18 November 2022

Living and Learning is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.

I know how to STOP bullying.

Our school vision is to be a happy and healthy place to learn. School will not be a happy and healthy place if we don’t know how to stop bullying.

As it’s Anti-Bullying Week, this week’s Talk Time homework is about what bullying is and how to stop it. In fact, ‘STOP’ is an acronym that provides a clear definition of bullying:

Several Times On Purpose

Getting upset/angry in the heat of the moment or accidentally bumping into someone isn’t considered bullying – as long as it’s a one-off. An example of bullying would be someone saying on multiple occasions that you can’t join in with their game. As part of your discussions at home, ask your child to identify examples of what bullying does and doesn’t look like.

‘STOP’ not only tells us what bullying is, but also how to make it stop:

Start Telling Other People.

The sooner we all tell others, the sooner bullying can stop. As well as give examples of bullying, make sure your child knows people at home and at school who they would alert if they were aware of bullying.

Encourage your child to remember both: Several Times On Purpose and Start Telling Other People.

This week’s Remember 2s (R2s) are actions to take if you see, or are the victim of, an unpleasant behaviour:

Challenge the behaviour with that person. It may well have been accidental or something not intended to be hurtful.
Tell that person that you don’t like that behaviour and that you want it to stop.
If the behaviour occurs again, let a trusted adult know so they can explore the situation.

Class 5/6A News w/c 7th November

And so we have reached the end of week 2 of this half-term. Only 5 more school weeks until Christmas! (Is it too early to mention that word?) Let’s look at what the class have been up to this week.

In Writing we have begun to plan a short narrative piece about an apocalyptic world. Using a couple of videos as inspiration to help generate ideas and vocabulary, our pupils have been planning how they will set the scene for their narrative, describe their main character and give a brief insight into the plot.

Air resistance has been the focus of our Science work this week, as the pupils explored the effect of this force on different sized parachutes. Using cupcake cases and string to make the parachutes, pupils recorded how long it took them to fall to the floor and drew the conclusion that larger parachutes took the longest because of the increased air resistance.

Year 5 pupils have been exploring one of William Wordsworth’s most famous poems in Reading this week, “Daffodils“. Linking to our writing, we have been identifying how the use of similes, metaphors and personification helps to bring a piece of writing to life and make it engaging for the reader. We have also practised some of our oracy skills by learning the poem by heart and reciting to the rest of the class. I am really proud of the pupils’ efforts on this!

On Monday, the school will be recognising Anti Bullying Week through Odd Socks Day.

For this we ask all pupils to come to school wearing odd socks, to encourage people to express themselves and celebrate their individuality and what makes us all unique! When talking about bullying, Scholes Elmet Primary School defines this as follows:

Bullying is where you hurt someone, physically or emotionally (including online), several times on purpose.

What might bullying look like?

If any of these things happen several (lots of) times, it is bullying.

Hurting peoples’ feelings, for example, name calling, teasing, threatening, ignoring, leaving people out or spreading rumours
Hurting peoples’ bodies, for example, hitting, punching or kicking

Throughout the course of the week, we will be discussing what bullying is, and what we can do as individuals and as a school to prevent it.

Finally, let’s check out certificate winners for this week.

Great Learning – Louis M. Has been on task across all subjects this week. His planning work for his written narrative piece has made for great reading. I can’t wait to see the final version!

Living and Learning – Ben. Is always showing consideration to others in class. Kind, polite and honest, Ben is always making the best possible choices.

P.E – Harry. Has shown some super hockey skills this week with great stick control. He throws himself with enthusiasm into every new task.

Have a lovely weekend!

Mr. Robson

This week’s message (Friday 11 November 2022)

As we always do, the message this week – second week of the half-term – is all about the new topic. The message comes from Mr Wilks, who leads Science and foundation subjects across Sphere Federation. The message ends with some important guidance to help tackle online bullying…

What do we mean by topics?

Topics are the vehicle for delivering much of the learning in the foundation subjects (eg History, Art, Geography, Design Technology). Each half-termly topic has a driving subject – the main focus for teaching pupils the knowledge and skills they need to succeed. The driver changes with each topic to ensure a broad and balanced curriculum.

Although the learning in each topic is provided by the driving subject, there are opportunities for enrichment through other subjects. For example, learning in an art topic may be enriched by geography learning about where an artist was born and lived.

Read more about the intent, implementation and impact of our topics.

What is this half-term’s topic?

This half-term, we’re artists. We’ll develop our art knowledge and skills.

The learning this half-term has two aspects to it:

art history: your child will learn about some specific artists and their work
art process: your child will practise and develop skills by creating art

Each phase has age-related knowledge, skills and vocabulary that they’ll learn, use and apply across the topic. Please see pages 11 and 12 of the Curriculum Statement document.

Children in Years 1 and 2 have two featured artists who they’ll study across the half-term: Georges Seurat and Bridget Riley. They’ll compare their art, talking about similarities and differences. They’ll discuss what they like and dislike about the art and how it makes them feel. They’ll also learn about the artists’ lives and where in the world they lived.

In practical art lessons, children will hone their artistic skills and knowledge by sketching objects using pencil and creating sculptures inspired by Bridget Riley’s art.

Children in Years 3 and 4 will learn about the work of two architects: Christopher Wren and Zaha Hadid.

They’ll compare and contrasting the buildings that these architects designed. They’ll look at the influence of classical Greek architecture on the two architects and look for examples of this in buildings locally. In practical art sessions, children will develop observational drawing skills, before focussing on digital art by manipulating images of buildings using technology and creating pieces of art using these images alongside digital art software.

Children in Years 5 and 6 are learning about and studying the work of two designers: William Morris and Orla Kiely.

They’ll look at examples of products that use their designs and then focus on the designs, analysing them using technical vocabulary. They’ll also compare the designs, spotting similarities and differences.

In practical art lessons, children will sketch their own designs inspired by Kiely or Morris. They’ll then create relief prints of their own designs which they’ll turn into a wallpaper design using a design website.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning. The Class News page of our website is a good place to go to find out more about what your child is doing.

Familiarise yourself with the artists and the artwork that your child will be learning about in class. Look in books or on the internet for pieces by the artists and talk about them. Find art by other artists that you like and compare it to the featured artists. If you feel confident, you can go into more depth using the topic-specific vocabulary. However, if not, leave that to the teachers and just enjoy looking at the pieces and asking general questions:

What do you like or dislike about the art?
How does the art make you feel?
What colours can you see?
Can you spot influence of Greek architecture in buildings (eg columns or pediments)?

The Tate Gallery has a good children’s website with games and activities which children can explore.

If you’re in Leeds, the Leeds Art Gallery and Henry Moore Institute are both free to enter and if your child has already visited during a trip, they can be the tour guide and show you around!

Moving on… Did you know next week is Anti-Bullying Week?

STOP

In our school, STOP stands for both the problem and the solution for bullying:

Several Times On Purpose is the definition of bullying
Start Telling Other People is the solution – encourage your child to tell any trusted adult if there’s a problem

We’ll mark the week with our Anti-Bullying Day on Monday, which happens also to be Odd Socks Day.

STOP online

According to Ofcom’s 2022 Media Use and Attitudes report, children are now more likely to be bullied via technology than they are to experience it in person. 84% of 8 to 17-year-olds who reported being targeted said it had taken place via messaging, social media, online gaming and so on, as opposed to 61% who had been intimidated face-to-face.

Just like its offline counterpart, online-bullying creates feelings of isolation and anxiety in its victims along with a loss of self-esteem.

Read about how to support your child and tackle this problem.

11 November 2022

Vocabulary is the focus of this week’s Talk Time.

We’ve just begun a new Art topic and with it comes new Art vocabulary.

This half-term, each phase is learning about different forms of Art. Y1,2 are focusing on sculpture, Y3,4 are focusing on digital art and Y5,6 are focusing on printing. Here’s a list of key words that are being learnt and applied as part of our learning. Over the half-term, practise using these words with your child.

Years 1 and 2 Art vocabulary:

graphite: mixed with clay, graphite forms the ‘lead’ in a pencil
HB: referring to pencils, HB stands for ‘hard black’ – a medium hard pencil
H: stands for ‘hard’
B: stands for ‘black’; these pencils are soft
primary colours: three colours (red, yellow, blue) that can’t be made by mixing other colours, but can make other colours
secondary colours: three colours (orange, green, purple) that are made when two primary colours are mixed using paint
pattern: arrangements of things such as colour, shapes and lines that repeat in a logical way
texture: how something feels, like smooth or rough
op art: short for ‘optical art’, op art is a style of art that uses visual illusions
pointillism: a form of painting where very small dots are used to form colours and images
forgery: copying another artist’s work and making money from it

Years 3 and 4 Art vocabulary:

complementary colours: colours that are opposite on the colour wheel (roughly, a primary and a secondary colour can be paired up like this)
warm colours: roughly one half of the colour wheel, warm colours (like red, orange, yellow) usually represent heat and emotions like anger and excitement
cool colours: roughly one half of the colour wheel, cool colours (like blue, green, purple) usually represent cold things and emotions like calm and sadness
form: often used to talk about sculpture or the human body, form is the physical aspects or the shape of the artwork or parts of the artwork
space: usually used to describe areas or parts of an artwork where there are large blocks of colour or ‘gaps’
medium: the type of art (eg painting, sculpture, printmaking), or the materials an artwork is made from (plural: media)
digital art: art that is made or presented using digital technology
architecture: a specific form of design: buildings and other structures
architect: a person who designs buildings and other structures
commission: a person or people chosen to produce something, eg a portrait, a building

Years 5 and 6 Art vocabulary:

pastel: a coloured drawing medium, usually stick-shaped, produced in soft, hard and pencil formproduced in soft, hard and pencil form
art: the expression of creativity or imagination, or both
art movement: a style in art followed by a group of artists, often linked to a time and place or to particular artists (sometimes called an ‘ism’)
printing: transferring ink (or some other medium) from one surface to another
Arts and Crafts Movement: a design movement started by William Morris in 1861 which aimed to improve the quality of design and make it available to the widest possible audience
graphic design: covers a range of design activities including logo creation, advertising and typography (fonts)
industrialisation: the process of using machines to work that was previously done by people.Some of these words have been introduced already this week but there may be others that are going to be covered in the coming weeks.

Science: Sound

Our Science topic for this half term is Sound (physics). Last week, we went on a sound survey and assessed the noisiest place in school. It was the playground because this is near the road.

This week, we’ve been learning all about how sounds are made.

Here’s a summary …

When any object vibrates, it causes movement in the air particles. These particles bump into the particles close to them, which makes them vibrate too, causing them to bump into more air particles. This movement, called sound waves, keeps going until they run out of energy.

Using instruments, drums and beaters, rice and lentils against plastic, we explored the sounds we could make. We also tried aking sounds with our bodies. It’s such fun exploring music and sound!

Finally, we discussed making sounds louder and quieter depending on how hard or soft you hit them.

Welcome back Class 5/6A

Hello and a big welcome back to all of Class 5/6A pupils after what I hope was an enjoyable half-term break. It’s great to see everyone again. Let’s catch up on what we have been doing this week.

Our Topic focus for this half-term is Art, in particular the works of William Morris and Orla Kiely. We are building up towards creating our own printed floral picture. To provide us with inspiration, we have been comparing examples of Morris’ work, looking at their colours and patterns; and ended the week with some direct observational drawing of leaves. These leaves will form the basis for our printing work later in the term.

In Writing, we have begun to look at figurative writing; using similes, metaphors, expanded noun phrases and alliteration to help engage the reader. The pupils were like a walking dictionary with all of the different figurative vocabulary they used, and I was as pleased as punch to be able to read their work.

We have had a couple of visitors into class this week as part of our Community themed week. On Wednesday we were joined by a member of West Yorkshire Police Force to speak to us about hate crimes, and what we can do to be more aware of and respect the various members of our community. Thursday saw two guests from Selective Silhouettes join us to talk about the LGBTQ+ community.

Year 5 pupils will have brought home a new reading book this week: Kensuke’s Kingdom. This half-term we will be reading the same text in class, and homework will be set based on this. It is very important that pupils are keeping up to date with their reading targets, homework, and bringing their reading records to Book Club on a Friday.

There’s just time to check out our certificate winners this week:

Great Learning – Esme. Always ready to learn. Calm, collected and organised, she sets a great example for our class.

Living & Learning – Louis W. Louis provided some very mature and insightful comments during our Community discussions this week. Well done Louis!

P.E – Ella. Full of energy, and with a smile on her face, Ella is always looking for fun and innovative ways to make P.E fun for her peers and herself.

Have a very happy and healthy bonfire weekend!

Mr. Robson

This week’s message (Friday 04 November 2022)

We hope you and your child(ren) managed to have some time over the half-term to rest and recuperate. Now that we’re firmly settled in to the school year, this week’s message has three important reminders, and ends with an invitation to share your views about Leeds admission policy…

Our expectations for home learning

At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we expect every child to read at home, every day. The most important thing you can do at home is to make sure this is happening – reading independently and reading aloud together.

The reading should be at least 10-15 minutes and can include books, comics, websites – any reading! Please comment in your child’s Reading Record at least once a week.

There are two other things we expect your child to do at home each day:

spend about ten minutes each day practising number facts, like number bonds to ten (eg 3+7 and 4+6) and learning times tables; NumBots (mainly for children in Key Stage 1) and TimesTables Rock Stars (Key Stage 2 children) will support number fluency, as will practice in the car or walking to school (eg chanting forwards, backwards and alternating as you count through can all help)
spend a similar amount of time practising spellings, using the homework sheet we send home each week to see the weekly list of words to learn in preparation for a test on the following Friday (your child could use the words in written sentences or stories and in conversations)

As well as these three daily activities, there are weekly Talk Time prompts (set out on the homework sheet we send home each Friday and published on our website) and Living and Learning ideas (check these out in the school calendar, usually on Mondays – next week’s is I consider the views of others).

You’ll find occasional extra ideas in your child’s Class News page, too.

Read our guide to all the home learning that your child can do.

Our expectations for attendance

Our attendance rate for Autumn 1 was 96.5% – this compares well to the national figure (subject to change) of 95.1% for primary schools.

Our aim is for the whole-school attendance to be at least 97%. Particular well done goes to our two Reception classes, our Y3,4 classes, and Class 5,6C – all have attendance over 97%.

The government is trialing a new service – check out national attendance figures, updated regularly.

Read our attendance policy. Remember, we don’t authorise unnecessary term-time absences. Holidays during term time are likely to result in a penalty notice.

Our expectations for uniform

This week in school, we’ve been enjoying a themed week: Me and My Community, a celebration of all the different communities to which we belong. We want our children to come to school proud of being part of their school community – uniform is an important part of this. Please take a moment to check our uniform policy – for example, is your child coming to school with long hair tied back, wearing discreet earrings (if any), and the right shoes?

Of course, we welcome the occasional non-uniform day as a break from routine to celebrate or raise funds. Coming up is the Children in Need fund-raising event for which we’ll have a non-uniform day. However, on days like this, we do still expect pupils to dress appropriately and respectfully for school. Check out the policy for more details.

Leeds Admission Policy

Leeds City Council is running a public consultation on the 2024/2025 admission policy for Leeds community and voluntary controlled schools. Share your views – you have until 07 December.

If you’re celebrating Bonfire Night, have a safe one, and – as always – a happy and healthy one.

04 November 2022

As we come to the end of our Me and My Communities themed week, children are encouraged to consider charities that are community-based.

With your child, have a look at the list of charities below. Ask your child to consider which charity they’d like to be our chosen school charity – make sure they can express their opinions and back these up with reasons.

Below are the chosen charities that we’ll choose from:

Local
St Gemma’s Hospice St Gemma’s Hospice | Yorkshire’s Largest Hospice (st-gemma.co.uk)
The Clothing bank The Clothing Bank

National
Cancer Research Donate to Cancer Research UK | Cancer Research UK
RSPB Join us – RSPB Membership

International
Cool Earth Protect Rainforest | Fight The Climate Crisis | Join Cool Earth Big Life Foundation AREA OF OPERATION – Big Life Foundation

The charities will be reviewed in class on Thursday 10 November. Each class will vote for one charity which will be brought to the Junior Leadership Team who will have the final vote on Friday 11 November.

Living and Learning: Me and My Communities

What a fantastic week we’ve had! This is one of two Living and Learning themed weeks each year – this one’s a celebration of community.

Each day, the children have been learning about a different theme:

Diversity
Identity
No room for Racism
Same but Different
We’ve had visitors from our community share their roles within the community of Scholes.

Here are some children being active in the village community. There are vouchers to win for the best active photo!

Living and Learning : Community Week

We have had a great start to community week.

Yesterday, we have had a special visitor- a guide dog!

The children were fantastic at asking questions about the guide dog and its duties. Here is an example of a few of them:

“What does he do when you are on holiday?”

“Does he have to eat special food?”

“How does he know where a road is?”

The children were also able to try on glasses that altered their eyesight. This meant they could experience what it would be like to be visually impaired and see how it would effect everyday tasks.