History – Stone Age to Iron Age and Ancient Egypt
As our history topic comes to an end, the children have been demonstrating their knowledge and all that they have learnt by producing a two-page spread. They have ensured they record all they remember from the Stone Age, Bronze Age, Iron Age and compared this with what they have learnt about Ancient Egypt.
Help at home – Ask your child about what they remember. Is there any comparisons they can make between the Iron Age and Ancient Egypt? Who was Howard Carter and what do they think of him? Why was the River Nile so important to ancient Egyptians? Can they remember the dates of each key period? If time, can they find out any more interesting information to share after half term?
Some of our Year 5 and 6 children chose to stand for Junior Leadership Team this morning. We are extremely proud of all the children who spoke confidently and clearly and with expression.
As a democracy, children made their choice and took to the Polling Station to submit their vote.
Well done to all the courageous children who stood for election! We await the results…
Room on the Broom!
Over the last two weeks the children have enjoyed reading Room on the Broom by Julia Donaldson
In forest school, we made our own cauldron to help the Witch make a new broomstick. Here are a few things the children could recall from the story.
We made a pot for the Witch, from Room on the Broom -Oria
A cauldron, some sticks and some leaves- J
We put some feathers in, they make the broomstick- T
We need to make a potion and cast a spell- Blossom
Iggy, ziggity, zaggity, zoom- Elliott
Some big sticks to hold up the cauldron- Avery
Dragon, he flew after the Witch -Noyan
Help at Home: Let’s get crafty!
The children have enjoyed lots of creative activities this week.
Could you make something at home relating to our story? a few ideas could be, your own wand, creating a Witches face using different shapes, exploring pumpkins, making potions.
Don’t forget the outdoors is a wonderful place to get messy!
Notice:
We’ve had a wonderful first half term and the children have all made some fantastic progress, we’re extremely proud!
We would also like to thank Miss Harvey! Miss Harvey is sadly leaving St.James to pursue her career in teaching and we wish her all the best with her future endeavours.
You may have noticed that Miss Feldman has been in Nursery recently. Miss Feldman will now be in Nursery as our full time Teaching Assistant. The children have already welcomed her with open arms and we’re looking forward to our next half term.
Have a happy and healthy break and we will see you all on Monday 04 November.
The Nursery Team
JLT elections
We are extremely proud of all the children who are running for JLT this year. The candidates spoke to the rest of the class this morning to explain why they deserved their vote.
Voters are spoilt for choice with such strong candidates to choose from. Well done to all the children for being brave and for speaking clearly at an appropriate volume (two of our oracy targets this half-term.)
Reception places for September 2025
Applications for a Reception place for September 2025 can be made from 01 November 2024 until 15 January 2025. Guidance on applications can be found on Leeds City Councils You Tube video
A quick guide to school admissions
If you’d like to come and look around our school the next open sessions are on Thursday 14 November at 1.30pm and Friday 29 November at 9.30am.
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place even if your child attends St.James Nursery.
Thanks
The Nursery Team
It’s nearly time to elect our new junior leaders
We have recently launched this year’s Junior Leadership Team election process. Our Junior Leadership Team is one of the ways that children are encouraged to take an active part in pupil voice.
The election process allows children to develop an understanding of one of the British Values, democracy, with two representatives from each class, chosen democratically by their peers.
Here are some of the qualities our junior leaders think are needed to be an effective JLT member.
- use the 8Rs for learning
- be respectful and polite
- help others
- be a good speaker and listener (to members of your class and in the meetings)
- share and be confident with your ideas
- let others speak
- accept the views of others even if you don’t agree
- be friendly and approachable
- follow our school rules and make good choices in class and around school
Last weeks’ whole school homework is all about the election and democracy, ready for the elections on Thursday 24 October. For children who want to stand in the election, they will have the chance to share their speeches in class on Wednesday or Thursday this week.
Well done to all our current junior leaders who have represented their class so well this year. Remember, you can stand again in the election.
DT: Food Technology
Today, we made a fruit smoothie. First, we read the recipe together, looking at the ingredients and the instructions on what to do.
Before we began we made sure we had clean hands. We used a knife to carefully slice the banana. Next, we weighed the berries and added them to the jug. After, we measured out the milk and poured in the milk. Mrs Cairnes used the blender to blend the ingredients together. We all drank the smoothie and gave a thumbs up or thumbs down to show if we enjoyed it or not.
Help at home: Would you do anything differently if you were to make the smoothie again? e.g. change the fruits, add yoghurt (we didn’t use yoghurt at school), add some honey?
Can you make the smoothie at home?
As chemists we have been investigating solids, liquids and gases
In Science, we have started a new unit of learning all about states of matter. Our first lesson focused on identifying solids, liquids and gases. We started with some mystery bags that we had to observe closely.
We made observations about the properties of the samples with a particular focus on whether they had a fixed shape. We had great fun taking the samples out of the bags to see if they had a fixed volume.
Help at home: We like to use actions to help us to remember our learning and we have created gestures for our key words: solid, liquid and gas. Challenge us to teach you the gestures for the key words and play the game we played in class where one person says an object and the other person has to respond with the gesture for whether it is a solid, liquid or gas.
If your child likes an extra challenge, discuss objects which are harder to categorise such as toothpaste, shaving foam and slime. Are they a solid, liquid or a gas? Can they convince you?
As mathematicians we have been adding ones to 4 digit numbers
This week Year 4 have started a new unit in maths with a focus on addition and subtraction.
We started the learning by practising adding between one and nine to a number. We started with 2 digit numbers and worked up to 4 digit numbers. We showed great teamwork with our partner when using double sided counters and place value charts to look for a pattern.
We noticed that the digit in the ones column always changes, the digit in the tens column sometimes changes and the digit in the hundreds column sometimes changes.
We will be moving on to formal methods of addition and subtraction (often called column method) but it is really important that we all notice when there are calculations that we can do in our head. Looking for patterns and being able to imagine the numbers will help all of our amazing mathematicians to calculate efficiently.
Help at home: If you would like to consolidate this learning at home you could watch the video from White Rose Maths with your child: https://vimeo.com/729667222
You could also challenge your child by choosing a 4 digit number and asking them to add between 1 and 9 to the number. The children are really good at spotting the tricky ones where they will need to exchange. If you want to make it more like a game why not try this random number generator (https://numbergenerator.org/random-4-digit-number-generator) and challenge your child to do as many examples as they can in a minute. Can they score higher than you?
Leaf Man
It has been another fun filled week in reception this week, our focus book has been Leaf Man by Elois Ehlert.
We’ve enjoyed exploring the season of Autumn. We went on an autumn walk to collect some leaves and found lots of different colours and shapes. We even went to see the hedgehog that tried to come into school.
Help at home: Go on an autumn hunt and see if you can spot signs of autumn like acorns, pine cones, squirrels conkers and more. Don’t forget to send in some pictures to add to our seasons display.
Poetry Picnic
This week our poem was Five Little Pumpkins.
Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate.
The first one said, ‘Oo, it’s getting late.’
The second one said, ‘There are witches in the air.’
The third one said, ‘Well I don’t care.’
The fourth one said, ‘Let’s run, run, run.’
The fifth one said, ‘Let’s have some fun.’
But oooh went the wind, and out went the light,
And five little pumpkins tumbled out of sight.
Phonics
This week, we have learnt the phonemes (the sounds a letter makes) h, f, b and l. We’ve also learnt a new tricky word; the.
Help at home: Look out for a ‘learn at home’ sheet which recaps the phonics learning from the week. Please look at this with your child and complete the activities.
Maths
In Maths, some of our teddies have been arguing over who has more things. we have used the stem sentence
“… has more than..”
“…has fewer than…”
The activities this week have focused on developing the skill of comparing as children have been encouraged to look carefully and use the language of comparison to describe sets of objects.
‘Fewer than’ is used rather than ‘less than’ because the focus is on countable things.
Next week our focus book is Potion Commotion by Peter Bentley and Sernur Isik.
Help at home – bottles.
Please can we ask for some donations of bottles to help with a potion themed challenge next week. Thank you for your support.
Have a happy and healthy weekend and please don’t forget to email any pictures from home to stjames@spherefederation.org thank you as always for your support.
Mrs. Kendrew, Mrs. Rippon and Miss. Feldman and Mr. Smith.