Be Food Smart
Be Food Smart is the latest health campaign from Change4life. Our everyday food and drink can contain surprisingly high amounts of sugar, saturated fat and salt, meaning most of us are eating more than we realise. National Child Measurement Programme data shows that one fifth of Reception and one third of Year 6 children are overweight or obese.
Public Health England has launched a free app, which families can use together to uncover how healthy their food choices are. The Be Food Smart app allows you to easily scan the bar codes of branded products, as well as supermarket favourites, to see how much sugar, saturated fat and salt is lurking inside.
This week, on a Good to be me theme, one of our parents spoke at a whole school assembly. She talked about changes she made to her diet and physical activity levels to become healthier.
One change she made was to have a healthy breakfast. We need this to give us a good start to the day.
Breakfast can have surprising amounts of sugar, saturated fat and salt. In fact, research has shown that children are eating nearly half their maximum daily amount of sugar before they get to school. See how sugar stacks up at breakfast time.
Having read this research, one family in school have recently made a change from sugary cereals to low sugar alternatives such as porridge and shredded wheat. Interestingly, at this same time, I commented to the parent that the particular child had become more focused in lessons.
Change4life provides lots of ideas for eating well and getting active, including ideas for packed lunches. The new lunchbox section has lots of simple, tasty and healthy tips for hassle-free lunches.
School Saving Club
The next School Saving Club paying in date is 02 February 2017 at 3.15-3.45pm.
If you are unable to attend in person, please hand in any money to be paid in, to the office in a sealed envelope addressed to Miss Hale.
For your information the paying in dates for the rest of the year are:
- 23 March 2017 3.15-3.45pm
- 18 May 2017 3.15-3.45pm
- 13 July 2017 3.15-3.45pm
If your child would like to open account, please ask at the office.
Highlights of the week
Well, it’s been a very busy week for Year 4!
Many thanks to all who turned up for our class assembly. The children worked very hard to put this performance together. They were incredibly proud of themselves and each other. We hope the water cycle song hasn’t driven you round the bend too much!
Yet again, Year 4 produced some superb homework showing what they know about solids, liquids and gases. We are constantly amazed by the creative ideas the children come up with. These are on display in the classroom and you are very welcome to pop in and take a look.
Our adventure through time has begun with the arrival of a life size Tardis in the classroom! We’re using this as a reading area and it’s proving very popular with adults and children alike!
During this topic, we will focus on transport through the ages. Working along a timeline, we’ll explore transport inventions, how different people travelled, why people travelled and many other aspects of transportation.
The Stone Age is where we have begun. This week we have studied this period of time and also created our own cave paintings – photos to follow…
For our maths lessons we’re exploring fractions. On Thursday, I gave the children a task to complete that involved some reasoning. The children had to explain and prove their thoughts and ideas. Here are some children at work. Their task was:
- TRUE OR FALSE?
- ONE THIRD IS LARGER THAN TWO FIFTHS
This is how they evidenced their ideas.
Mr Owen and I are looking forward to seeing you all again at forthcoming parents’ evenings. Please return your slips and we can allocate you a preferred time slot promptly.
As always, we encourage you to pop in with any concerns or questions you may have.
Half term pop-up sports
Assembly
Our class assembly is on Wednesday 18th January at 2.40pm. Please join us if you can.
New themed menus
Catering Leeds, our school meal provider, will be running a special Australia Day themed menu on Tuesday 24 January. This themed menu has recently been selected by our school councillors.
Please contact the office, by 12 January, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
Another themed menu selected by our school councillors is for Shrove Tuesday, 28 February.
Please contact the office, by 09 February, if your child would like a school dinner on this day.
What’s the matter?
We started our mini science based topic. The children were all very keen to learn about solids, liquids and gases.
The children enjoyed a carousel of activities including investigating solids and some scientific reading!
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.
- 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 science 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 theme also links with Moortown’s Got Talent, our upcoming annual talent show.
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.
End of term
The end of term is almost upon us and what a busy one it has been!
Mr Owen and I have been very impressed with the learning,the behaviour and the mature attitudes shown from all the children. This last week, we have enjoyed a super trip to the theatre, card making, puppet making, parties and our own little secret Santa surprise. You’ll have to wait until Christmas to enjoy that one!
Here a just a couple of quotes from the children about the autumn term:
- “I really enjoyed our big topic, especially making our picture frames.”
- “Going to Allerton Grange for STEM week was awesome!”
- “The STEM fair was very exciting. I enjoyed seeing all the different projects.”
- “Writing the character descriptions of Grandma was fun.”
- “Our SEAL sessions have really helped us to manage our feelings and cope with any difficulties.”
Finally, we would like to wish you all a very happy holiday and look forward to seeing you all in the new year.
Christmas Party!
Dancing – then statues!
