School Saving Club
As part of our upcoming themed week, Money Matters, we’ll be setting up a School Saving Club, in partnership with Leeds City Credit Union.
There will be a parent information session on Wednesday 18 May, from 3pm-4pm, to find out more information and pick up an application form from Leasey Newton, Leeds City Credit Union.
As an extra incentive, children in Year 3 will receive £10 from Leeds City Council for opening an account.
During our Money Matters week, we’ll hold the first paying in session on Thursday 26 May from 3pm-4pm.
The Savings Club will then run on a monthly basis. The dates for this term are Wednesday 22 June from 3.15pm-4pm and Wednesday 20 July from 3.15pm-4pm.
Leeds City Credit Union First Savers account
Opening your child/children a First Savers Account is a fantastic way to help them to learn how to save and will teach them a skill they can use in the future. It has been proven that children who utilise a savings scheme within a school, watching their savings grow, continue to save throughout their adult lives.
There are no minimum requirements to this account and with each deposit, however small; your child will earn rewards to collect.
Leeds City Credit Union has introduced a new fun way for children to save and would like you to say hello to “The Potts Family”.
All children joining the savings club will be given an individual membership number and savings card. After every sixth deposit a sticker will be given. Each sticker represents a member of “The Potts Family”. When all the five stickers have been collected your child will receive a special badge of “Dolla” the dog.
Once the account is open, and your child reaches the signatory control age, the account will stay theirs to do as they wish, setting them up to continue saving throughout their adult life.
If you would like your child to join the Savings Club, please ask at the office for a First Savers application form, or come along to the parent information session on Wednesday 18 May from 3pm-4pm.
Do you have any old or foreign coins and bank notes?
If so, we will be launching a cash4coins PTA fundraiser during our Money Matters themed week.
Many people have some old foreign currency, either notes or coins and perhaps some old UK or Irish decimal coins.
We are collecting all worldwide current currency in notes or coins and any of the older currency such as the German Marks, Spanish Pesetas, old UK shillings, old UK decimal coins including Ireland, Channel Islands, Scotland, Isle of Man and £5/£2 coins.
We can turn your old money into a valuable donation.
Please donate at the school office.
Market research
This afternoon, we were ‘market researchers’ in preparation for our restaurant day on Friday (ask your child about this exciting learning).
Some of us went to Marks and Spencer’s and Cooplands to see which salads are available. Some of us carried out our market research here in school; either by asking adults or searching the Internet.
We then used our findings to decide on a salad that we will make (and sell – kind of) later in the week.
Prepare for your audition
On Wednesday, Year 5 and 6 will have the opportunity to auditions for parts in our upcoming production…
Robin and the Sherwood Hoodies.
If the children want a speaking part (no matter how big or how small) they’ve been asked to be ready to give a very short demonstration of their acting skills and will have the opportunity to identify which parts they’re interested in. Obviously, we won’t be able to give everyone their first choice but we’ll aim to give anyone who wants a speaking part some lines. Anything can be prepared for the audition but I’ve attached some scenes if the children want to use use those.
We’ve also discussed the importance of other roles in theatre: lighting, props, sound, stage hands, front of house. Any children not wanting an acting part will still be involved in the singing but may wish to take on one of these roles instead.
Break a leg!
National Smile Month
As part of National Smile Month, we will be having a calcium filled lunch special menu on Tuesday 24 May.
If your child would like to have a school meal on this day, please inform the office as soon as possible.
Food diary
This week, as part of our food topic, we’ll use our knowledge of healthy eating to analyse our own diets. We gave everyone (including me) a food diary to complete tomorrow (Tuesday). It’s very self explanatory and we need it for our learning on Wednesday.
Children should complete the diary as accurately as they can and bring it with them to school on Wednesday. It should only take five minutes to complete.
It case it gets lost, it looks like this:
Rocket seeds
A quick update on our rocket seeds…
They’re growing! We’ve been watering them and turning them each day so that they all receive the same amount of sunlight.
We can’t see any difference between the red and the blue yet but there is a noticeable difference according to which windowsill they’re on. We’ve concluded that one of the windowsills doesn’t receive as much sunlight as the others because those seeds are growing at a much slower rate.
Today, we’ll be calculating the percentage of seeds that have grown in each seed tray and noting it on our record sheet.
Hotshots
To launch our Money Matters themed week, on 23 May, we will hold a Hotshots fundraising event, led by TSC sports and dance coaching limited, to raise money for our two school charities: Yorkshire Air Ambulance and Mind. During the day, each class will be able to take part in the Hotshots event, with every child having three chances to score a goal and their fastest time recorded. All children will receive a certificate with their fastest shot and medals will be awarded for the fastest boy and girl in each class. Sponsor forms will be sent home and children are encouraged to raise money for this event. These should be returned, with any money raised, on the day.
Money Matters
Our next whole school themed week Money Matters, based around money and financial education, will be taking place from Monday 23 May 2016. A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of education.
During the week, we will look at questions including:
- What is money?
- Where does money come from?
- How do we spend money?
- How do we manage money?
If your job involves an aspect of finance and/or money and you can support our themed week by coming into school, please contact the office.
New topic: ‘Food’
This week, we have started a new topic: ‘Food‘. Before the Easter holidays, every child in Year 6 suggested a topic they would like to explore. After creating a shortlist, the children voted and decided on ‘Food‘.
So far, we’ve focused on the geography of the food we eat: where some foods originate from; how they travel to our plates; and why some foods are imported while some are produced here in the UK.
We’re excited to explore this topic further and will keep you updated about all our food-related learning.
You can help at home by (amongst other things!):
- discussing the origin of the foods you eat at home
- looking at the food packaging together and making sense of some of the information you are given
- discussing why some foods might be grown in specific countries
- discussing how foods are advertised and how this might affect us as consumers
- encouraging your child to think about the choices they make when choosing food to eat (are they healthy choices?)