Animal Antics
Mags, from Animals Intuition, came into school this morning to show us and teach us about her animals. Here are some pictures:
School Council elections 11 February
Our current school councillors held their final meeting today as we prepare to elect our new school council. This year’s election date is Thursday 11 February.
Children from every class, including Reception, are encouraged to prepare a speech to present to their class as part of the election process. Our whole school homework before the election date (05 February) will give children the chance to plan their speech.
Thank you to our existing school council who have been involved with many decisions and discussions throughout the year. On today’s agenda, there have been discussions around the new school dinner menu, classroom reading areas, e-safety and general suggestions put forward by children in each class. It appears they have enjoyed the role as they all intend to stand again at the elections.
Creative homework
Here are this week’s favourite creative homeworks, as chosen by the children:
Borrow a book, borrow a bike
With 100 days to this year’s Tour De Yorkshire, a local bike library has been set up locally at Moor Allerton Library.
Leeds City Council has introduced a new Yorkshire Bike Bank which will allow residents to borrow bikes as well as books from the library.
Show and Tell
Tuesday’s Show and Tell is changing this term to make it a bit more focussed and structured. Instead of bringing in objects from home, children will bring in their favourite books and talk about them. This could be their favourite story, fact book, poetry collection, recipe book, religious book. If your child has a favourite author, they could talk about this person and their books.
Children will be told the Tuesday before if it’s their turn. This gives them some time to decide what book they will choose and what they are going to say. I’m not expecting a ten minute presentations, just a minute or two. They won’t need to prepare slides but they might like to make a few notes to help them remember what they are going to say.
A general structure for their presentation could be:
- Introduce the book – What is it? What is it about? Who has written it? Illustrated it?
- Why do you like it?
- If it’s a story, what are the main characters like?
- What are your favourite parts of the story, favourite recipe, fact page, etc.
- Who would you recommend the story to and why?
A big thank you!
Thank you to all the people who donated money at the end of the Whoops-a-Daisy Angel performances. Altogether, we raised a fantastic £287.78! This will be split between our two charities: St Gemma’s Hospice and Cancer Research.
Let’s get sugar smart
Today has seen a new campaign launch by Change 4 Life, the government’s public health initiative, aimed at reducing the amount of sugar that children consume.
The free Sugar Smart App can tell you the amount of sugar in items by scanning the barcode, and then displaying the result as a number of cubes or in grams. The app can be used as a way of revealing the hidden sugar content in foods and to make us more aware of what children are consuming.
Public Health England, which runs the Change 4 Life campaign, hopes the Sugar Smart app and campaign will help combat tooth decay, obesity and type two diabetes and encourage families to choose healthier alternatives.
New SEAL theme…Good to be me
Our new SEAL (Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning) theme for this half-term, Good to be me, focuses on three main areas of learning:
•Self-awareness – feeling good about yourself, taking risks.
•Managing Feelings – understanding feelings, and why and how they lead us to behave the way we do – particularly the feelings of being excited, proud, surprised, hopeful, disappointed, worried and anxious and standing up for yourself –assertiveness skills, standing up for your views.
•Empathy
This theme explores feelings in the context of the child as an individual, developing self-awareness and helping the child to realise that it really is ‘Good to be me’. The theme is about understanding our feelings as well as considering our strengths and weaknesses as learners.
As part of our current mini topic, What’s the matter?, children will also ask ‘What’s the matter?’ from a social and emotional point of view, understanding feelings and thinking about how they can solve problems.
The key ideas and concepts behind the theme of Good to be me are:
Building emotional resilience
Children need to become resilient if they are to be healthy and effective life-long learners.
Coping with anxiety and worrying
Worry and anxiety are major features in many children’s lives. Many children have good reasons to be anxious. Exploring worries is important.
Calming down
Although getting stressed, anxious or angry are important and useful emotions, sometimes these feelings can be overwhelming.
Assertiveness
The theme encourages children to become assertive – that is, able to recognise and stand up for their rights while recognising and respecting the rights of others.
Understanding feelings and how they influence behaviour
The theme explores the relationship between ‘thinking’ and ‘feeling’ and the way each impacts on our behaviour. It looks at Flight or Fight rapid response to situations of threat and our responses to feeling threatened /under stress.
‘I respond to difficult situations in a positive way’ is the first SEAL statement for this theme.
Have a happy holiday!
I’ve thoroughly enjoyed my first term in Year 2 and have been really impressed with how hard the children have worked and the progress they have made. Here’s an A to Z guide to my first term…
- Ahmed has impressed me with his curiosity in science lessons.
- Aisha was a marvellous Whoops-A-Daisy Angel.
- Alexander has shown an excellent, mature attitude to his learning
- Alexandra did brilliantly to take on two roles in the production at very short notice.
- Arundeep has shown that he is an excellent mathematician.
- Ben has shown he understands how to use a range of punctuation in his writing.
- Byron also really impressed me in science lessons.
- Charles really impressed me with how mature he was when talking about his learning with Mr Roundtree and me.
- Daniel has impressed me in reading, writing and maths this term.
- Eleni has shown great enthusiasm in everything she does.
- Eliza’s reading and especially her comprehension skills have been really excellent this term.
- Enas has been a really positive, smiley presence in the classroom.
- Eve is a great SEAL role model in the class. She’s a very kind and caring class member.
- Evie’s spelling has been a highlight for me. She’s a walking dictionary!
- Finlay’s artistic skills are brilliant.
- Gurnoor’s smile and laugh have been ever-present this term.
- Kirsten is another person who has done very well in reading, writing and maths lessons.
- Kismat really impressed me with her reading comprehension skills.
- Maggie really impressed Mrs Taylor with her understanding of SEAL concepts.
- Manpreet has shown that she is a confident mathematician.
- Natasha’s learning in maths has also been great this term.
- Nayaab’s readiness to learn has been a model to everyone in the class.
- Poppy has impressed in all subjects but did especially well in a recent maths assessment.
- Rabiya’s progress in reading and spelling has been fantastic.
- Sam works very hard in all lessons. His handwriting is particularly impressive.
- William’s ability to explain his reasoning in maths lessons has been excellent.
- Zakariya’s progress with his handwriting has been superb.
- Zara’s focus in lessons has really improved and I’ve been particularly pleased with her writing.
- Zidaan’s creative homeworks have often stood out this term when we’ve reviewed them as a class.
Finally, a massive well done to Laila who has made amazing progress this term. The improvements in her reading and writing have been amazing. Well done!
I hope you have a lovely holiday and I look forward to seeing you in the New Year!
Creative Homeworks
Below are the 8Rs of learning homeworks that the children chose as their favourites.
