Living and Learning: Democracy
With the School Council elections this week, Year 2 spent our Living and Learning session considering what is democracy and how we can become involved in democratic decisions.
Democracy, one of the British Values, means ‘rule by the people‘. It comes from the Greek words dêmos (people) and krátos (rule or strength).
Democratic means people having a chance to say what they think should happen.
In class, we have already been taking part in democratic decisions. At the start of the year, the children voted when deciding what class animal to adopt from WWF and also when choosing its name. We also discussed a future class vote to decide our next whole class reward when we complete our class ladybird spots.
Ask your child about this text and what problem was solved democratically. How did Roshan react?
Well done to all the children who spent time preparing and then presenting their School Council speeches this week. All the children gave confident speeches with lots of great ideas to make changes at school.
In the election, the children voted at our polling station, using their ballot paper, for who they thought would be the best person for the job.
We are proud to announce that Danny and Theo were successfully elected and they will be representing our class this year. Well done!
All children can still use their pupil voice to make suggestions for the School Council meetings by telling their school councillors or putting a suggestion in the Living and Learning box.
4Rs not the 8Rs
This week, as we come to the end of our materials science topic, we welcomed members of the Leeds City Council Waste Recycling team to talk about waste and recycling.
Firstly, we learnt about the different bins we have at home and what should and shouldn’t be put in each bin.
We’re used to the 8Rs of learning but in terms of waste, we learnt about the 4Rs – reduce, reuse, recycle and recover.
‘To reduce food waste, you could put your leftovers in a box and have it later.’ Betsy
‘If your clothes are too small, you could take them to a charity shop to be reused.’ Evie
Next, we did a transformation activity to look at how some materials can be reused. Did you know Tetrapaks (such as some milk and juice cartons) can’t be recycled in the green bin but there are now recycling points, around Leeds, where they can be taken.
We followed a set of instructions to transform a Tetrapak into a purse!
How do we manage waste at school?
- Each class has a recycle bin to recycle paper and card.
- We reuse paper by having a scrap paper drawer in class.
- We recycle our milk cartons every day.
- We try to reduce food waste by allowing children to choose their main meal choice at the start of the day.
- In Year 2, we have our Ecobrick for any plastic that can’t be recycled.
Next, we met some some of our own waste recycling advisors who had to deal with some waste scenarios.
We finished with Busta and Pong’s song to recap the important message of recycling.
What a great informative session we had!
Here are some questions to discuss with your child.
- What colour is the recycling bin in Leeds?
- Which bin should you put nappies in?
- Which bin should you put food waste in?
- What is the brown bin for?
- Where could we take old clothes?
- Where does glass go?
- What can be reused?
- What are the 4Rs?
- Why do we need to recycle?
E-Safety and Art
Year 2 have been learning about safety both on and off line.
First, we watched a cartoon, specifically produced for young children, from the Thinkuknow website. The aim of the Lee & Kim: Animal Magic cartoon is to teach 5-7 year olds about personal information and the importance of keeping this secure both online and off. The cartoon follows the adventures of two children, Lee and Kim, who are playing an online game where they interact and play with different people using animal avatars. The online safety messages from the cartoon and storybook are reinforced by SID, a superhero in the cartoon who helps Lee and Kim navigate the online game safely.
Ask your child about the characters in the cartoon.
https://www.thinkuknow.co.uk
Key issues covered
- what personal information is and the importance of keeping personal information private
- being polite and courteous online
- how to identify adults you can trust
- where to go for help
Following this, the children logged on (safely) and got to work with some computer art. The aim was to paint a picture of their own ‘Wild Thing’ that will form part of a non-chronological report being written in class.
Diwali
Every Wednesday afternoon, Year 2 are taught RE by Mrs Bharath. Recently, the children have been learning about the religious festival – Diwali.
What is Diwali?
Diwali a five-day festival of lights, celebrates a number of themes, including joy, forgiveness, knowledge, the goddess of wealth, Lakshmi, and the legend of Rama and Sita. Put simply, the festival represents the triumph of good over evil.
Hindus, Sikhs and Jains both in India and across the world take part by decorating houses and public spaces with thousands of lights, candles and colourful designs. As well as the bright colours and glittering lights, there’s music, dancing, delicious food and a cresting wave of community feeling.
Today, the children made Diva lights. Working hard to create the shape, the class then decorated their light with all things sparkly.
School Council elections
We have recently launched this year’s School Council election process. Our School Council is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers.
Here are some of the qualities our school councillors think are needed to be an effective school councillor.
- use the 8Rs for learning
- be respectful and polite
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- share and be confident with your ideas
- let others speak
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school
Our current whole school homework is all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections next Thursday 24 October.
Living and Learning: Rights and Responsibilities
This Living and Learning statement is a really important one for helping us to live in a respectful, responsible way. It can relate to lots of different aspects of life. Having rights links well with British Values (Individual liberties).
In our Living and Learning session this week, we considered the rights we have but also the associated responsibilities.
Responsibility is one of our 8Rs for learning that we have been learning about this half term.
For example, we have the right to think and believe what we wish to so we have the responsibility to respect other people’s thoughts and beliefs.
We have the right to food, and the responsibility to make our own healthy choices.
We have the right to play, and we have the responsibility to play safely and sensibly with our friends.
We have the right to learn, and we have the responsibility to follow our school rules.
We also heard about the inspirational young woman from Pakistan, Malala Yusafzai, who claimed her right to an education.
Help at home by encouraging your child to think about their rights and responsibilities outside of school.
Raising money for WWF
In Year 2, we are supporting our school charity, WWF, by adopting a polar bear (as voted for by the children). The adoption costs £30 for the year and so we have been thinking about how to raise this money.
After only deciding yesterday that we would bring in any spare 1ps and 2ps, we were amazed this morning to see how many children had remembered this and started to fill our tube. Thank you for your support!
Here is the latest update from WWF on the polar bears we are supporting.
‘WWF is pleased to announce that the collaborative polar bear patrol model is successfully reducing the number of conflicts between people and polar bears.
Since introducing the programme in 2010, WWF and the Hamlet of Arviat, Nunavut, Canada, have dramatically reduced the number of polar bears killed by people protecting themselves and their property. An average of eight bears were killed each year before 2010, but that’s now dropped to one per year, despite an increasing frequency of encounters between people and polar bears.
Polar bear patrols have also advanced in Russia and Greenland. Your support helps to provide funding to reduce instances of conflict between polar bears and communities, including hiring guards to patrol communities and scare away bears. ‘
Bonfire night themed menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Tuesday 5th November. Please contact the office, as soon as possible, if your child would like a school meal on this day (no action needed if your child normally has a school meal on this day).
We are constructing.
Last week, Years 1 and 2 joined forces to begin their work on constructing boats. The children chose from a range of materials and were able to use these appropriately.
The children were supportive to one another offering help if needed.
My boat is not very secure. I’m going to add more tape.
How can I make the mast more stable?
I wonder if this material is waterproof?
The finished products were amazing!
Supporting your child’s learning
Thanks to everyone who attended the learning workshop last week. We hope that we were able to answer any questions that you had and that you feel able to support your child’s learning at home.
Remember, short chunks of time will work best to keep your child focused and interested. Try learning a few spellings or times table facts a night rather than looking at them all at the same time; listen to your child read for 10 minutes but then read to them too; and make sure they see you read for pleasure, even if it is a newspaper or magazine.
Here is the powerpoint that was used for the workshop. Please come and ask if you have any questions.
