NSPCC Speak out Stay safe
During our recent Staying Safe themed week, all pupils took part in the NSPCC Speak out Stay safe learning featuring Ant and Dec and Buddy.
We are proud to receive our certificate to recognise this.
Big Walk and Wheel
Get set… we’re taking part in Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel 2022 (the new name for Big Pedal), the UK’s largest inter-school cycling, walking, wheeling and scooting challenge. The challenge runs from 21 March to 1 April. It’s free and we would love everyone to be involved.
What do you need to do?
Encourage your child(ren) to walk, scoot or cycle to school on as many days as possible during the event. Park and stride (parking your car further away from school, for example, Marks and Spencer car park and walking, scooting or biking the final part of the journey) also counts.
Why we are taking part
As a happy and healthy school, Sustrans Big Walk and Wheel is a great way to build physical activity in children’s daily routine which is important for their physical health and mental wellbeing.
Active school runs also help to reduce congestion and air pollution outside the school gate. A 2021 YouGov study showed nearly half of UK children worry about air pollution near their school. Children thought active travel was the best away to bring down these pollution levels.
Plus there are some great prizes to be won every day if we get enough children taking part!
Useful resources
To help you prepare, Sustrans has developed a handy free guide packed with advice, games and challenges to help you have hassle-free cycle, walk or scoot to school.
Download your free family guide here.
World Book Day 2022
We had a fantastic day celebrating World Book Day by reading books, talking about our favourite authors and books and dressing up as characters from some of our favourite books.
After a morning of completing activities related to their favourite books, the children paired up across Year 1 and 2 to share their work. It was fantastic to see the collaboration, interaction and enthusiasm for books when the children worked together.
You can find more activities, videos, book recommendations and the brilliant World Book Day song on the World Book Day website.
Abbey House Museum
Year 1 had an incredible time at Abbey House Museum yesterday! The children behaved excellently and were very enthusiastic about all the artefacts they saw. We explored rooms of old toys and compared them to now. They were even some toys from when Mr McGriffiths was a child!
We also explored the Victorian street and went inside some of the shops. I wonder which shop was your favourite. We talked about how these shops were similar or different to shops today. We also had a workshop where we were able to handle and explore different objects from the past. It was so exciting but the soap smelt horrible!
Living and Learning – Staying safe week
We have had an amazing week learning all about staying safe. We had so many visitors teaching us to stay safe in lots of different situations! Thank you to Mrs Taylor for organising a brilliant week!
Monday
We learnt how to stay safe on the roads. Remember to ‘Think, Stop, Look, Listen.’
We also had a visitor from the dog’s trust who told us the 5 rules for staying safe around dogs. I wonder if your child can remember all 5.
Tuesday
Tuesday was Safer Internet Day and we learnt lots about how to stay safe on the internet. We watched a video called ‘Jessie and Friends’ who helped us to learn what we should do if we see something on the internet that upsets us or if someone tries to message us on the internet. You can see the videos here.
We also have a visitor from ‘Go Wise Online’ who also explained how to use the internet safely.
Wednesday
We were very excited to have a visit from both the Police and the Fire Service today! We really enjoyed asking them questions and finding out about how they keep us safe.
Friday
The final visit of the week was from the Canals and Rivers trust who explained how we should stay safe near water. Remember:
Stay Away From the Edge.
The children listened and engaged brilliantly all week! Well done everyone!
Drop down morning
This term we have introduced the idea of a drop down morning. This is a whole morning dedicated to looking back at our previous topic learning in order to cement this knowledge and commit it to the children’s long term memory.
Year 1 had a great time looking back over our Geography and Art topics from this year. We first took a big piece of paper and wrote down everything we could remember about the UK. After that, we revised the countries, capital cities and surrounding seas of the UK by sorting them into groups and then labelling a big map. I was very impressed at how much the children had remembered from the Autumn term!
Next, we looked back at physical and human geography and tried to find either a human or physical feature for every letter of the alphabet. We couldn’t think of any for k or x, so if you know of any let us know!
After break time, we looked again at the artists we had learnt about, Paul Klee and Leonardo da Vinci. We talked about how they were different, including their use of colour and shape. Then, we were given two new pictures and we had to decide whether it had been painted by Leonardo da Vinci or Paul Klee and how we knew. It was a brilliant morning!
Living and Learning: Identity
Identity forms part of our Living and Learning curriculum where children learn about similarities and differences and how we should respect ourselves and others too.
There are things that are the same or different that are immediately obvious (physical features) as well as things you cannot see such as things you like doing, your religion or your family.
There are lots of things the same about us all but everyone is different too – nobody is exactly the same, everyone is unique.
No-one is good at everything but everyone is good at something.
After we had talked about what makes us different and what makes us the same, we drew a picture of our partner and what makes them special!
Spring term after-school clubs
After-school clubs will be restarting next week and they will run for eight weeks until the Easter break. Places can be booked via Gateway.
Our physical activity clubs continue to be heavily subsidised through the investment of our PE and Sport Premium.
Please contact the office if you have any queries about the clubs or the booking system.
Free White Rose Rugby event for all pupils
eBooks – an update.
First of all, thank you very much for your support and engagement with our new online reading books. I hope you have seen, as you were reading with your child this week, that they were reading more fluently and more confidently as a result of the changes we have put in place. I would just like to update you all on a couple of items regarding the new system.
Sharing books – the ‘sharing books’ are the books that your child will bring back from the library every Friday. Take time to enjoy these books and talk with your children about the story or information they contain. We have also been working hard on expression in reading so these books are a perfect chance for you to model good expression which your child can copy.
It is very important that these books come back to school every Friday so that your child can bring home two new books.
eBooks – From next week I will assign your child’s new ebook on a Thursday. This is to avoid your child having 3 new books on the same day (Friday).
I have heard that some people have had a couple of problems accessing the books on a laptop or tablet device. There is an app you can download for tablets and phones which would probably make the experience better. Search Collins ebooks to find the app. If you are still having problems, please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
Reading records – I would still like to see reading records once a week, on a Thursday, as it is an important line of communication about your child’s reading.
Additional books – I will release all the books from your child’s previous reading phase into their ebook library early next week. This is so your child can have additional practice reading fluently and with expression if they want to.
Thank you for all your support with this new initiative and, as always, get in touch if you need to.
Thanks,
Mr McGriffiths
