Author: Mr Catherall

Today, we enjoyed a creative e-safety workshop called ‘ Game Over’.

After a few warm up games, we were introduced to the plot. An online game where people collect coins and play against others has got much of the world addicted (sound familiar?). People are no longer sleeping well, people cannot focus their minds fully on anything else and the world is beginning to self-destruct.

We created our own avatars and joined the virtual world. In order to join, we had to sign up using our names, age, phone number and location. Then people asked us to be friends with them, in return, they offered us a reward: online currencies, game rewards etc. Shockingly, many of us said we would accept the strangers requests.

We learnt about the dangers of accepting friend requests from people we don’t know and what we can do if this happens: report them, block them and tell an adult we trust.

Lots of us admitted to playing games that are rated a 12. Some of us admitted playing games that have an age-rating of 18. We created a short piece to show what might changes might occur to us after we’ve played games like these.

Our short plays showed increases in violence, trouble sleeping and fall outs with family and friends.

Every Tuesday, we visit our school library during our afternoon session. We enjoy choosing a new book and having a relaxing read.

“It’s a nice, colourful place to be”

“It’s got every book you need”

“I like that there’s lots of choice”

“The reading is a great place to relax and there are lots of books”

Each child in school is able to take a book home every week. Help at home by encouraging your child to do so.

Please remember that children in Year 5 and 6 should have their library book in school every Tuesday.

In PE, we’ve been practising our rugby skills. A key skill in rugby is evasion (ask your child what this means). Today, we devised our own games to help us practise these skills.

Challenge your child be asking them to evaluate the games below using the APES acronym:

Is it active?

Is it purposeful?

Is it enjoyable?

Is it safe?

Today, we kick started our staying safe themed week by welcoming a visitor from D:Side (Drugs: support, information, drug education). They came to us to educate us about solvents and how they can be misused. Ask your child by asking them what a solvent is.

We started by learning about risk assessing. This is something we do all the time, often without realising. For example, when we decide not to touch a sharp object, we have risk assessed (and hopefully avoided injury).

Then, we thought about some everyday objects and whether there was a risk associated with them. We learnt that even things we may use (like nail varnish, paint, glue and aerosol deodorants) can be harmful to us if they’re used the wrong way. Ask your child what a safer alternative to an aerosol deodorant is.

Importantly, we then learnt what these symbols (which we find on many products) mean…

We looked at some real life examples, too.

Challenge your child by asking them what each symbol means.

This week, we reviewed our talk time homework (I know what a drug is) by discussing the topic as a class.

We began by sharing what we’d discussed at home with our partners. It was great to see that so many of us had clearly had a really useful, informative and important discussion with an adult at home. Those of us that had made notes in our homework books were able to contribute best. Then, we summarised our discussions as a table group.

After some reflection, we discussed some really important points as a class:

• Drugs can be illegal or legal.
• Some drugs make us better – medicines.
• Some ‘bad’ or illegal drugs can also be prescribed by a doctor (for example, cannabis).
• Even ‘good’ drugs (medicines) can be harmful to us if we take too many or take them when we don’t have a medical need.
• If we were to come across drugs or drug paraphernalia we should not touch it. We should leave them and alert an adult.
• If we feel pressured to do something, we should be confident that we can say no. We should also speak to someone we trust if we’re unsure.

Today, in our reading lesson, we read chapter 2 of our class novel: Kensuke’s Kingdom. Help at home by asking your child to summarise what happened. We started off by reading the book as we listened along to the audio book at the same time. We really enjoyed being able to hear a professional read aloud as we followed on.

Then, we all gathered in one room for a mass game of Kahoot. We had a great time practising our reading skills (retrieval and inference). Whilst at the same time, playing a really fun, interactive, online quiz.

Check out Kahoot to see more fun, educational quizzes!