Newsletter Issue 28
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Friday 26th April 2013
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Dear Parent/Carer,
It’s been another busy week here at Robin Hood, with the highlight for me being the observations that I carried out in classes. As ever, there is some exemplary teaching going on and many, many, many very spirited and enthusiastic learners. I always love getting up close and personal to the brilliant practice that takes place here.
Attendance
The enjoyment of learning can be evidenced in our most recent attendance data. The school is maintaining attendance levels above 95%, which is the target we set at the start of the year. At present, attendance is at 95.4%, with the strongest attendance being seen in Year 1 (96.4% average). I would like to extend my thanks once more to all families in supporting us to keep our attendance rates above the national average.
WHISE project
Mrs Wathen and Mrs Cookson returned on Friday following their trip to Sweden
Collection of poorly children
There have been a few nasty bugs around lately. Please can I ask that you collect your child promptly, if you are called in the event of sickness. Thank you.
Parent Governor vacancy
We currently have a vacancy for someone to take up the role of a Parent Governor. Our Governing Body is a supportive and positive group, who work closely with myself and is very much central to the evaluation and improvements made by the school. I would like to invite any parents who are interested in filling the vacancy to contact myself on gaynor.dale@robinhood.leeds.sch.uk. We have an induction handbook and we also offer training around key agendas. This is a great opportunity for someone to be fully involved in the life of the school. In the meantime, I would like to thank Jenny Curgenven for her valuable contributions during her time as part of the Governing Body at Robin Hood School.
School Calendar
We now have a school calendar on our website, which should be used as a way of finding out about key dates and events. Our aim is to keep this as up to date as possible and to give parents as much notice as we possibly can about events that they may wish to or need to attend. Information will continue to go out on the Newsletter but the calendar does give you a reference point, should you lose or not receive the letter- or if you simply forget! I will shortly be populating the calendar with key dates already planned for next academic year but for now, please do use it as a way to keep informed on events happening on the lead up to the end of the school year.
Congratulations Miss Parker
I always love to end my bit with some good news! I am delighted to announce that Miss Parker (Louise from Friendly Faces), is expecting her first child in October. I am sure that you will all join me in wishing her a very healthy and happy pregnancy.
PTA NEWS
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Firstly, a big thank you to all those who attended the meeting last night. Lots of ideas were discussed surrounding the Summer Fayre, which is to be held on 29th June on the school field with a village fete theme. Hopefully the weather will be kind to us. By now everyone should have received their invite to our Family Quiz Night to be held on 10 May at 5:30pm. Hand your RSVPs back to the OFFICE, not forgetting to let us know what you would like for supper. Over the next few weeks we will be giving details of help we need to ensure that our Summer Fayre is a resounding success, if you can help with anything at all please contact Clare Perry, our Chair.
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Everyone, have a super weekend!
Mrs Dale
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had fantastic and exciting week learning all about castle life. The children loved learning about the different jobs in the castle. They all wanted to be brave knights but weren’t so keen on having the job of a gong farmer whose role it was to clean out the cesspit! The weather has been much better this week and the children have been really enjoying and making full use of our outdoor provision. The children are really trying hard to blend and segment sounds and 4 superstars have been to see Miss Lambert, our Foundation stage leader for a special Assistant Head teacher sticker this week. A big well done to these children.
THIS WEEK
Our non-fiction facts about castle life which were our literacy outcome this week were fantastic and some are proudly displayed on our FS blog. In numeracy we have been learning about 2D shapes through exciting bingo games and have discussed the properties of 2D shapes. The children really enjoyed the story King Jack and the Dragon and we made some fantastic castles to protect us from dragons and enemy soldiers. In phonics we have used the sound talking toy to segment words and then the children have to blend them to tell us what they are saying. They have also enjoyed playing the game ‘Cross the river.’ They are becoming much more confident in blending and segmenting so please continue to do this with your child at any opportunity.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we are focusing on the story of Shrek. In literacy next week we will be looking at the setting of Shrek and thinking about the swamp that Shrek lives in. We will be doing a speaking and listening activity where we talk about the materials we can use for the swamp and will make the swamp as we talk about it. In PSE on Wednesday we will discuss the dragon in Shrek and Miss Parker will be bringing in her pet Rankins dragons (bearded dragons) which we will look at and handle. If you are aware of any allergies to these kinds of animals or you are unhappy with your child handling or being around these animals please let us know. In topic we will be making collages of 2D castles using different materials and we will make a lovely display from the masterpieces the children create. In numeracy we will be thinking about shapes and numbers we can see in the environment around us. In phonics we will be focusing on the sounds ‘I’ and ‘n’ and continuing to play games around blending and segmenting.
A DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES
We thought it would be a lovely idea to invite you all to our Leaver's Garden Parties! We hope it will be a celebration of the children's learning journey and successes across the year. Weather permitting you will be able to enjoy sandwiches and cakes in our fabulous outdoor areas but we do require you to dress up in a manner befitting a Royal Garden Party!
Dates are as follows:
NURSERY
Monday - Wednesday children will be Wednesday 17th July 10.30 - 11.30am
Wednesday - Friday children will be Friday 19th July 2.00 - 3.00pm
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please can you make sure your child has their reading book on a Monday/Thursday so that I can make sure that their books are changed at least once a week.
· Please can you practise writing your child’s first name with them and if they can do this move on to writing their surname with them.
We hope you have a lovely weekend.
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin & Miss Fox
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had another fantastic and exciting week learning all about castle life. The children loved learning about the different jobs in the castle. They all wanted to be brave knights but weren’t so keen on having the job of a gong farmer whose role it was to clean out the cesspit. The weather has been much better this week and on Tuesday the children made their very own castle from an enormous box with Miss Friar. Yet again we have seen real improvement in the children’s writing so please keep helping the children achieve their targets at home. The children are also doing really well at learning the sounds and words of the week and Mrs Dale’s office was very full again this week. So a big well done to all the children who got their certificate!
THIS WEEK
This week we have discussed the difference between fiction and non-fiction books and talked about how fiction books are stories and how we get information and facts from non-fiction books. The children have found this concept tricky so please discuss it with them when you are reading with them. The non-fiction books the children produced in literacy were fantastic and are now proudly displayed in our school library where the whole school can enjoy them. In numeracy we have been learning about 3D shapes and have discussed their properties. They have built some fantastic castles with 3D shapes which will definitely be safe from enemy soldiers. In topic the children have drawn themselves as a king or queen and then framed their portraits. These pictures will be proudly displayed in our classroom shortly so that visitors to our classroom can see all our wonderful Kings and Queens . In phonics we have read the words; did, man, going, where, would and or and learnt to read and write the sounds ay in hay and the split diagraph a_e in bake.
NEXT WEEK
Next week we are focusing on the story of Shrek. On the first two days we will be thinking about the different characters in Shrek. One of the characters is the dragon so to support our learning Miss Parker is bringing in her pet Rankins dragons (bearded dragons) which we will look at and handle, and we will then make our own dragons and think of adventurous adjectives to describe them. If you are aware of any allergies to these kinds of animals or you are unhappy with your child handling or being around these animals please let us know. On Wednesday and Thursday we will be thinking about the setting of Shrek and we will make our very own swamps which should hopefully be very messy and very smelly. In topic as well as making our revolting swamps we will be making collages of 2D castles using different materials. In numeracy our starter is counting in 1’s to 100 which some children are still not confident in and we will be doing some quick fire 1 more and 1 less sums. Our main focus in maths is adding and subtracting two numbers up to 10, we will be doing this practically when the children attend Shrek’s banquet and when they look at what Shrek has bought from the market. In phonics we will be continuing to think about the different ways we can write the long a sound; eigh (quadgraph) in neigh, ey in grey and ei in veins. The words we will be learning to read the words; took, school, think, home, who and didn’t.
A DATE FOR YOUR DIARIES
We thought it would be a lovely idea to invite you all to our Leaver's Garden Parties! We hope it will be a celebration of the children's learning journey and successes across the year. Weather permitting you will be able to enjoy sandwiches and cakes in our fabulous outdoor areas but we do require you to dress up in a manner befitting a Royal Garden Party!
The date is as follows:
Friday 19th July 11.00 am - 12.00 noon.
Miss Pyatt, Miss Lambert and the Reception Team.
Key Stage 1
Home Learning:
This half term we are focusing on developing the children’s Mental Maths skills. Each Friday your child will have a focused Mental Maths lesson developing their understanding of vocabulary and the strategies they can use to answer the questions.
Please support your child in answering the ten mental maths questions, discuss the language which is underlined and the strategies your child has used to solve it.
This task should take about 20-25 minutes and will continue to support the learning in school.
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Messages
Water bottles
Now that the summer is finally approaching (fingers crossed!) please can you ensure your child brings a water bottle to school every day. We will make sure they have lots of opportunities to drink during the day to keep hydrated.
Art Attack
In a few weeks the children will be designing their own Andy Warhol style image on the front of a t-shirt design before modelling it in assembly. Please could you provide a white t-shirt for your child to draw their musical Andy Warhol design onto and send it into school by Friday 3rd May.
The week ahead
Elvis, the Beatles, Queen, Madonna, the Spice Girls…which do you remember most?!
To continue with our topic of ‘Music through the Ages,’ the next couple of weeks will be devoted to celebrating how music has changed over the past few decades. We’ll be twisting our way through the 50s with the King of Rock, jiving into the 60s and 70s with David Bowie and The Beatles, rocking out in the 80s before bopping to the delights of 90s boy bands and girl bands (Backstreet will well and truly be back in KS1!!) We’ll take the children on a musical journey far from the likes of One Direction (much to their dismay no doubt!). It will be fascinating to delve into the trends, sounds and fashions of the different eras. We can’t wait to find out which decade the children like best (the opinions among the teachers certainly differs massively!) If you have any music from your childhood at home it would be great if you could share it with your child. The children will then be getting creative by producing their own album cover to reflect society in 2013.
Literacy
This week the children have produced some fabulous adventure stories by taking inspiration from the different books we have focussed on. The sophistication of their writing has been incredible. Over the next two weeks we will be swapping round the books within Key Stage One and shifting our focus to making the children’s writing even more descriptive. Year One will be exploring the story of ‘Hugless Douglas’, through which they will continue to learn about spoken language and adding detail with adjectives. Year1/2 will be exploring the repetitive structure of a story using speech patterns by reading ‘Don’t Wake the Beastie’. They will be learning how to choose appropriate verbs to make their writing lively and how to add adverbs for even more detailed descriptions. Year 2 will be pushing themselves to extend noun phrases and use more sophisticated adjectives and similes to really paint a picture in the minds of the reader. They will be using ‘The Rainbow Fish’ as the basis for their writing and will ultimately produce their own story about a sea creature that is reluctant to share with his/her friends.
Numeracy:
Thanks to the slight improvement in the weather we have been lucky enough to do some learning outside this week. The children have thoroughly enjoyed estimating and measuring all kinds of different things around school using metre sticks, tape measures and rulers. They have grasped the difficult concept of length extremely well and are getting to grips with the vocabulary associated with it. We have focussed on the rules of measurement and the children have learnt the importance of starting from zero and reading the unit of measurement carefully. Lots of us were caught out initially by the tricky tape measures which include cm and inches! Much of our time has been spent discussing estimation and comparisons. Lots of discussions at home around the difference between centimetres, metres and kilometres will really help to embed this learning. Next week we are progressing onto capacity. The sessions will be very practical and I’m sure the children will love measuring and making their own fruity cocktails! If you need anything weighing or measuring at home – ask the children, I’m sure they will be happy to help and show off all their new skills!
Have a lovely weekend.
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had a super time in Lower Key Stage 2 this week! All of the children have showed a mature and sensible attitude towards their learning, and they were particularly excited when they got to sample the range of Indian Food. The staff of 3/4 would like to say a big thank you to Mrs Misty, for helping the children to make chapattis. This was a great experience and the children loved it!
Literacy
This week the children have been continuing to learn how to write a newspaper article. This week, an unfortunate crime had taken place…all of the scooters had been stolen! Thankfully, they were returned safe and sound, and the children put their reporter heads on, in order to recount the events in a newspaper article. The children were able to ask the CSO many questions about how and why the scooters were taken, and this formed the main body of their article. We were really impressed that the children remembered to use powerful verbs within these articles, as well as top quality quotes!
Numeracy
In numeracy this week the children have been learning how to tell the time using analogue and digital notation. The children have been trying really hard to learn how to tell the time to the nearest quarter of an hour, as well as to the nearest minute. The children have then used their knowledge of time to solve time related worded problems, and then further develop their understanding by answering test style questions. We would love for you to keep practicing how to tell the time at home, using both analogue and digital notation.
Topic
This week in topic we have been learning all about Indian schools, and thinking about how they compare to Robin Hood. We have also looked closely at traditional Indian food, and we have learnt about how the different religions of India
Spellings to be tested on Tuesday 7th May (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Please support your child in practicing their spellings every day to help them achieve 10/10 in their spelling test every week.
Group One
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Group Two
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We’ve
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Exciting
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You’ve
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Especially
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They’ve
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Necessary
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I’ve
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Electricity
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She’s
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Recently
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He’s
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Spicy
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Somebody’s
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Agency
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Nobody’s
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Currency
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There’s
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Frequency
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Who’ll
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Reminders
· Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week. Indoor P.E will be needed for the next few weeks, as we are learning the Big Dance routine.
Have a lovely weekend!
Team 3/4
UKS2 News Roundup:
· This week’s achiever is Josh Driscoll from 5/6M. Josh was absent last week so we would like him to be aware of his fantastic progress. Josh always gives 100% in all his learning and shows a great determination to succeed. Well done Josh!
· Dates for your diary:
29th April: Please can parents and carers ensure that their children are at school for no later than 7.50am on Monday for the school trip to Jodrell Bank Space Discovery Centre. Please make sure that pupils have a packed lunch and a warm jacket, as some activities will be completed outside. Pupils are welcome to bring a fruit based snack for their journey home, however please ensure that no fizzy drinks are brought on the trip.
· 13th May: SATS week.
· 5th- 7th June: Year 6 residential to Robin Wood.
Numeracy:
· This week, the children have been applying their learning of key concepts and operations to a variety of mathematical words problems and questions.
· Next week pupils will be handling and interpreting a variety of data sets. Pupils will be taught a range of strategies to help them solve problems in a more strategic way.
Literacy:
· This week pupils have been developing biography paragraphs about Neil Armstrong’s life. Pupils have applied a range of conjunctions and connectives into each section of their biography. Pupils have now published their completed biographies. Next week we will look at the purpose of discursive texts and how to use connectives effectively to join ideas in writing.
· Spellings. Next week pupils will be tested on a range of connectives. They include: whenever, finally, despite, however, hence, meanwhile, although, consequently, additionally, nevertheless.
Other areas of the curriculum:
· This week in ICT the children have been inputting procedures to program robots to manoeuvre over canyons, which the children have made. These models aim to replicate the surface of Mars.
· This week in Spanish, pupils have been continuing their learning about the solar system and have been introduced to the positioning of these planets in relation to each other.
· In PE this week pupils have been continuing to learn the Big Dance routine that will be performed by the whole school. Children have recapped the steps to the first section of the dance and have now combined this to the steps in the following sequence. The video resource is available online if pupils search Big Dance 2013.
· In our TOPIC sessions pupils have been introduced to our new learning about space. This week pupils have been introduced to the key differences between the Earth, Sun and Moon. Pupils have researched the Earth, Sun and Moon and have presented a range of outcomes to demonstrate the key concepts of day and night, seasons and lunar months.
· In Music, 5/6M have started to practice the key notes relating to the first section of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. 5/6G are continuing to explore several percussion instruments; including xylophones, and have recapped on how to play scales and chords. 5/6 B have been experimenting with garage band to reflect the change of mood and atmosphere in their silent movie, through tempo and sound effects.
