News

Latest news from around the school

Pond update

Posted on 25 March 2018 by Miss Hague

After two very busy days…

Before:

After:

What a transformation!

Thank you to all involved.

 

Watch this space...

Posted on 25 March 2018 by Miss Hague

Something exciting is happening at Scholes Primary School this weekend!  We have a platoon of young people completing their Duke of Edinburgh Award, plus some Scholes in Bloom volunteers renovating our pond and sensory gardens.  Mrs Myers, who is coordinating this, has taken lots of photographs of the transformation.  I will share them next week.

A huge thanks goes out to everyone who is working at Scholes today – we appreciate your hard work and dedication.

114,530 skips at Scholes School today!

Posted on 23 March 2018 by Mrs Latham

As part of our efforts to raise money for Sport Relief and our school charity, The Donkey Sanctuary, we aimed to complete 50,000 skips collectively today. We smashed our target and completed 114,530! We also enjoyed watching our Year 4 skipping team rehearse for the skipping competition in May.

Give Triathlon a try?

Posted on 20 March 2018 by Mrs Latham

Marvellous Maths facts

Posted on 18 March 2018 by Mr Roundtree

At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we want to be a happy and healthy place to learn. That includes making sure our younger children, in Year 1 and Year 2, know the key number facts that will help to secure fluency in Maths now and in the future – facts like 3+4=?, 2+?=10 and 17+?=20.

Our Addition Facts guide provides a guide to what addition facts we expect pupils in Year 1 and Year 2 to know (the table might look confusing – please ask us if you’re unsure). The aim is for children to be secure by the end of Key Stage 1 – that’s the end of Year 2.

In a recent assessment, we can see some great progress made by our children in securing these facts.

Our Year 2 children scored is now 15.3 out of 20 in the Autumn term, with 63% of children got 15 or more questions right out of 20. They’ve made great progress – now, the average is 19.2 out of 20 and almost all (95%) scored 15 or more.

Well done, everyone! And thank you for supporting your child at home.

Tremendous times tables

Posted on 17 March 2018 by Mr Roundtree

You may have read recently about government plans to introduce a times tables assessment for children in Year 4 – the ‘check’ will be compulsory in 2020. The cost of this new test is estimated to exceed £5.2million. Whether you think the new test to be necessary or useful, it goes without saying that children knowing their times tables can really help not only in Maths lessons but in everyday life.

We’ve been carrying out our own assessment of our pupils’ times tables recall for some time now, in the form of a short test of 25 questions each term. Pupils have recently done the Spring test – with great results!

Year 4:

By the end of Year 4, children are expected to be able to recall all multiplication and division facts up to 12 x 12 and our test checked 25 random facts.

Children scored an average of 20.7 out of 25 with 68% of children getting 20+ questions correct. Last year, the same children scored  only 13.3 as a class average, with only 20% reaching 20 or more. And we’ve still got one more term to improve further!

Year 5:

Our Year 5 children scored an average of 23.6 out of 25 and 91% got 20+ questions correct. This is a significant improvement on their performance in a similar test at the end of Year 4, when the average score was 17.7 and only 45% had a score of 20 or more.

Year 6:

As you might expect, our Year 6 children did even better. The average score in the recent test was 24.3 out of 25 and 95% of children scored 20 or more in the test – a really impressive result.

We’ll need to work harder to ensure our Year 4 children in 2020 are fully prepared for the times table assessment that is planned. However, it’s reassuring to know that our children in Year 5 and Year 6 keep improving their performance.

This spreadsheet can help your child test themselves – but before they do, practise together:

  • count in things that link, like 2p coins for x2 and 5p coins for x5, and 4 wheels on a car so 4 wheels (1 car), 8 wheels (2 cars), 12 wheels (three cars) etc
  • count forwards, backwards in 3s, 4s or whatever
  • look for patterns in the times tables (like the digits all add up to 9 when you multiply by 9)

Helping with homework...?

Posted on 11 March 2018 by Mr Roundtree

You might have heard about this news story this: UK parents help less with homework.

Parents in the UK are much less likely to spend more than an hour per day helping with their children’s homework compared with parents in other countries, a survey suggests.

A survey of 27,830 parents in 29 countries found only 11% of UK parents spent an hour per day helping their children, far behind 62% in India.

Our Homework Policy is designed to best meet the needs of our pupils and their parents / carers. To help, we refer to research on how effective homework is.

Our Talk Time homework is intended to promote good speaking and listening skills, and quite often to raise awareness of moral issues such as whether or not animals should be kept in captivity. To get the most from Talk Time homework, turn the telly off and have a conversation around the table whilst eating your evening meal – you don’t need to spend extra, separate time to support your child! Encourage your child to use ambitious words, useful phrases and full sentences. Some sentence structures that can work well are:

  • What are your views on …?
  • I hear what you’re saying. However, …
  • That’s a good point, but …
  • Furthemore, …
  • In conclusion, …
  • I believe that … because…
  • Another reason is …

Creative homework is an opportunity for your child to choose whatever they want to demonstrate some learning. For example, I can show what I know about food chains. Your child could present all their learning in so many different ways, from a diagram with notes to a story or comic strip. Parents’ and carers’ role is to support, encourage, help… but never to take over and do the homework! So, there’s no need to sit down and do the homework with your child – you could be getting on with some other household task. The fact that your child and you and both actively doing something can be a really good way to promote positive attitudes.

The other type of homework is Practice makes perfect. The work should be fairly straightforward for the child as there should be no need for new learning, so just some encouragement from you is needed. However, it would be a great time to get your child to teach you – they should be able to explain the key points or processes! Also, you might want to check what your child has done – not a big job.

Don’t forget that the most important things you can do at home to support learning are to be positive and encourage your child, and to make sure they read regularly, practise their spellings and practise some simple Maths – counting, number bonds (to start with, two numbers that make 10, like 3+7) and their times tables.

Mimika theatre presents - Landscapes

Posted on 06 March 2018 by Miss Hague

Wednesday sees something very exciting happening in our hall!

The Mimika theatre company presents ‘Landscapes’ within a white, domed-shaped tent. The performance explores the diversity and complexity of the natural world.

‘Landscapes’ uses a variety of techniques including: puppetry, an image based story line, an immersive stereo soundtrack and a variety of sensory events and visual effects to involve and engage the audience.

Our initial worry was… would it fit in the hall?

Phew… it did.

 

 

 

Join in Monday

Posted on 05 March 2018 by Miss Hague

Thanks to those adults who came to Mrs Lake’s Join in Monday.  This is an opportunity to come and ‘join in’ with some topic-themed activities.

Some comments from the children:

  • ‘The best thing about having my mum come to school is that she helped me with the hard part of the activity.’
  • ‘Mum can help me with my work and we get to do fun stuff!’
  • ‘I liked it when my grandma helped me weave my leaf.’

Some comments from the adults:

  • ‘It’s interesting to see the children learning whilst having fun.’
  • ‘It’s interesting to see how the children interact with each other.’
  • ‘A very creative topic.’

High school consultation

Posted on 03 March 2018 by Mr Roundtree

From Leeds City Council, Planning and Bids Manager, Sufficiency and Participation Team:

Leeds City Council is seeking the views of local communities on secondary school provision in the Outer North East area, which will then be shared with the Department for Education before a decision is made on the academy application by Boston Spa School. As this may lead to significant long term changes to secondary education provision in the area, it is clearly important that families have the chance to express their views.

An online public engagement exercise has commenced and runs until midnight on Sunday 25th March. The Engagement Survey document, containing background information, data on finance and pupil numbers, can be found on the Leeds City Council website here. An associated online survey, which provides interested parties with the opportunity to share their views on how secondary school places in the area should be organised, can also be found on the same webpage.