Science mini topic
We’ve now started a science mini topic based on forces. To begin this topic, the children were shown a series of forces-related photos and asked to come up with questions based on what they would want to know.
There were some great scientific questions and these will lead into some investigations we will be doing based on forces.
BBC website has a number of videos on forces if you want to find out more.
What is our new school charity?
We support our school charity for a year and it is now time to change our current school charity, Make-A-Wish.
This week, each class, discussed a range of charities, researched by the children for their homework, and voted on one charity they wanted to put forward for the school councillors to decide on.
Here were the class choices:
The final democratic decision was made by a vote by the School Council and the winning charity for 2018-2019 is WWF. We will support this charity for one year.
KS1 cricket
Thank you to Tom Bates from Yorkshire Cricket who delivered great, fun cricket skills sessions yesterday for Year 1 and 2.
The sessions were to promote the All Stars cricket programme that will be available in 2019. Preregister on their website to receive details of how your child can take part in the sessions due to be held at local cricket clubs next year.
This video gives more information about All Stars cricket.
Living and Learning – Identity
For our next few Living and Learning sessions, we have asked the children to bring in something that represents them. This links in with our current theme all about Identity and what makes them special and unique.
We will do this over the next three weeks so please note the dates and groups below.
Tuesday 27 November Arctic Ocean
Tuesday 4 December Atlantic Ocean and Indian Ocean
Tuesday 11 December Pacific Ocean and Southern Ocean
The children should choose to bring in or talk about something to do with their family, an interest they have or any achievements they have made and be ready to share this with the class.
Topic Review
As it’s the last week of our big topic we’ve mixed up the classes to review what we’ve learned.
The Year 2s and the Year 5s have spent part of the morning talking about the learning in their books.
They then fed back about what each other had learned and particular pieces of learning that impressed them.
Time Travellers at Herd Farm
Our visit to Herd Farm, to take part in the Forest Schools’ Time Travellers workshop, has been a perfect end to our Time Travel big topic. Herd Farm was an amazing setting, in glorious Autumn sunshine, to discover different types of homes from the past.
First of all, we went right back in time to set up our own Stone Age camp. Lots of teamwork and problem solving skills were needed.
Safety first – Tina taught us how to hold the sticks correctly.
Next, we went to explore the replica Iron Age village.
Tina showed us the frame of the Iron Age roundhouse to explain the materials used and how the houses were put together. What materials were needed to build the houses? How was this different to houses built today?
All the class managed to fit in the larger house. Some Iron Age roundhouses were 40m wide!
What was inside the house? Why were these needed?
Now time to have a snack, enjoy the view and ask Ian, an archaeologist, questions about another type of home we have learnt about, castles.
Ian lit a fire in a traditional way. How did he do this?
The Iron Age roundhouses provided a great backdrop to sketch.
Finally, we spent time looking at the buildings at the residential centre which date back to 1760 and used to be a farm. We spotted alterations made to the old stone barn and farm house since this time to make it into the centre that it is today. The most modern building at the site was a sustainable building made from metal and wood.
We thoroughly enjoyed our outdoor learning experience discovering a range of houses from the past.
School dinner feedback
We always welcome feedback on our school dinner menu.
As a result of pupil, parent and staff feedback, there are a number of changes we are implementing, as we work with Catering Leeds to prepare our next menu, for after February half term.
- There will be a jacket potato choice on Thursdays to give three main meal choices rather than the current two choices.
- We will be trialing meat free Monday on week 3 of the menu cycle.
- Jacket potato choices will continue to be the most popular fillings on a rotation basis – cheese, tuna and beans.
- Vegetable choices will continue to be the most popular ones selected by pupils.
School dinners are always an agenda item at School Council meetings so children are encouraged to use their pupil voice to provide feedback to their school councillors or via a suggestion slip in the Living and Learning box.
The menu will be circulated to parents and posted on our website once this is available.
Takeover Challenge Day
Takeover Challenge day is on Friday 23 November
What is Takeover Challenge?
Takeover is a fun engagement project which sees schools and organisations across England opening their doors to children and young people to take over adult roles.
It puts children and young people in decision making positions and encourages schools and organisations to hear and act upon their views and ideas. Children and young people gain an insight into the adult world and schools and organisations benefit from a fresh perspective about their work.
Recently, our new School Council discussed how children could be involved in ‘taking over’ at school. Therefore on Friday, takeover activities will include serving school dinners (representatives from Year 4), working in the school office (representatives from Year 5), leading assembly (representatives from Year 6) and accompanying Mrs Weekes on a learning walk around school (representatives from Year 5 and 6).
In addition there will be opportunities within class where children will takeover. For example, taking the register, spelling/times table tests, parts of lessons, PE warm ups and guided reading.
Check our class news pages to see this in action.
Christmas dinner menu
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Thursday 13 December. Please contact the office, before Monday 26 November, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Reading skills
We’re using the picture book, A house that once was, to support our adjective and description learning in English this week.
Today, in our reading learning, we thought about the characters in the book and considered what we would ask the characters using what we know about the text so far.
- How did you find that house?
- How did you get there?
- How are you feeling?
- When did you discover the house?
- What are you looking at?
- Who are you?
- Where are you?
- What is covering the path?
- Are you meant to be there?
- Are you scared?
- Have you been to the house before?
We then used hot seating to ask these questions to our ‘characters’.
At home, try asking your child questions about the characters in fiction books to show your child’s understanding of the text.
