It’s the last week of term. This week, we’ve two messages.

This first one kicks off with a thank you to all of you who worked with us, sending your child into school despite the extreme temperatures. We worked hard to ensure the children remained as comfortable as possible – on the whole, I think we succeeded!

The rest of this message has contents that come from other organisation, but which you may find helpful, especially the first item…

Using A&E?

Leeds Teaching Hospitals are experiencing extreme demand for services. They’re seeing increasing visits to paediatric emergency department with needs that may be better met in other ways.

With consistent, accurate and trustworthy healthcare advice, the West Yorkshire Healthier Together website is available to support families to decide if a visit to A&E is appropriate.

The information on the site has been reviewed  by local paediatricians, GPs and clinicians across the region to ensure it aligns with current practices and procedures.

You can use the quick links, search bar, or menus to find clear advice with easy to use traffic light guide, red, amber, green found in the parents/carers section. This will help to identify when, where, and how you should seek help for your poorly baby or child.

Parent and carers can also look through the site for practical guidance such as ‘should my child go to school’.

Music summer club

Leeds City Council and ArtForms are hosting free music summer clubs this August, with a range of music activities for children in Leeds aged 8 and above.

The sessions will take place between 08 and 10 August at Horsforth School. Read more.

Child friendly Leeds

This July marks the tenth year since the launch of Child Friendly Leeds. To mark the event, you and your child might want to attend the Our Leeds Wishes Display | Leeds Inspired this weekend.

Look out for our final message of the school on Friday.

We all know about the extreme temperatures forecast for the first part of next week. The Department for Education is not advising that schools close; instead they have issued guidance to schools.

Please note there is a possibility we may need to close early, or invite you to collect your child from 1.30pm. We’ll let you know if this is the case as soon as we can.

Apologies: we haven’t advised on this earlier as we’ve been waiting more guidance and continued monitoring of weather forecasts. (And a lot depends on the day: a strong breeze, like today, will help make the next couple of days bearable, if there is one.)

In case you missed Friday’s message, the guidance sets out sensible points to follow – make sure you consider each of the following:

• make sure your child comes to school with a large bottle (it could have water previously frozen)
• your child should wear a sun hat and loose, cool clothing (we’re relaxing the rules around school uniform – replace uniform items with things that are cooler eg open sandals rather than shoes, uniform shorts with lighter PE shorts – try to stay as smart as possible)
• your child should be wearing Factor 50 sunblock when they arrive at school and may apply more during the day

In school, we’ll take as many actions as we can. These will include indoor lunchtimes, avoiding vigorous activity, and avoiding being in large groups in one indoor space for a longer time.

It’s our penultimate message of the year… This one’s a short one, but with two links to something longer if you’re interested…

Before we start the message, a note about extreme temperatures forecast for the first part of next week. The Department for Education is not advising that schools close; instead they have issued guidance to schools. The guidance sets out sensible points to follow – make sure you consider each of the following:

• make sure your child comes to school with a large bottle (it could have water previously frozen)
• your child should wear a sun hat and loose, cool clothing (we’re relaxing the rules around school uniform – replace uniform items with things that are cooler eg open sandals rather than shoes, uniform shorts with lighter PE shorts – try to stay as smart as possible)
• your child should be wearing Factor 50 sunblock when they arrive at school and may apply more during the day

In school, we’ll take as many actions as we can. These will include indoor lunchtimes, avoiding vigorous activity, and avoiding being in large groups in one indoor space for a longer time.

Governance

Governing bodies aren’t required to produce an annual report; however,  Sphere Federation governors believe communicating with our school community is important. Check out their annual governance statement.

Summer Fun

Breeze is for all children and young people aged 0-19 from Leeds (and their families) who are looking for positive things to do. Although Breeze is run by Leeds City Council, the information they list comes from all sorts of organisations and partners working positively with children, young people and their families in Leeds, not just the council. Check out the 27 days of fun: Breeze in the Park.

Have a good weekend. Next week, look out for the return of our Summer competition!

It’s a busy time of year in school. Sports day, productions, reports… This week, you should have received an end-of-year report for your child – if you haven’t, please let us know.

At this time of year, you might be already thinking about uniform for next year. This week’s message starts with a reminder that we’ve updated our school uniform policy…

School uniform

Due to a recent change in guidance about school uniform, we’ve recently updated our school uniform policy.

Wearing a school uniform brings with it many benefits, and everyone following the policy brings a sense of fairness.

There’s no change as to what uniform is required in our policy: as has always been the case, branded items are available, but they’re optional. As well as having at least three suppliers for branded items (with different price ranges), you’re able to purchase generic items from a range of retailers, giving you choice and value for money. Second hand uniform items can also benefit parents / carers and, by extending the life of items, are more sustainable. Some items may be available in school (unclaimed and unnamed lost property at the end of term) or at the Leeds School Uniform Exchange.  Check out the website for more information on suppliers and the policy.

We do expect all children to follow this policy, including wearing the correct kit on PE days.

Thank you for supporting us with this.

TikTok

Last week’s message mentioned TikTok. Here’s an extract from a weekly email we receive from a safeguarding expert:

A few days ago I spent a rather disturbing half-an-hour on TikTok… Clicking in to TikTok Live was worse than I had thought it would be… there were a number of video streams that I think should concern us from a safeguarding perspective. Livestreams from the school bus, school playgrounds and even from tutor time in classrooms. There was even a group of primary aged boys trying to out-swear each other while they waited for the bell.

Check out these parents’ guides: one from Common Sense Media and one from Internet Matters.

Some summer reading

You might like to read the latest edition of Raring2go. It’s got lots of ideas for the Summer holidays.

Some summer support 

The approach to providing free school meals during holidays has changed in line with government guidance. 

As a result of this change in government guidance, Leeds City Council has decided to support those households in receipt of council tax support. This will include most households receiving free school meals but this will no longer be the driver of eligibility. More detail on how the council is spending the funding can be found here.

Anyone in urgent need of support for food, rent and other household bills can contact the Leeds Welfare Support Team. Details are available at: Help with food and bills (leeds.gov.uk). The Healthy Holidays scheme will also continue to provide support during the summer holidays to those most in need.

The forecast is looking good… Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Our message this week is a short one, but an important one. We know we send lots of messages about online safety, but please do take on board what we’re saying – this year, we’ve experienced more issues, and more serious issues, than ever before.

Ofcom recently published a report looking at media use, attitudes and understanding among children and young people aged 3-17. It also includes findings on parents’ views about their children’s media use, and how parents of children and young people aged 3-17 monitor and manage their children’s use.

The summary of key points (below) comes from a safeguarding email we receive each week in school. The bold text is from us:

• Children were more likely to experience being bullied via technology than face-to-face: 84% of 8-17s said they had been bullied this way (ie via text or messaging, on social media, in online games, through phone or video calls, or via other apps and sites).
• Nearly all children went online in 2021 (99%); the majority used a mobile phone (72%) or tablet (69%) to do so.
• Using video-sharing platforms (VSPs) such as YouTube or TikTok was the most popular online activity among children aged 3-17 (95%).
• Among all types of online platforms, YouTube was the most widely used by children; 89% used it, compared to half using TikTok. But TikTok was more popular than YouTube for posting content.
• A majority of children under 13 had their own profile on at least one social media app or site; 33% of parents of 5-7s said their child had a profile, and 60% of 8-11s said they had one. This is despite the minimum age for most social platforms being 13.
• Just four in ten parents of 3-17s knew the minimum age requirement for using most social media; 42% correctly said 13. Four in ten parents of 8-11-year-olds said they would allow their child to use social media (38%).
• Six in ten children aged 3-17 played games online in 2021, increasing to three-quarters of 12 – 17s.
• More than a third of 8-17s who gamed online played with people they didn’t know (36%); overall, 16% of 8-17s chatted to people they didn’t know, via the messaging/ chat functions in games. You wouldn’t let your child play out with random strangers – for the same reasons, talk to you child about who they may be chatting with online.

Check out our online safety tips.

As always, if you’ve any questions, comments or concerns, do speak with us.

Have a good weekend.

Thanks to everyone who responded to this year’s annual survey. We’ll spend the next few weeks reviewing the responses and building in some action points to our School Improvement Plan.

This week’s message is a little different: it comes from our Junior Leadership Team…

We would like to introduce ourselves as the Junior Leadership Team from our school. We have had this role for nearly a year after we were nominated by our classes. Our school works hard to promote democracy and the JLT elections are a perfect opportunity to demonstrate pupil voice. We regularly meet as a team to talk through issues that might have arisen or things that have come up in class. Our aim is to make the school even better and be a happy and healthy place to learn.

One of our biggest achievements this year was fundraising. At the start of the year, we asked classes to think of a school charity that would benefit from the money we raise. We brought these ideas to a meeting and selected the most popular charity – Leeds Autism Services. Over the year, we have arranged lots of fundraising events. We stood out in the cold clutching buckets to collect cash for Children in Need, raising £410, whilst Odd Sock Day raised £126. In February, we created a maths challenge that would test our times table knowledge and number facts. Through everyone’s contribution, we raised an amazing £2318 – the most we have ever raised. This was a mind-blowing amount that benefited the charity and our school. April saw us raise money for Red Nose Day and the JLT made the decision that half the money would go to the Ukraine Disaster Fund due to current events.

We had the recent opportunity to visit Scholes Library – the first visit since Covid. We enjoyed a chance to browse the amazing range of books that it has to offer and we selected some to bring back to school for classes to enjoy.

In the Autumn term, it will be time for the new JLT elections. We will step down and hope that some new children will enjoy the same experiences we’ve had and will take on the challenge of being part of an incredible team that brings about change and difference for our school.

Thank you to everyone for your support, ideas and encouragement.