainly want to promote a love of reading.
Thanks again to everyone who came along. The next sessions are on 20, 21 and 22 January.
Phonics open mornings
Don’t forget our phonics mornings this week.
Don’t worry if you haven’t returned the slip – just turn up on Wednesday, Thursday or Friday morning at 9am.
We will demonstrate how we teach phonics and provide you with ideas for supporting your child’s learning at home.
See you all then!
Spells, potions and slime!
Takeover Day
Next Friday, 20 November, is Takeover Day.
What is Takeover Day?
It’s a national initiative organised each year by the Children’s Commissioner for England, Anne Longfield OBE. Takeover gives children and young people the chance to work with adults for the day and to be involved in decision-making processes. Children and young people benefit from the opportunity to experience the world of work and make their voices heard, while adults and organisations gain a fresh perspective on what they do.
Recently our School Council discussed how children could be involved in ‘taking over’ at school. Takeover activities will include school dinners (representatives from Year 4), the office (representatives from Year 5), assembly (representatives from Year 6) and KS2 tuck shop on 24 November (representatives from Year 2).
In addition there will be opportunities within class where children will takeover. For example, spelling/times table tests, parts of lessons, PE warm ups and guided reading.
Check our class news pages to see this in action.
Make a noise about bullying
Next week it is national anti-bullying week.
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.’
This year the theme of the week is Make a noise about bullying and our children are familiar with another STOP message to address this, start telling other people.
Leeds Anti-Social Behaviour Team will once again deliver Show Racism the Red Card workshops across school and 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)
Bullying resources can be found at…
- 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
Children tell us what they would do if they were bullied: ‘I would tell an adult, teacher or someone I trust.’
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.
