Scholes swimming pool
Way back in October (21.10.16), we invited you support the efforts of parents and carers at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, one of our Sphere Federation partner schools.
The school is very unusual in that it has its own swimming pool. It’s a small, shallow one, but is great for introducing younger children to swimming. The pool has been closed for essential maintenance and a massive fundraising campaign has taken place. We encouraged you to vote for the school to benefit from a grant.
I’m delighted to tell you that the Save Scholes Pool team has won an Aviva Community Fund grant out of the thousands of entries that were submitted. The application made it to the final stage and eventually won £10,000!
This takes the total amount raised to £45,ooo which is the core amount that the Save Scholes Pool team set out to achieve 16 months ago. They’ve now got their fingers crossed for more good news that could take the funds to the £50k total.
Thank you for supporting our Sphere partner school.
Scientists and product testers
Today, Year 2 received a letter from Mr Vango asking for their help to test various materials to see if they are waterproof and therefore suitable for their tents. We used lots of science skills to test this out.
Questioning
- ‘Is the material waterproof?’
- ‘Is the material strong?’
- ‘Does it tear?’
- ‘Is it flexible?’
Predicting
‘We predict that plastic will be the best material because it’s strong and waterproof.’
Testing, observing and recording
Concluding
We found out that plastic, paper and foil were all waterproof but, when we considered other characteristics of the materials, we decided that plastic would be the best material for the tents. Our prediction was correct! We hope this helps Mr Vango with his research.
This online activity allows you to investigate properties of materials more.
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 love working scientifically in Year 6 and loved experiencing reversible and irreversible changes first hand. It really helped us to understand these words as we could see it happening in front of us.
Tricky words
The children enjoyed reading their bananas this week!
Phonics
We have begun phase 3 of the ‘Letters and Sounds’ phonics programme.
The purpose of this phase is to:
- teach more graphemes, most of which are made of two letters, for example, ‘oa’ as in boat
- practise blending and segmenting a wider set of CVC words, for example, fizz, chip, sheep, light
- learn all letter names and begin to form them correctly
- read more tricky words and begin to spell some of them
- read and write words in phrases and sentences
Here are some examples of words your children will be reading: tail, week, right, soap, food, park, burn, cord, town, soil
Tricky words
During phase 3 the children will learn more ‘tricky words’: he, she, we, me, be, was, my, you, her, they, all, said
In addition, during this phase children will be expected to begin to write sentences independently.
If you have any questions, please ask and do attend our next phonics open mornings on Wednesday 18, Thursday 19 and Friday 20 January.
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!
06 January 2017
The homework this week is talk time and is due in on Thursday 12 January.
I can respond to difficult situations in a positive way.
Our SEAL topic this half term is called It’s good to be me.
In Year 3 we have discussed how to deal with difficult situations in a positive way. Your child can talk about the story ‘Happy to be me’. They can discuss the moral of the story and how everyone is special and unique.
06 January 2017
Materials
We’ve been learning about different materials this week. We started by discussing the types of materials and their properties. We’re now designing a new shed for Mr Grumpy using the most appropriate materials.
