News

Latest news from around the school

Living and Learning (Being Healthy week) : Soggy Sport Roundabout

Posted on 10 July 2023 by Mrs Latham

A big THANK YOU to everyone who came to support our rather wet Sport Roundabout afternoon today.

We all still had fun, despite the rain. The winning team was France – but check out where your team came.

Another THANK YOU for sending children in fantastic coloured clothes to match their country team too.

 

1st France

2nd England

3rd Nigeria

4th Spain

5th Italy

6th Portugal

7th Germany

8th Colombia

9th Norway

10th Netherlands

11th Argentina

12th Brazil

 

This week’s message (Friday 07 July 2023)

Posted on 07 July 2023 by Mr Roundtree

This week’s message is a short one, starting with a reminder of the our annual Summer competition…

Big brains

A recent news article caught our eye – front page of The Times (28.06.23):

Here’s an extract from the article:

Young children who love reading grow up to be cleverer teenagers with better mental health, a study has found.

Research by Cambridge and Warwick universities found that reading a lot between the ages of two and nine was linked to better academic performance at secondary school, greater happiness and a reduced likelihood of depression, anxiety or behavioural problems.

Bookish children spent less time on their phones or watching TV. Scans revealed that they had bigger brains.

The research authors stressed the value of parents and carers ‘doing their best to awaken the joy of reading in their children at an early age’. The reaserch suggests that the ideal would be for children to read about 12 hours each week.

Talking of reading…

Extreme reading

Here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we love reading. Over the Summer holidays, we’ve a challenge for your child… Show us how reading-obsessed they are by sending us a pic of them reading in an extreme place or position.

Here’s someone who’s already getting stuck into some extreme reading. (can’t think who it could be!)…

To enter, email your pics to scholesoffice@spherefederation.org by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject.

All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Governance

Each year, the Sphere Federation governors produce a document that outlines their work over the year. Read the 2022-23 Annual Governance Statement.

Finally, in case you missed it, check out Miss Hague’s post from a few days ago which describes the themed week coming up next week.

Being Healthy - themed week 10 July 2023

Posted on 03 July 2023 by Miss Hague

Our next whole school themed week, based around Being Healthy, will be taking place from Monday 10th July. This is the second of two themed weeks in the year.

In our Being Healthy week learning will be based around how to be healthy, physically and emotionally.  A variety of events and visitors are planned to help us deliver this key aspect of our Living and Learning education. Children can come in PE kit for the whole week.

As part of the week, you are invited to watch your child take part  in our ‘Sports Roundabout’ event on Monday 10 July 1.15- 2.15.  Come and see your child work as part of a team.  For our Key Stage 2 children, you’re invited to come to our competitive sports day on Friday 14 July 1.15 – 3.30.

On Tuesday 11 July, Year 3 and 4 are going on  a trip to Magna but the rest of the school is going to be having a go at some yoga!  We’ve also got an assembly by the Mindmate team on this day who will be offering advice on mental health and wellbeing.

D:side will be delivering medicine and drug education sessions to all our children on Wednesday 12 and Thursday  13 July.  The content of these sessions will be age appropriate but will cover some important information.

This themed week is a good opportunity to think about a healthy way to travel to school.  We encourage children to use an active and sustainable method of transport, maybe parking further away from school (The Buffers or the church carpark), scooting, biking or walking to school.

Can you help?

If your job involves an aspect of health and you can support our Being Healthy themed week by coming into school, please contact the office to pass on your details.

We will keep you up to date about events during the week through website posts. We are looking forward to a busy healthy week!

This week’s message (Friday 30 June 2023)

Posted on 30 June 2023 by Mr Roundtree

This week’s message comes from our Junior Leadership Team. Before this, just a wee reminder: the last few weeks of the school year are busy (annual reports, productions, sports day…) so it’s a good idea to check out our school calendar.

We would like to introduce ourselves as the Junior Leadership Team and we are very excited to be able to share our successes from this year with you. In the Autumn term, our classes elected us to represent them at the JLT meetings and to allow their voice to be heard.  We strive to be great role models that promote maturity, responsibility and respect. We make vital decisions on behalf of the school and its pupils and we democratically decide on changes and actions. We aim to make school a happy and healthy place to learn with democracy at its heart.

At the start of the year we took on the role of reviewing the anti-bullying policy. We made sure that children would be clear on what bullying looks like and where to seek help if needed and we contributed more ideas to what includes bullying. Another of our early year tasks was to select our school charity. Each JLT member led a vote in their classes for their favourite charity. These nominations were then brought to a meeting and we took a democratic vote. As a result, Cancer Research became our charity this year.

One of our favourite activities this year has been generating donations for our school charity – Cancer Research. We are often seen at the school gate shaking our buckets, collecting donations. We successfully raised £371.29 for Children in Need and £337.97 for Red Nose Day. We couldn’t do this without your generosity or support – thank you.

Later this year, we were asked by Miss Hague to choose some children that could become lunchtime monitors. Their role would be to support the lunchtime staff and offer support and be a positive role model for children. We ran an interview process based on a set of questions that allowed us to see which children would be mature, supportive, use their initiative and be good role models. We successfully appointed ten monitors who are now doing a great job at lunchtime.

In the Autumn term, it will be time for the new JLT elections. It will be our time to step down and allow others to enjoy the experience of representing our school and making positive changes. We are very proud of our achievements this year.

Thank you to everyone who supported us on our journey to make our school an even better place to learn.

Junior Leadership Team

 

Story Trail Event

Posted on 27 June 2023 by Mrs Latham

As part of the Leeds City of Culture, there is a local story trail event taking place. The flyers are below and pdfs to download.

Why not take part with friends or family in this fun event?

Leeds23 Picnic Flyer 9th July

Leeds 2023 Poster Story 5 The Fox King QR5

LEEDS 2023 Legends of Harewood Forest Map and Answer sheet

This week’s message (Friday 23 June 2023)

Posted on 23 June 2023 by Mr Roundtree

We kick off this week’s message with early news of our annual Summer competition…

Extreme reading

Here at Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we love reading. Over the coming weeks, we’ve a challenge for your child… Show us how reading-obsessed they are by sending us a pic of them reading in an extreme place or position.

For last year’s competition, we gave you a few ideas for your happy and healthy smiley faces spotted in unusual places. This year, we’re not giving you any ideas (yet!), but you’ve plenty of advance warning, so get your thinking caps on!

To enter, email your pics to scholesoffice@spherefederation.org by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject.

All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites.

Our current topic…

…is a Design and Technology one – it’s a great topic to finish the year! The focus for all classes this year is construction (next year, it’s textiles) so children are busy designing and making products.

A key aspect of the Design and Technology curriculum is the understanding that products don’t just get made. Instead, they go through a design process that includes three key elements: evaluate, design and make. Think of this process as a cycle. For example, Sphere Motors want to create a new family car. Before the car is made, they need to evaluate existing products and talk to customers so that they’re clear about what the new car needs to have. They will then design the car and evaluate those designs. They may make a prototype of the car to help them evaluate the designs. Next, they’ll decide on a final design that will go into production and get made. This finished product will be evaluated and the whole process starts again.

Years 1 and 2

Children have been exploring what makes structures stable and strong. Next, they’ll get their design brief: to design and make a new chair for Baby Bear (clumsy Goldilocks has broken it again). Children will design and make their product, using what they’ve learned about strength and stability to help them. Finally, they’ll evaluate the product by testing it and reflect on what they would change about their design to improve it.

Years 3 and 4

Children will use a construction kit called Techcard to design and make a prototype of a go-kart which must satisfy a number of design criteria. They’ll explore how to make strong structures and mechanisms using Techcard before designing and making their prototype. Finally, children will evaluate their finished product by comparing it to their design and testing whether they have achieved the design criteria.

Years 5 and 6

Children have begun the topic by learning about pioneering female designers and engineers.

They then move on to designing and making a moving vehicle which most protect Eggy the Egg in a crash. They’ll need to research and learn about the different safety features that cars use to prevent crashes and protect passengers. They’ll then establish the design criteria and design and make their vehicles. They’ll be using a range of tools and materials to make their vehicles. Finally, children will test their vehicles against each design criteria to see how successful it is. They’ll then evaluate the vehicle based on the results of the tests to suggest improvements.

How can you help?

Talk to your child about what they’ve been learning in class. You could even talk through the three key elements of the design process: evaluate, design and make (check out Sphere Motors, above).

The class news page of the school website is a good place to go to find out more about what the children are doing.

The school library and local libraries will have some books about Design and Technology which your child will be able to borrow and develop both their reading skills and design knowledge.

Finally, there’s a lot of programmes on CBBC and CBeebies with a Design and Technology focus:

  • Bitz and Bob
  • Grace’s Amazing Machines
  • Junk Rescue
  • Maddie’s Do You Know?
  • The Dengineers

Uniform update

Each year, we review our Uniform Policy. This year, there’s only a tiny tweak about footwear to make things clearer for you: ‘choose shoes that are safe to run around for healthy, active playtimes’.

Talking of uniform, please remember a couple more points:

  • ‘Regarding jewellery, only plain stud earrings (no more than 4mm wide)…are allowed.’ We’ve started to notice more earrings that are bigger and brighter – please save those for weekends and holidays!
  • ‘Advisors recommend no earrings are worn for PE; therefore, we will ask your child to remove earrings before the lesson and put them back in after the lesson. This will be carried out by the child. If they are unable to remove or put their earrings back in by themselves, they must not wear them on the day they have PE.’ – so the start of the Summer holidays is a good time for ears to be pierced.

Thanks for your cooperation.

That’s all from us this week – enjoy a happy and healthy weekend (maybe the whole family will get up to some extreme reading!).

This week’s message (Friday 16 June 2023)

Posted on 16 June 2023 by Mr Roundtree

Hot, hot, hot! Despite the weather, there’s still loads of learning happening at Scholes (Elmet) Primary!

We start this week’s message with with an important change…

Our school day

Some time ago, the Government published a White Paper setting out various proposals which included the strong expectation that schools are open for 32.5 hours each week. Following the consultation, the White Paper was cancelled. We assumed the ‘strong expectation’ would also be no more.

Frustratingly, the expectation remains in DfE and Ofsted publications – this wasn’t clear earlier in the year.

This means we need to add five minutes to the school day. We’re going with the overall preference from the parent/carer consultation earlier in the year, which is to add the five minutes to the start of the day. This means our school day from September will be 08.45 – 3.15, every day.

I’m sorry for the confusion and change.

As always, if you’ve questions, comments or concerns, please do let me know.

Testing times

The end of the school year brings with it many assessments, some we have to do and others are to help us keep track of all our pupils’ learning.

The DfE has updated its collection of information for parents. This now includes links to all National Curriculum assessment leaflets for parents, including leaflets for the:

  • KS1 and KS2 national curriculum tests (Year 2 and Year 6 pupils)
  • reception baseline assessment (RBA)
  • phonics screening check (Year 1 pupils, and some Year 2 pupils)
  • multiplication tables check (Year 4 pupils)

In school, we really try to make sure all the assessments are as positive as possible.

Our annual survey

Thank you to everyone who completed the annual survey this year. The survey closed at noon today. We’ve had over 50 responses, almost all extremely positive (100% of you report their child is happy and feels safe at school, for example).

We’ll spend some time reviewing the responses. Just like in previous years, we’ll get in touch with any individual parent / carer in advance if they’ve raised any specific issue (as long as they’ve provided their name), and we’ll look at some of your suggestions for improvements.

Staying safe in the water

Next week is Drowning Prevention Week. Here’s a few facts to think about:

  • around 44% of accidental drownings happen between May and August
  • 62.4% of accidental drownings happen in inland water
  • accidental drownings takes an average of 402 UK & Irish Citizens every year          
  • lack of confidence and competence in water affects survival rates 
  • more than 46% never intended to be in the water

Spend some time with your child talking about staying safe in and near water.

Have a happy and healthy – and safe – weekend.

Gymnastics - summer clubs with North Leeds Gymnastics

Posted on 16 June 2023 by Mrs Latham

Here is the flyer and application form.

This week’s message (Friday 09 June 2023)

Posted on 09 June 2023 by Mr Roundtree

How was your half-term holiday? Hopefully a good one, helped by the nice weather. Now that we’re properly into Summer, remember to make sure your child is protected from the sun (sun cream, hat, plenty of water).

We need to start this week’s message with a correction and end with a reminder.

Sorry!

In the last Friday message just before the holiday, we stated the wrong month for one of a training day. It should read that there’s a training day on Friday 24 May (not June):

We’ve had an increase in requests for some term-time absences. Many of these are linked to the Summer half-term. We don’t authorise term-time absences (see our Attendance Policy). To help next year, we’ve changed the training day to Friday 24 May – this means that you’ve an extra day to use to plan for any holidays.

Thanks to the super-organised parent who spotted the error.

Talking of attendance…

Up to the end of Summer 1 half-term, our whole-school attendance figure is 95.4% – this is a great figure, so thank you very much for making sure your child is at school as much as they possibly can. (The national data for the period from 12 September 2022 to 19 May 2023 is 94.1% for primary schools.)

Here’s how each class shapes up:

  • Sunshine class: 95.1%
  • Rainbow class: 94.1%
  • Class 1A (Miss Lowry): 95.1%
  • Class 1,2B (Mrs Latham): 95.5%
  • Class 2C (Miss Young): 95.1%
  • Class 3,4A (Miss Paterson): 95.8%
  • Class 3,4B (Mr Catherall and Mrs Wilkins): 96.5% – the highest in school – amazing!
  • Class 3,4C (Mrs McCormick & Mrs Wadsworth): 95.7%
  • Class 5,6A (Mr Robson): 95.2%
  • Class 5,6B (Mrs Hogarth): 94.9%
  • Class 5,6C (Mr Lindsay): 96.4%– a close second – impressive!

Please help us

This summer, National Book Tokens is offering schools the chance to receive £1,000 in National Book Tokens. Please nominate our school.

If we’re one of the five winning entries, you’ll also win a £100 National Book Token to spend in your favourite bookshop!

The more entries received for Scholes (Elmet) Primary, the higher the chance we’ll win – so spread the word.

Thanks to the parent who alerted us to this.

Have you completed our annual survey yet?

If not, there’s still time: you’ve got until Friday 16 June to let us know your views. Thanks to those people who’ve already completed it (we’ve had 43 responses so far). It really helps to shape what we do.

Have a happy and healthy weekend!

This week’s message (Friday 26 May 2023)

Posted on 26 May 2023 by Mr Roundtree

We’ve reached the end of the Summer 1 term…

It’s felt a strange one because of all the short weeks in May. The first three Mondays in May have seen school closed – two for bank holidays and one for a training day. Thank you to everyone for working with us – we know disrupted school weeks like this can be tricky for you.

We’ve had an increase in requests for some term-time absences. Many of these are linked to the Summer half-term. We don’t authorise term-time absences (see our Attendance Policy). To help next year, we’ve changed the training day to Friday 24 June – this means that you’ve an extra day to use to plan for any holidays.

We’ve all appreciated the warmer, sunnier weather this week. Please remember to make sure your child is summer-ready next half-term. Make sure they’re wearing suncream, have a sun hat, and a water bottle to stay hydrated.

A big well done to all our Year 6 pupils for coping so well with the end of Key Stage 2 SATs tests – they all did so admirably, despite how difficult they might have been this year. Our Year 6 pupils have got a residential to look forward to, as well as lots of end-of-primary activities as they prepare to move on. This year, the residential (07 – 09 June) will be with all three Sphere Federation schools. (This will help us to make sure we can release enough staff to supervise on the trip.)

Next half term is a busy one, not just for our Year 6 pupils. Teachers are starting to write their end-of-year reports. Amongst other things, pupils have transition morning (05 July) and Sports Day (10 and 14 July) to look forward to.

Finally, a quick reminder to complete our annual survey. You’ve got until Friday 16 June to let us know your views. Thanks to those people who’ve already completed it.

Have a great half-term!