Cross Country Leeds Final
*** UPDATE*** Congratulations to our Year 3 girls team and one of our Year 4 runners who have qualified for the West Yorkshire Cross Country Final.
We were very proud of our eight Key Stage 2 children who took part in the Leeds Cross Country Final at Temple Newsam this week.
In muddy, slippy, wet conditions they all put in 100% effort in their races and were a great support for each other. The children should feel proud of competing against the best runners from across Leeds.
We’ll wait to hear if we have any qualifiers for the next round, the West Yorkshire Final.
Thank you to parents who helped with transport and supported at the event.
PE: Dance
We are dancers!
In PE this half term, we have been doing dance. We’ve been exploring different elements of dance and how we can use them when creating a final group routine.
- Space – pathways
- Tempo – time
- Dynamics
We started the half term by exploring different pathways – curved, angular and freeform. We imagined we were in snow and had to imagine the trail we would be leaving as we moved through the space.
Next we looked at tempo. This is the speed at which a dancer moves: fast, slow, acceleration, deceleration or free flowing. We spoke about the rhythmic use of the body to music, sound, no sound or voice.
Finally, we thought about different dynamics in dance. These are the movements we make and the quality of these movements. The three we looked at were:
- swinging
- suspending
- vibrating
To end this unit, your children got into groups and created a routine to Roar by Katy Perry. They had to think about all the elements we’ve covered this half term in their final piece. I was amazed by all of their dances – they were fantastic! All of your children were confident dancers and demonstrated all three elements brilliantly.
Help at home: put on your favourite song and ask your child to dance to it while thinking about the three elements of dance.
Safer Internet Day
Today was Safer Internet Day! This was a day designated to all things online safety.
In Year 4, we focused on some key elements of online safety:
- Fake news
- Phishing
- Sharing personal information
- Scams
We began by discussing fake news and how we can spot it. Not everything we read online is true and we must make sure we don’t trust everything we read. Questions we can ask when deciding if an information source is trustworthy:
- Who has written it?
- Do they have a good reputation?
- Why has it been written?
- Is it opinion or fact?
- Is it high quality?
We then explored some different sources of information all about Roblox and had to rank them from most trustworthy to least trustworthy – using our questions to help us.
It’s really important to always speak to a trusted adult if you’re unsure about something you read online.
We joined a great BBC live lesson for Safer Internet Day all about scamming and phishing.
Phishing involves tricking someone into giving out personal information online by pretending to be someone else.
We learnt how to spot a phishing scam using a helpful acronym.
Whenever we suspect a phishing scam, we should always tell a trusted adult and then block and report the scammer.
Finally, we discussed how to create a safe password. Our recipe for a strong and secure password:
Ingredients:
- 3 random words
- at least 1 number
- at least 1 symbol
- some capital letters
Method:
- Combine ingredients and mix up the order.
Help at home: ask your children how they can spot a scam online and what they should do if they find one.
New school meal menu
After February half term, we start our new menu which runs to the end of the year. It can be viewed here. Please review this with your child to help with their selection at the start of the day. We continue to offer meat free Mondays.
The cost of a school meal is £2.75, which should be paid in advance on the School Gateway app. We’re happy to accept payment for the week, month, half term or term. We prefer two weeks’ notice to change lunch arrangements.
All children in Reception, Year 1 and Year 2 receive free school meals. If your child is in Year 3 to Year 6, and you are on benefits or a low income, your child may be eligible for free school meals.
Some people like to choose a mix of school dinners and packed lunch for their child – that’s absolutely fine, as long as it’s a the same pattern of school dinners and packed lunches every week. Just let office staff know which days you’d like to opt in for a school meal in the week, and which days you’d prefer to provide your child with a packed lunch.
We continue to gather feedback from children on our school meals. Shortly, we will be reviewing our vegetable choices to help to eliminate waste.
If you have any feedback. please do get in touch.
Geography: predicting eruptions
We’re geographers!
In Year 4, our geography topic this half-term has been volcanoes. As you would’ve seen in our class assembly, your children have been loving it and have become volcano experts!
We began exploring a case study of Mount Vesuvius and its devastating eruption that destroyed the town of Pompeii. Despite this tragic eruption, roughly 3,000,000 people still leave near Mount Vesuvius so we wanted to find out why.
Your children began by analysing some data of the major eruptions of Mount Vesuvius and the human death toll. They discussed how over time, the number of deaths from each eruption have declined.
So, we wanted to discover why this was. To do this, we learnt all about the different techniques that can help us predict eruptions and therefore protect people from them.
- Seismometer – used to measure vibrations in the Earth which could show when an eruption is coming.
- Tiltmeters and GPS satellites – used to monitor changes in the landscape as volcanoes tend to swell near an explosion.
- Spiders – robots called spiders are used to measure the gases escaping from a volcano.
- Thermometers – used to measure the temperature of the ground as volcanoes get hotter when magma starts to rise through the main vent.
- Pattern spotting -looking back at previous eruptions means scientists can start to spot patterns.
Help at home: ask your child what they think the most effective technique for predicting eruptions would be and why?
Living and learning: online safety assembly
This week, Louise from West Yorkshire Police came to deliver a whole school assembly all about staying safe online.
There were lots of clear online safety messages around content, contact and conduct.
At the end of the assembly, the children reflected on what they were going to do after hearing Louise’s messages.
I am going to ask my adult to take off the chat on my Roblox settings.
I am not going to accept friend requests from people I don’t know.
I am not going to play games that have a age rating older than me as they won’t be appropriate for me.
Help at home: ask your child how content, conduct and contact are linked to online safety.
Living & Learning: online safety
Today, Year 4 were lucky to have a workshop from D:Side all about staying safe online – particularly when playing online games.
Not everything we see online is trustworthy and your children were great at identifying that! We discussed how not everyone online is who they say they are so we must always speak to a trusted adult if we are unsure or feel unsafe online.
Although the internet is great for many things, we must make sure we are using it safely. For example, your children love playing lots of online games (which can be great fun) but sometimes they also introduce some risks. That is why they have age restrictions based on what content is included in the games.
In Year 4, we should only be playing games that are rated ages 3 or 7. This is because they have content that is appropriate for our age.
We were all really impressed with your children’s knowledge of how to stay safe online. It was great to hear all their contributions for how we can also make sure we’re being safe and responsible online.
Help at home: check the age ratings of your child’s favourite games to play online. Are they appropriate for them to play?
KS2 ice skating Planet Ice
As part of our involvement with Leeds Well Schools Partnership, a group of twelve Key Stage children recently took part in an ice skating session at Planet Ice.
After getting kitted out with our ice skates, we ventured onto the ice with some children being very hesitant. Our instructor taught us how to get up safely if we fell (and there were quite a few falls!), how to move forward on our skates and how to glide. All the children had a great attitude to learning these skills and showed excellent resilience and support to each other. By the end of the session, there was some great progress made and lots more smiles! Well done to all the children who took part.
This event was incredibly popular with over 90 children requesting to take part. If you would like to give ice skating a go, then have a look at the sessions available at Planet Ice. We’d recommend it!
Our school trip to Magna!
Today, we were lucky enough to visit Magna on our second school trip of the year! Magna is a science adventure centre but this trip also linked brilliantly to our current geography topic: volcanoes.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance
This year, our Junior Leadership Team democratically selected Yorkshire Air Ambulance as our new school charity to support.
Yorkshire Air Ambulance is an independent charity providing a lifesaving rapid response emergency service to 5 million people across the whole of Yorkshire. Money raised keeps both of their air ambulance helicopters maintained and in the air.
This week, we welcomed representatives from Yorkshire Air Ambulance for an assembly to hear first hand about the excellent work they do and how our donations will help the charity.
Did you know it costs £21,000 per day to keep the Yorkshire Air Ambulance running.
It’s great to hear the children have already got ideas of how we can raise money for YAA. They are encouraged to put these ideas into our class Living and learning boxes for the Junior Leadership Team to consider.