Author: Mr Roundtree

Making our Treehouses

And they’re off!

We set the children off on their practical activity this week of making their  treehouses out of wood.

We measured, sawed, glued, cut, stuck … and waited patiently.

We worked together …

Look how carefully we out our pieces together!

We took a safe risk … sawing is fun!

We concentrated hard. Hopefully, they’ll be ready for painting and decorating tomorrow.

 

Ridiculous rhymes

We’re very excited to welcome the CBeebies Rhyme Rocket team to Scholes (Elmet) Primary School on Tuesday 15 October.

They’ll kick start their visit with a whole-school show: The Ridiculous Rhyme Show. After that, for children in Y5 and Y6, they’ll lead on a TV workshop, where older children can find out more about what it’s like to work in the media world.

Read more about the performance and workshop.

Please support this exciting trip. We ask you make a voluntary contribution of £2.50 minimum for the show.

Friday 4 October 2019

Friday 4 October 2019

This week, the whole school has a moral Talk Time homework and should be handed in on Thursday 10 October 2019. In Year 3/4, the moral homework is linked to our DT topic. We would like you to discuss:

 ‘Should we chop down trees?’

Can you imagine that Hetchell Woods, in Leeds, is going to be chopped down (felled), cleared and a new shopping centre is being built to replace it.

  • What do you think?
  • Have you ever been to the woods?
  • How do you feel about the whole forest being removed and replaced by shops?
  • What’s the effect of chopping trees down?
  • Why do we need trees?

To melt or not to melt!

Science this week involved some hands. But not as you know them…these were ice hands! The children investigated through observation, touch and discussion what happens when water changes from solid to liquid.

They measured the temperature of the water and noticed the changes as they happened.

….and observed the changing of state from ice to water.

The interesting class and group discussions around how water can be changed from a liquid, solid or gas then changed back again was fantastic.

It was a very ‘hands on’ investigation! We all got a bit wet but it was very exciting.

Friday 20 September 2019

This week’s homework is Talk Time and due on Thursday 26 September.

This week, our Living and Learning statement is ‘I can take safe risks’. At school, we have been discussing when and where we take risks. For homework, we would like you to discuss risks, safe and unsafe, and where we might take them outside of school. This might be online, at home, at clubs, or in the community.

 

 

 

Fab feedback

Thanks very much if you came along to this week’s information evenings for Y5 (Tuesday evening) and for Y1 (Thursday) – we had a good turn-out of parents/carers, keen to know more about their child’s learning journey in school and how to support at home.

Thanks also for leaving us with some feedback – teachers really do appreciate this…

Year 5

  • ‘Good idea having the Y5 evening. Very informative. Glad I went to find out exactly how and what will be taught’
  • ‘Particularly liked the reference to the different books and types of homework to be expected. Opportunity to meet teachers and ask questions is great.’
  • ‘Curriculum relating to e-safety is great and impressed with the information available on the school website.’

Year 1

  • ‘Great to learn about what the children will be doing and helping [my child] at the right level.’
  • ‘Good to have the context of the topics.’

Make sure you look out for more information evenings coming up.

Homework policy update

Each year in the annual survey of parents and carers, we ask what you like most about our school and what you think we might be able to improve. We always get lots more people telling us things they like – thank you for this! We do also welcome your suggestions for improvements – whilst we can’t always act on all the suggestions, we do always read and consider them.

One area that comes up every year is homework. Some of you want more, some of you want less. Some of you like the Creative homework, some of you thinks it takes too much time.

This year, we’ve listened to what you tell us and thought about ways we think we can improve:

  • We’ve reminded teachers to make sure homework is purposeful.
  • We’ve reviewed the guidelines as to how long we recommend your child spends on their homework – the new guide is no more than 30-40 minutes, which includes for Creative homework.
  • We’ve reflected on the amount of the three different types of homework (Talk Time, Creative and Practice makes Perfect) so there’s hopefully a better balance to suit more pupils (and parents).

We hope the new changes will mean continued happy and healthy learning at home as well as at school. Read the policy and download a Homework Guide.