This week’s message (Friday 24 February 2023)

As a teacher, the year is punctuated with school-related milestones, most obviously the different terms. After just one week away, it’s remarkable how different Spring 2 feels – we’re arriving and leaving work in the daylight, spotting signs of Spring on our way. As you travel to and from school with your child, talk about the changes in the seasons: daffodils, daylight, leaves on trees… Being mindful like this can have a really good impact on our emotions.

Industrial action

Earlier in the week, we emailed you about the forthcoming industrial strikes planned across a series of dates:

Tuesday, 28 February
Wednesday, 15 March
Thursday, 16 March

As it stands right now, it looks that our school will be able to remain open.

However, please remember that all workers, including teachers, have the right to take industrial action without prior notice. This means we might have to close some classes at the last minute. As such, it would be advisable to prepare for some disruption on the days listed here just in case.

Attendance matters

For the school year up to Friday 10 February, our attendance figure was 95.6%. This continues to be higher than national figures – great news!

Sunshine class: 95.1%
Rainbow class: 94.1%
Class 1A (Miss Lowry): 95.5%
Class 1,2B (Mrs Latham): 95.1%
Class 2C (Miss Young): 95.1%
Class 3,4A (Miss Paterson): 96.2% – well done!
Class 3,4B (Mr Catherall and Mrs Wilkins): 96.7%- brilliant attendance!
Class 3,4C (Mrs McCormick & Mrs Wadsworth): 96.0%
Class 5,6A (Mr Robson): 96.1% – well done!
Class 5,6B (Mrs Hogarth): 95.2%
Class 5,6C (Mr Lindsay): 96.6%- great attendance!

Good attendance is important:

regular attenders make better progress, both socially and academically
regular attenders cope better and benefit from school routines, school work and friendships
regular attenders find learning more satisfying
regular attenders are more successful in transferring between primary school, secondary school, and higher education, employment or training
statistics show a direct link between under-achievement and absence below 95%

Thank you for helping us increase our attendance rate. Please continue to make sure your child is getting to school on time every day.

Morwick Grove

This week, a parent alerted us to parking that is, at best, disrespectful and, at worst, dangerous. Just in case you’ve missed this message in the past…

The long strip of grass down the side of Morwick Grove, adjacent to the school boundary hedge, is owned by neighbours on Morwick Grove. It’s not owned by us, or Leeds City Council, or the Parish Council.

Access to the Nursery and Out of School Club is granted to us by our neighbours as a goodwill gesture to the school. It is not a right. We’d obviously like to maintain the good relations we have. If you have to drive to school and you use Morwick Grove to park up, please make sure to park and use the area respectfully. Please don’t park on the yellow zig-zags or grass verge, and please don’t block residents’ driveways.

Thanks to all parents/carers who continue to respect our neighbours.

Have a good weekend, whatever you get up to.

24 February 2023

This week’s Talk Time has a reading and oracy theme. This is because on Thursday 02 March 2023 it is World Book Day. To celebrate reading, we’d like you to have some conversations about your favourite books and or/authors.

I can talk about my favourite book and/or author.

You can come up with your own ideas for how to show this. Ideas might include:

giving a verbal book review of your favourite book
describing a character from your favourite book
giving a one minute speech on your favourite book, persuading others to read it – consider what the most exciting parts are, which characters you love or you love to hate, who might enjoy reading it next and why

When you’re happy with what you want to say, turn your attention to speaking aloud with confidence and clarity. This week’s Remember 2s (R2s) will help with that:

Speak clearly in a loud voice without shouting.
Pause for breath at the right places to make sure your speaking at an appropriate pace.
Face your audience.

This homework will be celebrated on World Book Day itself, Thursday 02 March 2023.

This week’s message (Friday 10 February 2023)

We’ve reached the end of the Spring 1 half-term. Thank you to everyone for attending the parent-teacher meetings this week.

Staying healthy…

Next half term, our Living and Learning sessions return to the theme of mental wellbeing. MindMate supports mental health and wellbeing – check out the resources and support that’s available for parents and carers.
As always the associated weekly Living and Learning statement can be found on our school calendar.

Sticking to the theme of health, find out more about Play Streets, Junior Parkrun and Park Play in this short video.

Staying safe…

This week’s seen us mark Safer Internet Day – talk to your child about what they’ve learnt about in school. To help support staying safe online, have you got parental controls switched on? Check out this easy to follow guide. Read more information about parental controls.

Does your child have additional needs?

Over the next few weeks, Leeds SENDIASS (Special Educational Needs and Disabilities Information Advice Support Service) is running some virtual information sessions aimed at providing parents/carers with information, advice and support on SEND topics. These will cover topics that they’re frequently asked about, and there’ll also be the opportunity to ask relevant questions at the end of each session. Dates/times for these are as follows:

SEND support in schools
Monday 06 March, 5.15pm
Wednesday 15 March, 1pm

EHC needs assessments
Thursday 02 March, 10am
Monday 20 March, 5.15pm

Section I appeals
Monday 27 February, 5.15pm
Wednesday 08 March, 1pm

Refusal to assess appeals
Monday 13 March, 5.15pm
Tuesday 21 March, 10am

To book a place or for more information, check out their website.

Village news

On another, very different, note, we’ve been informed about an upcoming village event. On 18 March, Scholes Village Hall is holding a fundraising event with a live band. Tickets are £10 each. Take your own refreshments and food. Check out their Facebook page if you’d like to buy a ticket.

The Village Hall also has a new website: www.scholesvillagehall.org.uk. If you’re looking for somewhere to hold a children’s party, Saturday and Sunday afternoons are available for the hall to hire. Take a look at their website and to see available dates and to make a booking.

Over the holiday, please keep encouraging a love of reading: books, comics, websites, recipes… Have a happy and healthy half-term.

Class 5/6A News

What a busy week it has been in Class 5/6A this week. The half-term holiday is on the horizon and our pupils will be ready for their break after working so hard all week. Let’s see what they’ve been getting up to.

Year 6 pupils have had SATS exam practice this week across Maths, Spelling and Grammar. The results at this stage provide an indication as to how on track our pupils are to reaching Age Related Expectations (AREs) and beyond, and identify areas we can support them to help achieve these. Help at home: Continue supporting your child at home by working with them on learning of spellings, and ensuring they access Times Table Rockstars on a daily basis for around 10-15 minutes.

Year 5 Maths have come to the end of their work on multiplication, looking at 3-digit by 2-digit, and 4-digit by 2-digit calculations. Pupils have worked very hard this week to cement their understanding of how to tackle such questions. In Reading, we have looked at our class novel, The Nowhere Emporium, and explored how the author, Ross Mackenzie, builds up excitement through descriptive and emotive language in the prologue to help entice the reader to continue further into the book.

Towards the end of the week in Writing we finished the first draft of persuasive letters to Graham Stuart, UK Minister for Climate, in getting him and parliament to do more to combat climate change. We will be publishing these next week with a view to sending these onto Graham. Here’s hoping our superb writing can inspire Mr. Stuart to put our plans into action.

Finally, a huge well done to all of our certificate winners today. It has been lovely to see so many of the class nominating each other for a Positive Peer award, recognising ways that they make each other’s day happier and healthier in school.

I look forward to seeing you all at Parent’s Evening next week!

Mr. Robson

Living and Learning – Internet Safety

Our focus in Living and Learning at the moment is all about recognising how we can stay safe online. Class 5/6A were joined this week by Hazel from d:side, who are an education programme aimed at providing young people with the tools they need to skilfully manage sensitive situations with peers.

Hazel spoke to our group about the various forms of social media that exist, what people should be using these for, and how to make your profile safe and secure. We had a look at what we can do to ensure we only interact online with people we know and trust, spot suspicious profiles, and watched a video about the dangers of not posting securely online.

The pupils were full of good tips for how to recognise genuine profiles and connection requests, knew who to speak to if they were subjected to anything negative online, and understood age-appropriate content.

Help at home by talking to your child about how they use the internet at home, and how they can keep themselves safe.

Maths frame multiplication check

Today, our Y4 children have been practising their times tables using Mathsframe multiplication check. They all did really well! Thank you for all your hard work and effort helping them at home.

It’s good practice to use this version (rather than TTRS) as it resembles the test they will take in the summer.

If you would like extra practice with your child then you can find the website here.

Living and Learning – Internet Safety

As part of our living and learning time this week, we have been looking at internet safety. We had a visit from D:side yesterday, who spoke to the children about internet safety. They explained how and why you need to stay safe on the internet as well as teaching the children three clear rules to follow whilst online:
Ask an adults permission.
Only talk to people that you know.
Stick to places that are right for you.

Help at home by reminding your children of these rules before they use the internet.

This week’s message (Friday 03 February 2023)

At a recent meeting of headteachers, we did a quick straw poll: which year group has been most impacted by Covid lockdowns? Well over half of the headteachers said Year 3, and to a large extent we’re finding that, too. No matter what year group, the best way to keep supporting your child is to make sure they’re reading every day and practising number facts. This week’s message comes from our Reading Leaders…

Early reading and phonics

We’ve already done nearly half a year’s worth of phonics in Reception and Year 1 – plus two assessments. We’re very pleased with progress and hope you can see how fluent children are when they’re reading to you at home. Year 2 children have been reviewing their phonic knowledge with an increasing focus on writing and spelling.

It’s all about repeated practice when learning how to read. If children are not reading words with fluency and automaticity (automatically), they probably just haven’t had enough practice. Re-reading to increase fluency, add prosody (rhythm, intonation, expression) and develop comprehension is why we read the same book or text in school all week. Extra reading of the same text at home is a brilliant way to celebrate children’s success and for them to continue to refine all these elements.

You really can help at home by ensuring you give your child the opportunity to read their school reading book or eBook. We’re the ‘expert readers’ so reading to them (at bedtime, for example) is just as important.

Reading in Key Stage 2

This half-term, your child is ‘solo reading’. They’ll be bringing home a book to read that they’ve chosen – usually from our school library. It’s really important that your child is reading this book regularly alongside an adult and that they bring their signed Reading Record into school every week.

Whilst regular reading is the most crucial aspect in a child’s development, there are other things you can do to help at home, too:

talk about reading
be a reading role model
visit a local library / book shop
ask your child what they’ve read at school
regularly practise spellings (spelling and reading use the same skills – recognising patterns between letters and sounds)

Industrial action

This week saw the first of four days of industrial action by the National Education Union. Our school was unaffected. There are three more planned days coming up:

Tuesday, 28 February (Northern, North West, Yorkshire and Humber regions)
Wednesday, 15 March (England and Wales)
Thursday, 16 March (England and Wales)

Workers don’t have to advise their employer if they plan to strike or not. Our advice remains the same: it might be wise to arrange childcare on these days in case your child’s class needs to close. We’ll keep you updated as much as we can.

We’re looking forward to seeing you in person for next week’s parent-teacher meetings. In the meantime, enjoy your weekend.

03 February 2023

This week, our Talk Time is in preparation for Safer Internet Day on Tuesday 07 February. We’ll have a full day of learning based around internet safety. With that in mind, start to think about ways you already keep yourself safe when online.

I can talk about ways to keep myself safe online

Things you might like to consider are:

Age restrictions – where might you see these and why are these used?
Digital content – do you know what a digital footprint is?
Mis information, disinformation and hoaxes – are all things we read true?
Fake websites and scam emails – are all websites trusted?
Password safety
Personal data and keeping it safe online
Online vs offline behaviour
Impact on quality of life and having a balance of online and offline activities

Have a conversation with your family and friends about how you already keep yourself safe online. After your conversation, take some time to reflect on yours and others responses. Is there anything that you could change or do differently to help keep yourself even safer online? Is there anything you’d like to know more about?

Year 6 Football club

At the beginning of this half-term we started to run an after-school football club for Year 6 pupils. So far we have had a great turn out, with around 12-13 players turning up each week for training.

After half-term we hope to begin training towards playing competitive matches against other schools in the area.

New players are always welcome. Please speak to the school office for details on how to sign up.