Ukulele
Y3 children really enjoyed their ukulele lesson with Mr Oliver today. We practised our chords from last half term: C, A minor and F. We also learnt a new chord, G.
Tennis with Dwight
Our tennis lessons with Dwight are progressing well. Today, we practised our forehand and backhand. Dwight commented on how impressed he was with the improvements in hand-eye co-ordination.
Conkers and School Council
We’ve had another learning-loaded week to finish the first half term of the school year. Our English work has involved lots of noun-spotting and securing sentence construction. You could help consolidate this learning at home by looking out for, and talking about, nouns and how they appear in our language.
We also collected a whopping 1,343 conkers. We’ve used them to help us count in 10s. You could join in at home and collect interesting objects to count in 2s, 5s or 10s. Now we’ve finished with them, we’ve returned them to the woods behind school for the squirrels to enjoy – and hopefully a few will grow into chestnut trees, too!
The excitement was palpable during the voting for the school council representatives. We used a voting booth, ballot papers and a ballot box to make it an authentic experience. Well done to those that got voted in.
The class assembly from 2KL was amazing. The children were so excited and proud to share all their learning. Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to support the children.
Join In Monday! (02 October 2017)
Thank you to everyone who attended the first Join In Monday afternoon of the year. Class 1,2V hosted the Autumn-themed afternoon. Parents and carers joined in with children making leaf lanterns, leaf mobiles and leaf rubbings. There were also 933 conkers to count and play with!
What are these bricks my child keeps talking about?
This week, we’ve introduced your child to challenges. Challenging activities are around the classroom for your child to complete to earn a brick. The aim is to get a tower of bricks taller than five. Challenges include the learning we’re focusing on throughout the week – for example, writing our name. Ask your child what challenges they have done this week.
We talked about who had more and who had fewer bricks. If your child’s tower was more than five, your child will be coming home with a certificate!
Fab feedback
A little while ago, we posted some comments, the views of ‘outsiders’ – educational advisors, consultants and other Leeds headteachers. Here’s an update… Someone has recently visited our school to conduct some pupil interviews, much like what an inspector would do. Here are just a few of extracts from the feedback:
- ‘Without exception, the children proved to be extremely open and articulate.’
- ‘…it was clear that children at Scholes do indeed feel safe within the school environment. The children are trusting of adults in school and know they can approach them with any worries regarding bullying, they are confident such issues, which are infrequent, will be dealt with appropriately.’
- ‘Without exception all the children interviewed enjoyed school.’
Apps update
A few days ago, we told you about a new SnapChat feature…
SnapMap lets users track other people’s location in real time – it shows exactly where people are in as much detail as the actual house. This might sound like a great idea, but just think about how vulnerable this could make a child using SnapChat. Within the feature, there is ‘Ghost Mode’ which enables you to hide your location. There are two ways which this can be turned on:
- Pinch the screen when you’re in selfie mode to bring up the SnapMap. Then, click the ‘Settings’ icon in the top right hand corner and set the phone to ‘Ghost Mode’.
- Click on ‘Snap Maps’ – ‘Settings’ – ‘Ghost Mode’.
Whilst we’re talking about apps, be aware of these ones, too…
Musical.ly and Live.ly are two other apps to be aware of. Musical.ly is a popular app where users can sing along to popular songs and upload them to the site. Live.ly is made by the same company and is a live streaming app where you can broadcast and communicate with others. This is a platform where comments and requests can be left for the users about their videos but, sadly, this has opened up inappropriate communication where young users are being asked to remove clothing and are being exposed to sexually explicit comments. Musical.ly also has some privacy controls which can be accessed via the settings option.
Roblox is a user-generated massive multiplayer online social gaming platform. Roblox’s chat facility has caused some concerns with parents reporting inappropriate comments to children.
Guidance for children using Roblox safely can be found via their safety/help page:
Check out the security information. Read the parents’ information.
It’s important that you talk to your child about using these apps. Most importantly, if they get a question or request that makes them feel uncomfortable, they should speak to a responsible adult immediately.