High school consultation
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.
OOSC closed
Morning OOSC will be closed on Thursday 01 March 2018.
Due to the bad weather the decision has been taken to close OOSC in the morning. Sorry for any inconvenience.
We are closed.
Due to treacherous driving conditions and forecast for the entire day, we have decided to close school.
You 'watched us while we work'...
Thank you to the parents and grandparents who came to school today for the second of our Watch Us While We Work sessions of the year. This is an opportunity for you to get a flavour of what goes on in school – you might pick up ideas on how to support your child at home, you might be more aware of the high expectations around reading, writing or maths, or you might even notice how we react to minor behaviour problems.
Here are some of the comments:
- ‘Excellent interactions with children’
- ‘Literacy with Y5/6 – quite amazing how much has changed and upped the levels!’
- ‘Behaviour and overall engagement of all pupils was fantastic.’
- ‘I was amazed at the knowledge that all the children were able to show – and confident to show.’
- ‘The lesson was very engaging and thought-provoking.’
- ‘It was good to visit two different classes and enjoy two different subjects, seeing different approaches.’
- ‘Very impressed by communication between staff and pupils.’
That’s great feedback – thank you very much.
Following our last Watch Us While We Work session, some parents told us it would be even better if they were able to visit their own child’s class. We appreciate this might nice, but we do know it often disrupts learning. However, do look out for a chance to visit the class: on Monday 12 March at 2pm, we’ll have a Topic Book Review session. Classes will be reaching the end of their second Big Topic – Life Forces. This is a chance to come in and find out more about the learning that’s gone on during topic lessons.
In case of snow...
It’s been many years since Scholes (Elmet) Primary needed to close due to extreme snow – and we don’t intend to close this week, either, despite the weather warnings for parts of the UK which you’ll have heard.
If snow is bad, we have to make decisions based on various factors, including how safe it is for our staff to travel to school.
We will communicate if school is closed by text, email, Twitter and a news post on the website (which then uploads to Facebook, too).
We won’t take this decision lightly. However, if we do, we’ll aim to make the decision by 08.15 am at the latest. Until that point, please assume school will be open.
Scholes in Bloom winners!
Well done to the children who designed a flowerbed for outside our school. Your ideas were amazing!
Look out for the winning design – this will be planted very soon.
KEIOTSUKE (attention) - we're doing judo!
All classes in school enjoyed some judo this week. Reception and Key Stage 1 were introduced to judo by Glynn from Sportif Judo and were thoroughly active for the full session – foot grabbing, pushing, pinning and bulldozing each other!
The Key Stage 2 classes also experienced a second session, building on skills from last month. They improved and developed their pinning, rolling and throwing techniques. If you’d like to continue judo, fliers were sent in book bags.
30 Active Minutes
A huge well done to the first group of children who achieved their bronze wristbands as part of the 30:30 challenge. As well as improving our fitness levels, this also has an impact on self-esteem and self-image (our Living and Learning focus this half term). It’s been proven that children who are physically active throughout the day are happier and more confident. So, aiming for 60 active minutes is great for physical and mental health.
Their photos are on our podium display just inside school.
They will now progress on to the silver challenge. If you didn’t complete the bronze challenge, it’s not too late. Spare copies of the recording sheets can be collected from the office. To help achieve the 30 active minutes at home you could check out the new site that the BBC have launched, called Super Movers, that combines learning and exercise.
Happy and healthy learning at home
Thank you to everyone who attended parent-teacher meetings recently. It’s great to see that almost all parents / carers took the time to hear how their child is progressing and to find out more about how to support their child at home.
Talking of support at home, the Learn More section of our website has lots of different top tips. Go to Help Your Child.
Of course, there are loads of games and activities online, too. Perhaps there’s too much – going on-line can be overwhelming. Here are two sites we suggest – useful for children of any age.
We really like IXL. Here, you’ll find pages for every year group, with activities to practise English and Maths skills. There are usually well over 100 pages for each subject. This could be overwhelming, but each subject is then broken down into helpful sub-categories. (For example, in Year 6 Maths, these are sections on Numbers and Comparing, Place Value, Addition, Understanding Fractions etc.)
This site is especially good to explain – and avoid – a common mistake in writing: ‘run-on’ sentences, which we call ’squashed’ sentences in school. These are two (or more) sentences that are squashed together. For example:
In half-term, I went to the cinema I saw Early Man it was great!
In this example, there are actually three ‘chunks’ (clauses) that all make sense and need to be split up (using a full stop or a dash or a semi-colon):
In half-term, I went to the cinema. I saw Early Man – it was great!
The sentences could also be joined with a conjunction:
In the half-term, I went to the cinema and I saw Early Man – it was great!
On IXL, there’s at least one activity to practise this in Y3-Y6 – start with the Year 3 one, even if your child is older.
The BBC Bitesize website has recently been updated – it’s probably best you avoid the old archived one, so use this link. The site contains pages on most National Curriculum subjects and it’s definitely worth checking it out.
Speak with us about other ways to support your child at home.
Kind comment
Supportive… purposeful… encouraging… welcoming… positive… polite… friendly… helpful… inclusive… tolerant… supportive – Wow! What a list of positives!
Like lots of schools, Scholes (Elmet) Primary benefits from the advice and support of SEN (Special Educational Needs) specialists. Recently, we received some positive feedback from one of these specialists who has been to our school several times over the last year and has always commented what a great school it is. Along with the required reports, he added a kind comment:
Also, just wanted to say what a pleasure it was to be in your school for the day just before half term. I visit dozens of schools across Leeds and have seen some excellent practice but rarely have I been in a school where there is such a mutually supportive, purposeful, encouraging and caring ethos as I see at Scholes. Staff are extremely welcoming, positive and open to ideas. Every child I have encountered on my visits to the different classes was polite, friendly and helpful. Their inclusive, tolerant and supportive attitudes have had a highly positive effect on the children who I visit in your school.