This week’s message (Friday 04 March 2022)
We’re now over half-way through the school year. If you managed one, we hope you had a good break over the half-term period. This week’s message contains an attendance update and a reminder about two things that were communicated earlier in the week.
Attendance matters
The overall whole-school attendance figure up to the end of Spring 1 is 94.2%. That’s the same as we were at the end of the Autumn term, despite Covid – great news!
- Reception: 93.8% – a slight increase since December – well done!
- Year 1: 95.3% – another increase – brilliant!
- Year 2: 95.9%
- Year 3: 91.6%
- Year 4: 92.2% – this attendance has increased a little, too – thank you!
- Year 5: 95.5%
- Year 6: 96.1% – and another year group where attendance has risen – fantastic!
Russia-Ukraine war
On Monday evening, we sent an email to let you know we’d be speaking with children about the current crisis. Children in Key Stage 2 had an assembly about this. Children in Key Stage 1 had a shorter discussion in class. We had no plans to speak with children in Foundation Stage unless a child raised it, in which case we’d respond in a very ‘light’ way.
Children coped well. They seemed to appreciate being told some basic facts and being provided with some reassurance. In case you missed it, we provided some website links so that you can support your child more:
- Supporting your child if they see upsetting content online about what is happening in Ukraine (Childnet)
- How to talk to children about what’s happening in Ukraine and World War Three anxiety (Metro)
- How and when to talk to children about war, according to a parenting expert (Independent)
- How to cope with traumatic news – an illustrated guide (ABC News, Australia)
- Talking with Children About War and Violence in the World (Family Education, US)
- Tips for parents and caregivers on media coverage of traumatic events (The National Child Traumatic Stress Network, US)
Covid caution continues
You’ll know that the government issued new advice about self-isolation and testing. This letter from Leeds Children and Families Team sets out what the new guidance is. If you’ve not already done so, do take a minute or so to read it.
Next week’s message comes from Mr Wilks, who leads on Science and Topic subjects – it’s about our current Computing topic.
Spring is coming!
This half-term’s topic is called ‘Let’s go!’ They will notice and observe the signs and changes of Spring. This week, our focus story is The Hundred Decker Bus by Mike Smith. The children drew their favourite deck and labelled the different parts. Next week, the children will design their own deck. We will also compare life in a city to life in the countryside.
FH – A city is very busy with lots of big buildings like skyscrapers.
BI – Lots of animals live in the countryside.
Over the next few weeks, we will be planting a variety of fruit and vegetable seeds. We will watch them grow and will learn what conditions are needed for them to grow.
Phonics
The children have learnt all of the phase 3 sounds. Over the next couple of weeks, they will learn to blend (read) and segment (spell) longer words for example, lemon, sunset, bedroom and farmyard. To help them read words with more than one syllable, they will be taught how to use the chunking method. For example, sunset = s-u-n /s-e-t. This method also helps when they are writing longer words.
Maths
This week, we continued to engage with activities that focussed on the purpose of counting – to find out ‘how many’ objects there are. We revisited the concept of cardinality – the idea that the last number in the count tells us how many things there are altogether. We also looked at the 1 more staircase pattern. This pattern has helped them develop a clear understanding that each number has a value of 1 more than the previous number, and 1 less than the following number.
Have a look at what else we have been up to this week.
Outdoor fun!
World Book Day
Home-Link Challenge
4 March 2022
Y1: there, their, they, to, do
This week, the Year 2 children have some contractions words for their spellings. We talked about how it is the process of shortening a word or a group of words. E.g. cannot becomes can’t.
Y2: children, Christmas, class, climb, can’t, didn’t, hasn’t, couldn’t, it’s, i’ll
World Book Day
We had a fantastic World Book Day yesterday. There were so many imaginative outfits of lots of different book characters. The children enjoyed telling the class all about the character. Some children shared their book and talked about their favourite part.
World Book Day
Our classroom was full of wonderful book characters yesterday to celebrate World Book Day. The children brought in the book they were dressing up from and they enjoyed sharing these with each other.
We enjoyed listening to MC Grammar’s rap- listen here.
How many books and characters can you spot in the rap?
Sponsored maths challenge
Just before the half-term break, we had a sponsored maths challenge in school. Mrs Walshaw has now counted the money and we’ve raised a fantastic total of £1290.92! All the money raised will be donated to our school charity- RSPCA. This is an incredible amount so a huge thank you for all your efforts in supporting your child find sponsors and practise their number facts.
04 March 2022
This week’s focus is on the -sion, -tion and -cian endings to words. Please learn these words for a test on Thursday 10th March.
- profession
- accommodation
- communication
- suggestion
- competition
- definition
- interruption
- persuasion
- musician
04 March 2022
This week’s Talk Time links to one of the Christian values: forgiveness.
I can describe situations when someone has forgiven someone else, either in real life or in a book or film.
Everybody strives to make good choices but when a bad choice is made, we encourage children to show forgiveness. A sincere apology brings about a ‘new beginning’ where we can move forwards quickly and without grudges.
When have you, or someone you know, shown forgiveness? Perhaps a character in a book or film has forgiven another character for their poor choices. Think of as many examples, big or small, as you can.
Here are some R2s that will help you if you’ve been upset by another person’s actions:
- Tell that person how you feel.
- That person may not have realised. If they apologise, say that you forgive them.
- If they do not apologise, find an adult to help resolve the situation.
Sometimes, your words or actions might have caused upset for someone else. These R2s will help you in situations like that.
- Think about how you would feel if you were the other person.
- Apologise to that person.
- Make sure they are okay.
- Move on from the situation, making good choices.
Covid caution continues
You‘ll know that the government issued new advice sound self-isolation and testing. This letter from Leeds Children and Families Team sets out what the new guidance is. The main message is included here, too:
Government advice is still that your child should stay at home and avoid contact with other people if they have tested positive for COVID-19 or have COVID-19 symptoms. If your child is symptomatic, they should get a PCR test as soon as possible.
Your child can return to school after 10 full days isolation. They may be able to return earlier if they test negative for two days in a row from day 5 of self-isolation and do not have a temperature. If they continue to test positive during the 10-day isolation they can return after completing 10 full days isolation.
Your child will still receive work to do at home if they need to self-isolate, as well as free school meal support if they are eligible for this.
This half-term’s Christian value is…
…forgiveness.
Sometimes, we accidentally break things that belong to ourselves or others. Sometimes, we use something so much it wears out. Some things that are broken cannot be mended, but it’s often possible to mend things that we’ve broken. When you fall out with one of your friends, you can’t mend that friendship with a needle and thread, or some Sellotape, or glue or a puncture kit or a sticking plaster. This half-term, we’ll learn all about forgiveness and hear stories from the Bible to help us.
Why was this Christian value chosen?
‘Because Jesus forgives his disciples.’
Home challenge:
Discuss as a family: Why is it important to forgive?
Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as Christ God forgave you.
(1 John 13:18)