News

Have you a child starting Reception in September 2020?

The admission round for children wishing to start Reception in September 2020 opened on 01 November. You can make your application online until midnight on 15 January 2020.

Read the frequently asked questions – these may help you when completing their application form. You can also contact the Admissions Team on 0113 222 4414 for help or advice.

There are drop-in sessions at the City Centre Community Hub, Merrion House, Woodhouse Lane, Leeds, LS2 8LX to help with the application process and answer questions:

• Thursday 21 November 2019, 10:00am to 11:30am
• Wednesday 27 November 2019, 2:00pm to 3:30pm
• Monday 09 December 2019, 9:30am to 11:00am
• Tuesday 17 December 2019, 2:00pm to 3:30pm
• Friday 10 January 2020, 9:30am to 11:30am
• Tuesday 14 January 2020, 1:30pm to 3:30pm

The council’s admission policy and a full list of schools (with individual catchments maps for each school) is here.

When you apply for a school, you should use all five preferences – using only use one or two preferences decreases the chances of being offered a place at a preferred school.

Any supplementary information needs to be provided by the closing date  (this applies if a child is previously looked after, is seeking admission under exceptional needs or if a family wish to apply for their child to be admitted out of chronological age group).

Make sure you use your child’s actual address. Using that of a friend, relatives, childminder or renting a property to gain a school place are all considered fraud and places can be withdrawn.

Let's keep children safe and talk about PANTS!

We have been talking about pants again! Children love talking about pants and find them funny but we use it in school to deliver a serious safeguarding message. The NSPCC have created some fab resources for us, and you, to use when teaching our children how to keep themselves safe. Ask your child about the PANTS rule and sing along to the catchy song!

Boccia club

Brighten up November

November can be quite a gloomy month as we really notice the dark days and wet and windy weather. Action for Happiness is a movement of people wanting to build a happier and more caring society. They’ve produced a calendar of daily ideas to try out in November – things like today’s idea, which is to choose a different route (to work, or even round the supermarket!) and see what you notice on the way.

Let's talk about life online

Childnet have updated their parent and carer toolkit that will help you have conversations with your child about online safety. Their booklet ‘Let’s talk about life online‘ includes ten key messages that should be shared with children:

• “You can always come to me if you need help.”
• “What would you do if this happened…?”
• “Remember that not everyone is who they say they are online.”
• “Keep your personal information safe, and other people’s too.”
• “Be respectful to others online.”
• “Think before you post.”
• “Remember to ask if it’s okay.”
• “Remember not everything is true online.”
• “The things other people post online might not always show what their life is really like.”
• “Recognise how going online makes you feel and take a break when you need to.”

Where in the world am I?

Next half-term, children in Key Stage 1 (KS1) and Key Stage 2 (KS2) will enjoy a geography-driven topic: Where in the world am I?

Aims
The aim of the topic is to introduce/consolidate children to some important geographical knowledge; in KS1, for example, UK countries and capital cities and continents and oceans. The topic should also give them an understanding of where they fit into the world. The final aim of the topic is to allow children the opportunity to conduct some fieldwork in their local area.

Fieldwork
In KS1, this could be as simple as going on a walk and picking out some of the key landmarks they see and talking about what they like or dislike about a location. Children might also devise their own map with their own key for a journey to school or a journey to a local park.

In KS2, this could be some map work involving compass directions, grid references to locate places and things in their locality. They may conduct surveys or questionnaires with members of the school community or local community about their views on a specific local issue or more generally about their locality.

Vocabulary
Your child will be learning some specific geographical words. These are broken down into Y1,2 and Y3,4 and Y5,6:

Y1,2: Words and phrases include atlas, compass, physical geography and human geography.

Y3,4: Words and phrases include grid reference, Ordnance Survey and fieldwork.

Y5,6: Words and phrases include six figure grid reference, scale and topographical.

Support your child at home
This topic is all about geography. Help to support your child’s learning at home. You could…

• plan a journey together using Google Maps
• discuss the local area and decide if some spaces could be used better
• look at a map together – there are plenty online, including Google Maps
• see how many facts they know: countries of the UK, countries in Europe, countries around the world… and then capital cities, oceans, rivers… (your child could devise a quiz, a game of bingo with countries instead of numbers, sketch and label maps…)

Thanks for coming to parents' evening

Thank you to all the parents and carers who came to the parent-teacher meetings in the last week of the half-term. It was great to see you all there, keen to find out how your child is doing in school and how you can continue to support at home.

Thanks also to the governors who were around, collecting your views. Here are some of the views they noted:

• The format of the evening was praised by parents, especially those with more than one class teacher to see.
• General comments were entirely positive, and I observed many smiling faces during the evening.
• The view was expressed repeatedly that children were happy to come to school, found friendships, and enjoyed a supportive learning environment.
• Communications have improved noticeably. In particular, the sharing of dates for events a year in advance was appreciated by parents for providing the ability to plan other commitments to enable them to attend school events.

At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we’re always keen to keep getting better, making changes however big or small. Some of you commented to governors that the school hall is a noisy environment when busy. A governor has suggested that a quiet room could be made available by specific advance request should parents require it due to individual hearing needs. This is a good idea which we’ll implement next time.

Thanks again.

Our website

In the past few months, our website has been experiencing a few problems, the main one being that the whole-school news posts haven’t been published on our Facebook page. We hope this is now sorted.

In the next week or so, there will be more tweaks made behind-the-scenes on our website. This hopefully won’t cause any problems, but do let us know if you notice something.

Sorry for any problems you’ve encountered.

Staying safe online

This half-term, some parents have told us they didn’t realise all the things we do to make sure your child stays safe online. There are lots of top tips on our Online Safety page in the Learn More section – check them out!

3, 2, 1 DODGEBALL!

Well done to the Year 5 dodgeball team, managed by Mr Gledhill, who came third in the East Leeds heats this week. They were fiercely competitive and showed a real team work spirit. Lots of the photos are blurred because they were running around so fast!