How are you feeling?
Across school, we’ve been trialling the use of colours to represent children’s emotions. Children are then encouraged to think whether this is a blocker or driver for their learning.
- ‘I feel blue because I am calm.’
- ‘I feel red because I had a fall out at lunchtime.’
- ‘I feel orange because I am excited to celebrate my brother’s birthday.’
Here is a new website to support young people’s emotional wellbeing in Leeds.
‘If you’re a young person, MindMate can help you understand the way you’re feeling and find the right advice and support. If you’re a parent, carer or professional, MindMate can help you support a young person you know.’
Children are also encouraged to speak with an adult, friend or use our class SEAL boxes to share any worries.
Where is Goldilocks?
Goldilocks has been spotted in different locations around school. This has given the children an opportunity to practise and learn new words to describe position.
Writing in Reception
What is a sentence?
The children have been busy developing their concept of a sentence this term.
Explaining to young children what a sentence is can be difficult. Through reading, children quickly learn that a sentence starts with a capital letter and ends with a full stop. They are told that a sentence makes sense on its own and is complete; that it consists of an idea. How to recognise when they have written a sentence is more difficult.
How you can help at home:
- When reading with your child, point out the sentences and punctuation
- Encourage your child to think of the whole sentence(an idea) and say it aloud before they begin to write
- Get them into the habit of rereading and checking their writing
- Read a sentence aloud and ask your child to count the words
- Model speaking in sentences and give your child lots of opportunity to construct sentences orally
Storytelling!
This week the children have been retelling the story, ‘Goldilocks and the three bears’.
They made porridge and a new chair for baby bear.
Leeds Let’s Get Sugar Swapping!
Following the introduction of the Change4life Sugar Smart App, the Leeds Sugar Smart Challenge has been launched to ask families, schools and other organisations to share the amount of sugar they have saved by making sugar smart swaps. The Change4Life website has lots of information to help you to look for sugar on food labels if you are unable to access the app.
Leeds Sugar Smart Challenge features a city totalizer to record the number of sugar cubes saved, with prizes available at random to top swappers.
Children and Young People’s Plan
The ambition of Leeds City Council is for Leeds to be a child-friendly city. A child-friendly version of the city’s Children and Young People’s Plan has recently been launched; it was designed in consultation with pupils from primary and secondary schools across Leeds. As well as being a fun activity sheet, it is also a good way to share the city-wide vision directly with children and to raise their awareness of what Leeds City Council are doing to make Leeds the best city for children to live and grow up in.
The plan was recently reviewed by our School Council.
If you would like a printed copy of the plan, please ask at the office.
Children and young people are the future of our city, which is why we put them at the very heart of the growth strategy. We want Leeds to be a compassionate city with a strong economy, and it is really important that all our children and young people are supported to achieve their full potentials. The city-wide partnership approach in promoting and achieving the aims of the Leeds Children and Young People’s Plan is key to this.
Today’s menu
Have you seen our new menu board on display in the dining room? This is updated daily to show the school dinner menu including the main course, vegetarian main and jacket potato option. If your child has their school dinner in the main hall they are encouraged to have a look at the board at the start of the day, playtime or at lunchtime.
You’re also welcome to have a look with your child/children.
The full weekly menu is still available, displayed on the dining room window and in our school meals section.
The Summer term menu has also been published with details of any new dishes. How to encourage others to try new dishes was recently discussed by our School Council. Suggestions included:
- Tell your friends if you have tried one of the new meals.
- Have a taster of a new meal.
In response to this, children can request a small taster of a new meal alongside their lunch. New dishes will be highlighted on the menu board.
World Book Day menu
World Book Day is celebrated on 03 March and during that week (Wednesday 02 March) we will be having a World Book Day Roald Dahl menu for school dinners.
Our next SEAL theme – Getting on
For this half term, our SEAL theme Getting On covers four main aspects:
- developing the social skills of friendship
- working well together in a group
- managing anger
- resolving conflict
A key resource for children to refer to during this theme, and at other times, is Peaceful Problem Solving. This is a useful resource to encourage children to sort out their own problems. You may wish to talk through this with your child(ren).
When group work takes place in school, some questions for children to consider are:
- Did everyone take turns?
- Did everyone listen to what other people thought?
- Did each person have chance to tell the group what they thought?
- If people had different ideas could the group reach a compromise?
The key areas of learning throughout this theme are empathy, managing feelings and social skills.
We start our weekly SEAL statements with a focus on manners, I don’t interrupt (with my mouth or with my hand).
Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile comes to Leeds
The Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile is back – and it’s coming to Leeds.
Yorkshire Sport Foundation will host a Sainsbury’s Sport Relief Mile on Sunday 20 March.
Setting off from Woodhouse Moor, the Yorkshire Sport Foundation Leeds Mile event offers a 1 mile, 3 mile or 6 mile route.
