An energetic start to the new year
Year 1 have been very active in their first week back with our new PE lessons for this half term. In the first of our two weekly PE lessons, we are working with Mr Lynch, a local dance teacher, to develop our movement and dance skills. By the end of the first lesson there were some great partner performances showing a range of actions.
Our second weekly PE lesson is with Mr Catherall, one of our teaching assistants and also a qualified sports coach, who is developing our skills needed for invasion games such as basketball, rugby, football and others. Ask your child how they use their sticky pads!
PE is usually Monday and Tuesday so please ensure your child has their PE kit at school, to get the most out of these lessons.
After school-club availability Spring term
We have the following spaces available on the upcoming after-school clubs:
Monday
- Shuffles KS2 FREE 8 places available
- Art KS1 £20 Full
Tuesday
- Sports multi-fit KS1 FREE 3 places available
- Dance and Drama KS2 FREE 5 places available
Wednesday
- Cookery KS1 £20 Full
- Dodgeball KS2 FREE Full
Thursday
- French KS1 £20 10 places available
- Scratch Code Club £20 Full
Friday
- TSC football places available
To book your child a place on one of these clubs, please complete the booking form and return to the office by Thursday 09 January 2014.
To book your child onto the TSC Football club, visit TSC direct and follow their booking process.
The TSC Football club starts on 24 January. All other clubs start week commencing 13 January 2014.
Phew… time for a rest!
We’re not surprised that Year 1 are looking wan and tired! They have put a lot of effort into their learning and as a result they are making excellent progress.
Here are some of the highlights of the term:
- Welcome to Zia; you have settled really well and have made lots of friends.
- Well done to Josh, Gabby, Lori, Nicky, Lewis and Filip for making great progress in writing.
- Pia, Mia, Martha and Humairah have shown great social skills and show that they understand others.
- The maths mega-stars this term are: Farai, Ripley and Alex. We’re looking forward to see what you have in store for next term.
- Ben, Isaac, Thomas and Kai: we feel that our own general knowledge is much better with your contributions to class discussions.
- Well done to Theo and Isaiah for always trying hard in phonics lessons and improving their spelling scores.
- Sachpreet, Manpreet and Noorpreet are making excellent progress in all areas and are showing excellent social skills.
- Grace, Ethan, Ishaan, Ismail, Albert and Phoebe are showing that they are becoming independent learners and are demonstrating excellent learning behaviour.
- Finally, thank you to Dylan who has come in with a smile every day and shown great progress in speaking and listening.
We hope that you and your families have a wonderful Christmas break and we ‘ll see you in January for lots more learning.
13 December 2013
This week’s homework is creative.
I can respond, creatively, to a piece of art.
Each child has one of three pieces of art in their homework book that have been the focus of three art afternoons this week. We would like them to respond to this art in any way they choose but make it creative.
Here are some ideas to start you off:
- Create your own version of the artwork eg create your own triptych, landscape scene or portrait.
- Write a description.
- Write a story thinking about what might happen in your piece of art, or who it is of.
- Tell us what you think about it.
- Think about whether you can do any maths, writing or reading connected to it.
Money well spent!
Year 1 decided to spend their profit (£24) from their stall at the Enterprise fair on some new books to be enjoyed by the class. We chose a mixture of fiction, by the author Julia Donaldson, and non fiction. There was even a snake book for Filip. It was great to see the enjoyment these books brought to the children – definitely money well spent.
What can you do in a minute?
Year 1 timed themselves doing lots of different things in one minute. Have a go at home.
How many star jumps can you do in a minute? Alex can do 99!
How many times can you write your name in a minute? Ben can write his name 16 times.
How many times can you hop on one leg in a minute? Humairah can do it 104 times.
The world of work
This week it is Money and Enterprise week and two visitors came to talk to us about setting up and running a business.
Meg from Radish bookshop in Chapel Allerton talked to us about how businesses can help others. In her shop are a range of Fairtrade items alongside the books that she sells. Well done, Isaac, for remembering the term Fairtrade and winning the book prize from Meg.
Harriet from a shop called Chirpy, also in Chapel Allerton, talked to us about how she set up her business and the importance of choosing a good name and advertising her shop to encourage customers to visit. She had lots of interesting products to show us. On the height chart she brought, Lewis was as tall as a wheelie bin!
Call and say hello to Meg and Harriet if you are visiting Chapel Allerton.
Fun fit
The Shuffles Fun Fit after-school club has been running this half-term including a different energetic activity every week.
There has been a mix of street dance, breakdance, multi-sports, short tennis, football coaching, relays & fun games with the main aim to keep the children active and to have fun.
We will continue to offer the club in the Spring and Summer terms and we intend to use some of our PE and school sports government funding to fully subsidise this and other physical activity after-school clubs. Look out for more details when the Spring after-school clubs information is sent out.
‘I like going to Shuffles fun fit club because we do a different fun thing every week.’
Several times on purpose
During anti-bullying day, Year 1 had some great discussions about bullying.
We looked at our school definition, focussing on the fact that bullying takes place more than once rather than a one-off incident.
Bullying is where you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, more than once and on purpose.
Using material from the go givers website, we talked about how words can hurt others as much as being hurt physically. The class were able to identify lots of people they could tell about any bullying incidents.
Then we were involved in an anti-bullying dance workshop with Flex Dance Inc. Well done, Lewis, for knowing that David Cameron is our prime minister. Here we are in rehearsals.
STOP!
Today is anti-bullying day, part of national anti-bullying week. Several of our classes have taken part in anti-bullying dance workshops led by Melissa from Flex Dance Inc. All the artists of the songs used in the whole school performances have been victims of bullying in their lives. Well done to all the children involved who learned their routines in such a short time and produced very confident performances.
Last week at our latest School Council meeting, all school councillors agreed to keep our current definition of bullying:
Bullying is when you hurt someone, physically or emotionally, more than once and on purpose.
Alongside this definition we have used the following prompts for the children to remember:
- Several
- Times
- On
- Purpose
- Start
- Telling
- Other
- People
Advice about bullying is available on a number of websites. These include Kidscape, Childline, anti-bullying alliance, BBC and ThinkUKnow. Talk Time homework this week will give you chance to discuss this important topic with your child/children.
Our children tell us they would speak to an adult in school, family or friends if they were to experience bullying or if they saw bullying.
‘I feel safe because school would deal with bullying.’
‘I feel safe at school as there are always teachers there if you ever have any problems.’
‘I feel safe at school because everyone around me looks after me.’
Pupil health questionnaire 2013
If you do have any concerns about bullying, please speak to a member of staff.
