School dinner consultation
Thank you to all parents and carers who provided feedback on the recent school dinner consultation of meal choices for the September menu.
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, can offer an alternate jacket potato and sandwich option alongside the meat and vegetarian daily option and we welcomed your feedback on whether this would work for you and your child(ren).
There were a number of parents/carers who were interested to try this option but the majority of responses expressed an interest to keep the options as they currently are. The main feedback was for children to have a hot meal for their school meal rather than a sandwich.
As a result of this, we will continue with the existing daily meat, vegetarian and jacket potato option.
The September menu is currently in the planning stages and we have liaised with Catering Leeds to ensure the menu is tailored to our children’s preferences, while still meeting the national school food criteria. Once finalised, this new menu will be made available to parents/carers at the end of the summer term.
Our current menu can be viewed in the Health section and is displayed around school.
Thank you once again for your feedback on our school meals.
Themed menu
Catering Agency, our school meal provider, will be running a special themed menu on Tuesday 15 May.
Please contact the office, by Friday 04 May, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Big Pedal day 2
We’ve had a great increase in the number of journeys to school by bike and scooter with 24% of pupils travelling in this way today. Thank you for your support to promote this sustainable travel.
Reception continue to be the class with the highest number of pupils biking or scooting with Year 2 in second place today.
Remember, if you have to come by car to school, park further away so your child can scoot or bike the rest of the way.
The Big Pedal
Today was the first day of the Big Pedal, a Sustrans initiative to encourage sustainable travel to school by bike or scooter, running from 23 April to 04 May.
Well done to Reception who were our winning class today with a third of the children travelling to school by scooter. Year 3 were second and Year 4 were third.
Schools will be entered into daily prize draws if we have over 15% cycle or scoot on each day of the challenge. Let’s try to increase numbers of children who bike or scoot to school tomorrow as we compete with schools locally and across the country.
The Big Pedal is back!
Get set… we’re taking part in Sustrans Big Pedal 2018, the UK’s largest inter-school cycling and scooting challenge, that inspires pupils, staff and parents to choose two (or three) wheels for their journey to school.
The Big Pedal will run alongside our year round Living Streets WOW sustainable travel initiative where the children record how they travel to school on our daily travel tracker.
The Big Pedal challenge focuses on journeys made by bike and scooter and runs from 23 April to 04 May. We would love everyone to be involved.
The details
On each day of the challenge, schools compete to see who can record the greatest number of pupils, staff and parents cycling or scooting to school. Our best five days will determine our final position in the challenge. We’ll be competing against other schools right across the UK, and if we clock up the most bike and scooter journeys, we’ll win!
Why we’re taking part
It’s a great way to get more of our pupils travelling to school on their bikes and scooters. We will be competing to become one of the UK’s top schools for two-wheeled journeys and will be in with a chance to win prizes including bike and scooter stunt shows and fantastic cycle and scooter storage.
What’s next?
All you need to do is encourage your child(ren) to cycle or scoot to school every day during the event, and join them on their way.
If you do need the car to bring your child(ren) to school, you could park further away from school and bike or scoot the last part.
Living and learning – Healthy minds
- 16 April I can name emotions.
- 23 April I recognise emotions in myself and others. Being aware of different emotions – both positive and negative – is an important basis for good mental health.
- 30 April I show empathy. Talk to your child about empathy, both in real-life situations and also when discussing characters in a book, film or TV programme.
- 08 May I can describe ways to calm down. We all get worked up from time to time – how do different people calm down?
- 14 May I use calming down strategies. Calming down strategies might include any of the mindfulness techniques children have been taught or counting to ten, going for a walk, getting a glass of water – discuss what works for you and your child?
- 21 May I recognise mental health is important. We want our children to be happy and healthy!
This text is a great introduction to the topic of mental health for children.
Welcome back
We hope that you all have enjoyed the holidays. The spring term was a very busy one indeed. Below are a few quotes from the children’s most recent feedback forms.
- “I loved learning about past famous explorers.”
- “PE is great fun and we are really good at working in teams.”
- “I really like how much reading we do. We have lots of different reading types in our classroom.”
- “I feel that my fractions work has really improved. I wasn’t sure at first but now I get it.”
- “I find writing hard. The teachers help me and encourage me to check and edit my work.”
- “I love DT. We had made rafts, monsters, dens, been archeologists, and lots of cooking.”
Our summer term, once more, is packed full of learning.
Mini-topic: Electricity
Electricity is the theme for our learning for the next few weeks. We’ll identify common appliances that run on electricity, construct a simple electrical circuit, identify and name its basic parts, including cells, wires, bulbs, switches and buzzers.
Big-topic:
This term, we won’t be learning through a big-topic. Instead, we’ll have several mini-topics. In Science, we’ll learn about the simple functions of the basic parts of the digestive system in humans. Also, identify the different types of teeth in humans and their simple functions.
In History, we’re going to study The Egyptians – a fascinating period of time to explore and discover! 
Reading:
We’re starting the term with a class set of our new novel ‘Ottoline and the Yellow Cat.’ 
With a child each having a book, we can all follow the story much more easily and share the reading. We’ll explore the language, themes, context and our own opinions of this much loved story.
PE:
Kits are needed in school every Monday and Friday. Some children are not bringing the correct kit to school. Please ensure you are aware of the uniform policy. If you are unsure have a look on the website or check with one of us.
Herd Farm
We’re all very excited about our upcoming visit to Herd Farm. Please call in if you have any further questions regarding this.
As always, remember to call in if there’s anything we can support with – we are happy to help where we can.
Our best sporting achievement to date
Today, at the West Yorkshire School Games, our Year 6 orienteering team have successfully won bronze medals competing against over 20 of the best teams from across West Yorkshire. A fantastic achievement! Well done to the whole team.
Production
A quick reminder that Year 3 and 4 will showcasing their production of ‘Darwin Rocks‘ at 2pm tomorrow and 6pm on Wednesday.
On Wednesday, the children will need to return to school for 5.30pm. Please can you let us know if this causes a problem.
Both classes have worked very hard over the last few weeks and are very excited to perform to family and friends.
Please try to arrive on time as latecomers can be quite off-putting for the children.
We hope you enjoy the show.
Living and Learning homework: What is beauty?
Last week, our homework was a Talk Time: What is beauty?
Yesterday, we spent some time discussing this as a class. To start with, the children established that there is no right or wrong answer. We agreed that we would listen to and respect each other’s opinions, even if we disagreed.
The children passed a beanbag to each other and, on receiving it, they then stated what they thought about beauty.
I was so impressed how mature all the class were during our review. Lots of children had spoken to someone at home in great detail. Below are some of the responses:
- Zidaan – “Beauty is what is on the inside.”
- Alexander – “A painting can be seen to be beautiful by some people but not to others.”
- Eliza – “Beauty is an opinion.”
- Poppy – “Everyone is unique. You don’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.
- Maggie – “There are different types of beauty. Some can be good and some can make people sad.”
- Eve – “Trying to be beautiful, could be dangerous.”
- Daniel – “Beauty is internal.”
- William – “Beauty is skindeep.”
- Gurnoor – “Beauty is fashion.“
- Milo – “Beauty is something that attracts others.”
- Eleni – “Beauty goes beyond the eyes.”
- Finlay – “Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.”
- Henry – “Not everyone sees beauty in the same way.”
