Applying for a Reception Place
A quick reminder.
The closing date for applications for a September 2026 Reception place is 15 January 2026.
Please remember that you still need to apply for a Reception place at Scholes (Elmet) Primary School, even if your child attends Scholes Nursery.
PE – dance
All Key Stage 1 classes are focusing on dance in our first few weeks of Spring term. Dance is just moving to music. We have thought about low, medium and high movements and responded to different music this week. The Planets (Mars) by Holst really made us move in different ways.
Top tip for watching YouTube with your child: go to the settings cog (it’s along the play bar) and turn off autoplay – this avoids an inappropriate clip coming up automatically, and helps to discourage your child from passively watching clip after clip.
Happy New Year
Happy New Year and welcome back to Nursery! We hope that you all had a great Christmas. It was lovely to see everyone on Monday morning and hear about your holiday adventures.
This week, we’re reading ‘The Gingerbread Man’ and children are already beginning to retell the story in our small world area. This story will be our focus for two weeks. If you have a copy of the story at home, please enjoy reading it together. If not, you might like to listen to Mr Tumble reading it.
Children love to join in with the repeated refrains in the story. Can they remember what the Gingerbread man shouts? “Run, run, as fast as you can, you can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.”
So far this week, we’ve made Gingerbread Men in the playdough area and counted the buttons for his tummy.
It’s been a cold start to the week, we found lots of ice outside. We brought some of the ice inside to paint. We then explored painting with frozen paint. It was great to paint with, the colours were so bright.
We left pine cones, sticks and leaves outside in a tray full of water overnight. The next morning they had frozen. It was “ cold” “ slippery” “ wet” “ hard” “ freezing”
Lots of the children began to talk about a favourite film ” Frozen” We made our own “Frozen” sensory area. Some items in the tray were frozen and some weren’t. The children enjoyed melting the frozen objects.
We’ve been busy visiting our new families at home visits this week. We’re looking forward to welcoming our new ” green group” for their first sessions next week. It may feel a little bit busier than usual at the start of the day. Please be patient as we help to settle the new children into Nursery.
Help at home
In group time, our sound box had lots of ‘m’ objects including a marble, a mouse, a map and a mirror. What can you find around the house that begins with the ‘m’ sound? What other ‘m’ objects could we have put in our sound bag?
Next week’s learning
Letter next week – ‘d’ for duck
Nursery rhyme next week – The Grand Old Duke of York
Reminders
We play out in ALL weathers at Nursery and at this time of the year, it can be very cold. Please make sure that your child has a warm coat, a hat and some gloves to wear to help keep them warm and happy whilst we play. Please write their name in them too as it’s really helpful when we’re trying to find who they belong to. Thank you in advance.
Happy New Year
We are all happy to be back after two weeks away and to hear all about what everyone has been getting up to. We’re very excited for the term ahead and we look forward to the rest of the year, starting with a trip to Abbey House Museum on Friday 23rd January.
Material World: Testing Properties in Science
This week in science, our new topic Materials and Their Properties kicked off with plenty of excitement, curiosity and the occasional buzz. The children explored magnetic materials, discovering which objects were attracted to magnets and which were not, before moving on to electrical conductors and insulators.
They had great fun building simple circuits and testing different materials to see which allowed electricity to flow and which stopped it in its tracks, making careful predictions and observations like real scientists. There was lots of brilliant discussion, problem-solving and teamwork as they worked out why some materials behaved the way they did.
Help at home: Ask your child to explain and use their new science vocabulary or challenge them to spot and name conductors and insulators around the house.
Year 3,4 Topic – Romans and Anglo – Saxons
Welcome back and Happy New Year!
Our History based topic this half term is ‘The Romans and Anglo- Saxons’. This week, the children have been locating these periods of history on a timeline and finding out about life in Britain before the Roman invasion.
We’re all looking forward to our school trip to the Yorkshire Museum later this month.
Help at home by looking at the BBC Bitesize website to find out more about the Romans.
Welcome back
It’s been great to see everybody back at school this week and we have got stuck straight back into our learning in 1A.
In Maths we have been looking at 3D shapes. We’ve counted sides, faces and recognised 2D shapes within 3D shapes. We’ve also looked at some symmetry too.
In Science we planted some bulbs. We are watering them everyday and keeping the plant pot in our classroom so that it stays nice and warm.
Happy New Year!
Happy new Year!
Happy New Year to all our Reception Class families. Welcome back.
What a first term we had! Everyone made such a great start to school life during the first term – we’re so proud of your children. We’re looking forward to all the fun learning we have planned for you this term.
A look back over some of the festive activities we shared together:
- Learning about how Christmas is celebrated around the world. We especially liked learning how Santa needs to change into shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops when delivering presents in Australia. He asks the kangaroos to help him deliver presents to give the reindeer a little rest. We also loved searching the class for the hidden almond just like some people search for the hidden almond in the rice pudding in Denmark. It’s thought to bring good luck to those who find it.
- We got a phone call in class to let us know that our teachers had received a very special email. It was very mysterious. The email was a video of Santa himself exploring the Nursery, Reception and KS1 classes. He had hidden a bag of presents in our classes for us to find and we each got to take home a little gift.
- Performing songs and poems for parents and carers in the Christmas show.
Swimming
School Trip
A gentle reminder to please pay for the upcoming trip on Arbor. We’re visiting This Green Moon and the cost of this visit is £21.44 per child to cover entry and the ever-increasing travel costs. During this visit, children will explore the outdoors, get mucky, build dens, sit around a fire, learn crafts and skills and all the while, appreciate the surroundings and develop a love of nature.
PE – dance
Our new topic in PE is dance this term so I hope the children have brought their dancing shoes to school.
The children are becoming familiar with different genres of music. This week, we listened to ‘Le Freak’ which has a pop/disco vibe to it. Lots of the children recognised the piece of music so their adults must have great music taste. You can listen to the song here if you would like to reminisce about your disco days!
They spent the session creating a dance routine in small groups that matched the rhythm of the music. They then performed them in front of the class. They were fantastic!
Sharp teeth and claws
