This week in school, children in Key Stage 1 and 2 have been considering rights and responsibilities, part of Living and Learning.

A key message is that alongside every right comes responsibility:

• At school for example, children have the right to play and relax, and alongside this comes the responsibility to play alongside others safely and respectfully.
• In lots of situations, we’ve the right to express our views, and alongside this  we must do so in a respectful way.

Spend some time thinking of more examples in different situations: rights and responsibilities at home, in a shop, in a park…

BBC Bitesize ‘Rules, rights and responsibilities’ is worth checking out with children in Key Stage 2.

Assessments

Just so you’re aware, primary school pupils in England take part in six statutory assessments. Click on the links for more infomation from the Department for Education.

• Reception Baseline Assessment: It’s likely your child has already completed this assessment, which must be done within the first 6 weeks of entering Reception
• Early Years Foundation Stage Profile Assessment: Towards the end of the Reception year, teachers consider whether your child has reached what’s called a Good Level of Development
• Phonics Screening Check: In June of Year 1, (and for some pupils in Year 2, too), pupils are asked to read some words (real and made-up) to assess their phonics skills, crucial as a step in learning to read
• Key Stage 1 tests: Pupils do these near the end of year 2, which is the end of Key Stage 1
• Multiplication Tables Check: Pupils in Year 4 do this online check in June
• Key Stage 2 tests (often called ‘SATs’): These tests happen in May of Year 6

All of the Key Stage 1 and Key Stage 2 tests feature in our school calendar. (The two assessments which happen in Reception are more gradual and ongoing, so they don’t feature – your child won’t even be aware of these.)

Attendance

Talking of assessments…

There’s lots of national evidence about the link between attendance at school and success at school and beyond. Here’s a simple conclusion from just the three schools in Sphere Federation. It’s based on the 87 pupils in Year 6 last year (2024-25).

33 pupils out of the 87 pupils across the Year 6 classes (38%) had excellent attendance (98% or higher)…

• Almost all of them (around 92%) reached Expected Standard in the Reading and Maths SATs tests (there’s no test for Writing).
• Almost half of these pupils reached Greater Depth Standard in Reading.
• Just under one third reached Greater Depth Standard in Maths.

15 pupils out of the 87 Year 6 pupils (17%) had low attendance (92% or lower)…

• A much lower proportion reached Expected Standard in Reading and Maths: 30%.
• Only about one in ten of them reached Greater Depth Standard

Check out the NHS website to decide if your child is well enough to attend school.

Finally this week, you might like to check out some more images of Wetherby High School’s new building. Quite a few of our children move on to this secondary, so the pics might be of interest.