Exciting library news!
Our library is up and running!
Yes, we need lots more books, but after lots of hard work we’re proud to say that our library is now being used regularly by the children.
To give our library a grand opening, we’ve invited a local author into school.
Conrad Burdekin is “A fun, unique, and enthusiastic writer, storyteller and poet who inspires children up and down the country to want to write. A lover of books, lego and cricket and a proud Yorkshireman”.
Our opening day will be Thursday, 28 June 2018. Look out for further details about how you can visit our library and meet Conrad.
Dance for Daniel!
We danced for a whole hour on Thursday in support of one of our pupils, Daniel, who has recently undergone an organ transplant. He will spend several months in hospital recovering and we thought it would be nice to show our support. The sun shone and it was a great way to end Spring term – with everyone smiling and feeling happy! If anyone has any sponsor money or donations, please send them into school after the Easter holidays.
Fab feedback
At Scholes (Elmet) Primary, we like to keep inviting people into school to share their views on our strengths and areas to keep improving. It helps to get other people’s opinions.
This week, we welcomed a headteacher from another Leeds school, an outstanding school with a strong record of high attainment. She visited most classes in school, spending up to about 15 minutes observing the teaching and learning, talking with some children and checking out the learning environments.
Our visitor offered three key strengths of our school:
- Very good learning behaviour: pupils are ‘calm, settled and engaged’
- Teaching appeared to be all at least good with some outstanding practice
- Learning environments are attractive and well organised
She also suggested an area for improvement: to explore a distinct editing process to allow to guide pupils when editing and improving their writing. This is a useful recommendation and one that we’ll work on in our final term.
Thank you, Platoon 14
A huge thanks to Platoon 14 and Mrs Myers!
Pond update
After two very busy days…
Before:
After:
What a transformation!
Thank you to all involved.
Watch this space...
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!
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?
Marvellous Maths facts
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
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)