Author: Mr Roundtree

This week’s message (Friday 08 October 2021)

This week’s message has two new items and a reminder…

Nut allergies

If your child has a nut allergy (or any other significant allergy), do please let us know. We don’t have a simple policy about this, other than we will work with parents and carers to best accommodate the needs of children with medical conditions like this, so it’s important you let us know.

Have you been attending our Zoom sessions to support your child?

So far, we’ve had three short Zoom sessions – one on phonics (mainly for parents/carers of younger children), one on Reading (for parents/carers of older children), and a Maths one this week (for parents/carers of younger children). Watch the Maths one here:

 

Each session lasts for just 30 minutes and will provide a few top tips and guidance as to how to support your child at home. The invitation is open to all parents and carers across Sphere Federation, although we’ve indicated if the session might be more appropriate for particular age ranges.

The remaining sessions are as follows:

  1. Monday 11 October: Number fact fluency (inc times tables) (mainly for Key Stage 2)
  2. Monday 08 November: Our curriculum topics (for Key Stage 1 and 2)
  3. Monday 15 November: Writing (for Key Stage 1 and 2)
  4. Monday 22 November: Staying safe online (mainly Key Stage 2)

All six sessions start at 6pm. They last around 30 minutes.

If you’re interested in attending, please either send us a message on the School Gateway app or email the school office. We’ll then email the Zoom joining details out to all those who have expressed an interest.

If your child’s in Early Years, look out for a range of sessions specifically for you.

Finally, don’t forget to sign up for a parent-teacher Zoom slot – the meetings are in the week just before half-term.

Have a happy and healthy weekend.

08 October 2021

Next week, we’ll be learning how the ‘ue’ sound can be spelled in lots of different ways. For example, in the word ‘conclude’, the letters ‘u-e’ make the ‘ue’ sound but in the word ‘popular’ it’s the letter ‘u’.

To help consolidate this learning, we’d like you to practise spelling these words at home.

yellow group:            continue, popular, June, regular, queue, rescue, conclude, amuse

blue group:                 glue, June, moon, true, rule, prune, blue, knew

We’ll test ourselves on Friday 15 October to see how we’ve got on.

For some tips and tricks on how best to practise your spellings at home, visit the Y3,4 spelling page on our website and click here.

Living and Learning: I can talk about my feelings

This week we have been talking about the different emotions and feelings that we have.

Y34 made their own graffiti walls about all the different emotions that they feel.

We have also talked about how saying positive and nice things to others helps both them and us to feel happier, so we’re trying really hard to help us all to be happy!

Art Skills

Each week, Mrs Bald (one of our resident artists..!) spends time helping us to improve our art skills. These lessons teach us the fundamentals of art and will help us to be good artists  – sort of like learning times tables which help us to become good mathematicians.

So far this year, we’ve taken time to explore lines and how they can be made in different ways…

This week’s bible story

Four friends help a paralysed man: Luke 5: 17-25 

If I asked you to tell you one of the things they liked doing best of all, I imagine it would be playing with their friends. Have a think about your friends and think about what you feel is special about them. In our story, we hear about how four friends help a paralysed man.

Reflection:
Think about the story.
Were there good friends in it?
Think about your friends.
What makes a good friend?
Think about yourself.
Are you a good friend?

Prayer:
Dear God
We thank you for our friends and for the happy times we share with them. Help us to be a good friend to them. Teach us how to play fairly and to share. Help us to recognize loneliness in others and show friendliness towards them. We know that you are our friend and will be with us always.
Amen.

Next week, we’ll be learning how the ‘ie’ sound can be spelled in lots of different ways. For example, in the word ‘describe’, the letters ‘i-e’ make the ‘ie’ sound but in the word ‘supply’ it’s the letter ‘y’.

To help consolidate this learning, we’d like you to practise spelling these words at home.

yellow                                                                                    blue

describe                                                                               dry

decide                                                                                  five

surprise                                                                               light

replied                                                                                 inside

polite                                                                                   nine

cried                                                                                    cried

supply                                                                                 right

height                                                                                  tie

We’ll test ourselves on Friday 08 October to see how we’ve got on.

For some tips and tricks on how best to practise your spellings at home, visit the Y3,4 spelling page on our website and click here.

This week’s message (Friday 01 October 2021)

A couple of weeks ago, the weekly message came from our Science and Foundation Subjects Leader. This week, the message comes from our Reading Leaders. Mrs Latham, a teacher at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, leads on Phonics and Early Reading across Sphere Federation. Miss Wilson, based at Moortown Primary, leads on other aspects.

Phonics and early reading

Becoming a reader is an essential life skill that shouldn’t be undervalued. Every child should be reading on a daily basis at home, even for just a few minutes. Reading aloud to your child is also crucial – it helps develop the emotional connection to reading, advances listening skills, and helps foster a love of reading.

In Key Stage 1 (Years 1 and 2), we read every day in our fluency sessions. It does what is says on the tin – develops fluency. We read the same text every day for a week. To become a fluent reader, you need to read regularly and read the same text/books more than once. This feels strange for adults sometimes but young children increase in confidence and feel satisfied when they can fluently read something after a few attempts.

Phonics underpins all our reading teaching in the Early Years and Key Stage 1. Phonics teaches children to read by matching sounds with letters or groups of letters. We teach a daily phonics lesson using a systematic approach.

Find out more about phonics.

Read more about how to help your child.

Reading at Key Stage 2

By now, your child will have received their brand new Reading Record. Each week, they’ll need to complete the activity as directed by their teacher. We’d like you to comment at least once every week, too – useful comments might be what they did well (such as their expression or how clear they were), how many pages they read or maybe what they need help with. Remember that your child should be reading every day for at least ten minutes and don’t forget the power of reading to your child as well!

Have a chat at home about the texts they’ve been reading in school. What’s their class novel? Do they like or dislike it? What’s just happened? What might happen next? Does it remind them of anything? Discussions like these really help children to understand and remember what they’ve been reading. (Share with your child what you’re reading, too!)

How often do you have your subtitles on when watching TV? It’s been proven to really help with learning to read so give it a go next time you’re watching The Chase! You might want to suggest they switch subtitles on when using video apps, too!

Check out Book Trust’s Book Finder service – a great way to introduce your child to new books.

Finally, we’ve been asked to communicate this message:

The Governing Body of Wetherby High School, working in partnership with Leeds City Council, are running a consultation on a proposal to lower the age range of the school from 11-18 years to 11-16 years. This proposal is part of the Council’s wider ambition to re-build the school. Read more information.

There’s another message from a curriculum leader in a couple of weeks. In the meantime, let’s hope the weekend is drier than the week we’ve had. Whatever the weather, enjoy!

Talking about Mental Health

 

It’s becoming increasingly more and more important to talk about our mental health.

Today, Year 5 & 6 have been learning about the importance of talking about their mental health. We watched an animation to help us understand small everyday feelings and when those feeling become too much/too big for us to cope with on our own.

We chatted about our circle of support and the trusted people who we might speak to if our mental health needed a little TLC.

In school, there are loads of ways for your child to ask for help if they need it – can they tell you about our living and learning box?  -the adults in school who they would choose to speak to if they needed some help?

Why not try chatting with your child about how you cope with small everyday feelings at home and the things you do when those things become too much…

 

This week’s bible story

David and Jonathan: 1 Samuel 18-19

Friendship is a precious gift. Everyone wants to have friends. If we are fortunate, we will have a group of close friends, people with whom we can share our lives. However, sometimes, things go wrong. There can be disagreements that lead to friends falling out and maybe not talking to each other altogether. When David was a young boy, he had been told that one day, he would be the future King of Israel. As he grew up, David became famous for defeating the giant, Goliath, and for being a skilled soldier. He also wrote many songs that are recorded in the Book of Psalms in the Bible.

When David was a boy, a man called Saul was the King of Israel. Saul had a son who was called Jonathan. David and Jonathan became great friends. One reason was that Saul (Jonathan’s dad) was the present king and David was going to be the future king. David was also a great soldier and King Saul became very jealous of him! Another reason is that, if the usual practices were followed, Jonathan would have followed in his father’s footsteps as the future king – not David! Jonathan had a good reason to be jealous of David!

Reflection:
It would have been very easy for Jonathan to be jealous of David. Instead, he always protected him – sometimes, even saving David’s life!
How do we treat our friends?
Do we get jealous when they are successful or if they are better than us at something?
Or do we encourage them? Do we stand up for them? Do we feel happy when something good happens in their lives?
In David’s case, he really did get by ‘with a little help from his friend’.

Prayer
Dear God,
Thank you for friends whom we can trust.
Thank you for friends who stick with us when we need them.
Please help us to be a friend to anyone in need.
Amen.