Friday 7 June 2013

Issue 33 2012-13

Newsletter Issue 33

Friday 7th June 2013

Dear Parent/Carer,
We’ve had a great week back to welcome in the new and final half term of the school year. Summer has definitely arrived and it has been a joy to spend some time on the school field at lunchtimes, enjoying the open space and feeling the sun on our faces. Please continue to put sun cream on your child(ren) before coming to school, make sure they bring in a water bottle to stay hydrated and if possible provide a sun hat. I even had some little flowers picked for me when I went on to the field on Thursday; it made my day!

Home learning
I have continued to be amazed at the quality of the home learning coming in this week. I have been particularly impressed by some of the “Africa” outcomes coming in from Year 3/ 4. We are consistently impressed by the level at which our children engage with our topics before we have even taught them! I think this is an excellent sign that the children find the topics stimulating and exciting but we know that the high standards of the outcomes are endorsed by the parents so once again, thank you to all who put the time and energy into these wonderful pieces of work.

Y6 Residential
Our Year 6 children will, as you read this, be making their way back from the Residential trip. They will have had a fantastic time, tackling their fears, facing challenges, building new skills and gaining confidence when being away from home. We are very proud of our Year 6 children and how they approach difficult situations with such spirit. I look forward to hearing about how they all got on.

Young Advisors event
I would like to draw your attention to an event happening in our city on Saturday 15th June between 1pm and 4pm for children aged 8 and above. Held at the Leeds City Museum, it will give children the opportunity to sign up to be a “Young Advisor”. This event is for children and young people in the city who would like to become Young Advisors and volunteer their time to gain skills and experience working on a variety of projects over the summer and beyond, such as leading steering groups, being part of recruitment and selection panels for staff and the planning committee for Child Friendly Leeds awards, to name but a few. The afternoon will follow a “drop in” format so that children, young people and families can visit, take part in fun activities, influence opportunities and hopefully sign up to get further involved! The reason I advocate this event so much is because I feel it gives the children of our city a stake in what we can achieve in the future and shows them how their skills can be transferred to really make a difference in a real life, relevant and important context; an approach we strive to achieve through the curriculum here at Robin Hood.

Life Channel
We will shortly be installing the Life Channel at school. This will involve the installation of a large information screen in the grounds of the school, which will provide a wealth of information to you and the community about what we are doing in school and what key events are happening or coming up. We are setting up our involvement with the Life Channel to achieve better links with parents and keep them fully informed about what is happening in school. We will stream the channel with our website so that parents who do not pick up their children can still benefit from this resource. The benefits extend beyond parental engagement as the School TV network also provides children with educational resources which can be tailored to the needs of the school. Children will be encouraged to film their content and upload it to the Life Channel for the public to see. For more information about how the Life Channel will be able to benefit our school, please visit. www.thelifechannel.com

PTA NEWS
Well summer is finally here, let’s hope it stays for at least another few weeks so we can have a cracking Fayre. Over the half term holidays our helpful volunteers have been sourcing all things good from food and drink to fun and games. We still need your help however so..... please could you donate any empty wine bottles (with tops still attached), jam jars, newspapers and good quality unwanted teddies? We also require the loan of a few gazebos for the day itself so if you are willing to lend your gazebo for the day please could you either speak with one of us or email robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com.
The raffle tickets have gone out today in your child's book bag. The first prize is a whopping £100 with lots of other prizes to be won from family days out to yummy goodies. Please return the stubs with your greatly appreciated money to the office in an envelope. If you require more tickets please contact the school office who will gladly give you more. Have a lovely sunny weekend.


Please do remember that we have a school calendar on the front page of the school website that will include all key dates for your diary.  I have recently updated the calendar with some dates regarding the school year 2013-14.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs Dale
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
What a lovely first week back and we have had wonderful weather to top it off. The children came back with a spring in their step on Monday and they were all really excited to tell us about the adventures they had had over the holidays which we loved hearing about. They were really eager to start playing in our new areas on Monday. They love our new garden shed inside and they have been hunting for bugs using our brand new bug hunting equipment all week outside.
THIS WEEK
The children have really enjoyed our story of the week “I Love bugs”. They have done some wonderful drawings of their favourite bugs and have written the name of the bug underneath it. The children are doing really well at writing the sounds they can hear in the words and using alphabet mats. We have been making a large scale bug display in topic this week and the children have really enjoyed making some large-scale papier-mâché mini beasts. With the lovely weather this week the children have really made use of the outdoor area and they have been playing really nicely with each other in the water area. In numeracy the children have done really well at counting to 20. They are enjoying working out what is one more than numbers under 10 and have enjoyed the practical nature of our activities. In phonics they have coped really well with the introduction of books with words in and are really showing that they are ready to go into Reception.
NEXT HALF TERM
Next week we will be learning about the story of ‘Norman the slug with the silly shell’ in literacy. We will be drawing Norman in literacy and we will be writing a sentence underneath the picture. In topic we will be decorating a donut for Norman to use as his shell and we will be making a clay snail and decorating it. We will continue with all our exciting outdoor activities collecting bugs and planting lots of different things to grow. In numeracy we will be moving onto one less than and again we will be taking a very practical approach to our learning. In phonics we will be learning to read simple cvc words and we will be matching them to the correct pictures. We will be learning the sounds “e” and “u”.
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOUR CHILD WITH THEIR LOVELY LEARNING

·        Please read with your child for 5 minutes every day.
·        Challenge them to show you how well they can write their name.
·        Please practise recognising all the letters they have learnt so far with your child.
We hope you have a lovely weekend and fingers crossed that the weather remains beautiful.
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin & Miss Fox
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
What a lovely first week back and we have had wonderful weather to top it off. The children came back with a spring in their step on Monday and they were all really excited to tell us about the adventures they had had over the holidays, which we loved hearing about. They were all really eager to start playing in our new areas on Monday. They love our new indoor pond and they have been hunting for bugs using our brand new bug hunting equipment all week.
THIS WEEK
In literacy the children have made some fantastic books all about bugs and the children really took the time to draw beautiful illustrations. They are so good that we have proudly displayed them in the library so that they can be enjoyed by everyone at Robin Hood. The quality of the children’s writing has really improved and they are trying so hard to meet all their targets, so please keep practising at home with them to help build their confidence. We have been making a large scale bug display in topic this week and the children have really enjoyed making some large-scale papier-mâché mini beasts. We had a fantastic time on Tuesday planting runner beans and discussing what plants need to be able to grow. We will be monitoring and watching the plants grow over the next few weeks and hopefully we will have some yummy runner beans in the next few weeks. In mathematics we have been learning our number bonds to 10 and we have used numicon to help us work it out. The children were really confident at using the numicon by the end of the week and it has definitely helped to increase their confidence. In phonics we have learnt to read the words; take, thought, dog, well, find and more and we have learnt to read and write the long I sounds; y (by, fly) and i (find, kind).
NEXT WEEK
Next week we will be learning about the story of Norman the slug with the silly shell in literacy. We will be designing a shell for Norman in literacy and we will be writing sentences about why the shell is a good shell for Norman. In topic we will be decorating a donut for Norman to use as his shell and towards the end of the week we will be making Norman a clay shell and decorating it. We will continue with all our exciting outdoor activities collecting bugs and planting lots of different things to grow. In numeracy we will be focusing on simple addition and subtraction using the method of counting on and backwards using their fingers and number lines. In phonics we will be learning to read the words; round, magic, shouted, I’ll, us and tree and we will be learning to read and write the long o sounds ow (flow, snow) and o_e (bone, pole).
WHAT YOU CAN DO TO HELP YOUR CHILD
·        Please read at least 5 minutes every day with your child either on bug club or their reading books. We have updated the books on bug club so they are now the correct colour.
·        Please encourage them to write things when the opportunity arises and make sure they think about their own personal literacy targets.
·        Please make sure your child has trainers for P.E. on Friday as we are now doing it outside.
Have a lovely weekend and fingers crossed for some more lovely weather.
Miss Pyatt, Miss Lambert and the Reception Team

Key Stage 1

Home Learning:
The children have started their new literacy topic on poetry this week and it has been so great to share some of their favourite rhyming books with the class. For this week’s home learning we are asking for your child to select their favourite poem or rhyming story, read it out loud to you with expression and then copy it up into their home learning books. As they do this, question your child on the features of the poem, getting them to find the rhyming words and spot any alliteration (when two words that are next to one another start with the same letter). They can add pictures too!
News:
Welcome back!
We hope you had a lovely half term break with your children and were able to enjoy the sunshine. We’ve had many tales of seaside and caravanning fun recounted to us this week so it’s clear the children relished the time off school and being outdoors! As always, they have all settled back into the school life and timetable beautifully and have been accessing some great learning.

PE
The Key Stage 1 children are in training for the Summer Olympics aka Sports Day! This week we practised our sprinting skills before learning about relay races with a baton. We practised passing the baton to our team securely to ensure no time was lost in the changeover. The children loved the competitive nature of this lesson as well as relishing the chance to galvanise their team spirit! All of our lessons will take place on the school field and will involve exercises like running and jumping. It is really important that the children have sturdy, comfortable trainers with good grips on the soles to be able to access this learning appropriately and make sure they don’t slip. It’s also really important that every child has a full PE kit. This unit is very physical and hopefully the sun will keep on shining meaning they need to be in clothes that can get hot and sweaty and not be worn for the rest of the day. Thank you for your support with these points.

Topic:
We introduced our new topic this week to the delight and enthusiasm of the children: Animals. Our learning has centred around science and geography, looking at features of different habitats and the kind of animals that are able to live there as well as discussing the concept of adaptation and how creatures have changed their bodies to suit their environment. We looked at giraffes’ long necks and tough tongues, penguins’ long eye lashes and blubber and zebras stripes. From this the children chose a habitat and created a Super Animal to live in that place. There were some amazing creations that saw many characteristics of different animals amalgamate to make the ultimate survivor!

Literacy:
We began a fabulously fun new unit this week for the half term on poetry. Each class has had their own poetry book through which we have introduced different poetic language and devices to them. Year 1 have enjoyed the rhyme in Dr Seuss’s Hop on Pop, Year 1-2 have gone nursery character spotting through rhyming couplets in Each Peach Pear Plum and Year 2 have looked through baby’s peep hole in the book Peepo. We have focussed on the performance of these poems; memorising lines, changing the tone of our voices, adding facial expressions and body movements to build the performance. We have gone hunting for rhyme, recognising that this feature is often place at the end of each line and also alliteration hunting. We have discussed how these devices add interest and fun to the poems. Why don’t you share a poem or limerick with your child and see if they can hear the rhyme?

Numeracy:
The children all showed great excitement when they were told that next week will be our final assessment week of the year, where they will sit their SATs in numeracy as well as reading. They love the challenge of these weeks and demonstrate determination and strength. Our focus in preparation for this week has been to surround the children with as many different styles of questions as possible so they have become even more familiar and comfortable with the language of numeracy, what this language means and recalled lots of different strategies for solving these written questions. We have looked closely at the four main functions, doubling and halving, money problems as well as revisiting shapes and fractions. It’s been a wonderful experience revisiting the learning from the year and seeing concepts that they found difficult initially sinking in. One particular concept that the children have found tricky this week is that of getting change from money. This is a ‘find the difference’ style question, which is simply  a take away; if you go to the shops this weekend, let your child hand the money over and count the change.

Next week:
We’re looking forward to next week and feel as confident as the children do in their abilities after a year of lovely learning. Normal lessons will commence again in week 3 where we will continue to learn about poetry in literacy and introduce a new topic of time in numeracy.
 
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
We have had a lovely first week back after the half term holiday. We were really excited to see the children’s super home learning about Africa and were very impressed with the variety we received, from cooking videos, to documentaries, posters and powerpoints, which showed off all of the skills the children learnt last half term. We were simply blown away! This week also saw us start a new unit in PE; athletics. This will prepare the children for sports day, which will take place Friday 12th July.
Literacy
This half term in Literacy the children will be learning about poetry and play scripts. This exciting unit allows children to be creative, understand deeper knowledge of different poetry styles and develop their performance skills. This week in Literacy, children have been practicing using accurate punctuation in their writing. Next week we will be focusing on extending our ideas into compound and complex sentences.
Numeracy
This week in numeracy, the children have been revisiting their skills for addition and subtraction. We were really impressed with the children’s increased confidence when using strategies like column addition and column subtraction, and were pleased with the children’s independence around using these to solve worded problems involving money. Next week we will be learning about position and direction and using compass skills to navigate each other to different places. We will be learning how to plot and read co – ordinates on a grid and using these to design our own treasure island.
Topic
To kick off the first week of our new topic, Africa, the children have been learning about all of the different countries that are situated within this continent. The children have conducted their own research on a given country, and carefully gathered notes to form a detailed paragraph. The children have also drawn and coloured in their countries flag, which has made a great display. During our art sessions the children have been experimenting with pastels to create different images of the African skyline at various times of the day. We will be building upon these skills each week to create an African landscape scene with various African animals in the full front.
Spellings to be tested on Monday 17th June (the children already have their spellings for this Monday)
Group One
Group Two
Which
Healthy
With
Squash
Where
Minute
White
Imagine
When
Opposite
Was
Damage
Whenever
Purpose
Whereas
Police
Will
Promise
would
Whereas

Reminders
·         Can we remind you that children need a full PE kit in school, clearly labelled, from Monday-Friday. Please ensure this consists of a plain white t-shirt as well as shorts or jogging bottoms.
·         As the weather is a lot warmer now please ensure your child has a water bottle at school with them every day.
Have a lovely weekend!
Team 3/4
UKS2 News Roundup:

·         This week’s achiever is Amber in 5/6G for her beautiful and imaginative use of verbs, adverbs and adjectives to create specific details about her own imaginary character, ‘The Zebhump’ during Miss Hinton’s creative writing session this week! Well done, Amber – you’re a star!

·         Due to the Rodillian disco on the 4th July our Year 6 Leavers Prom has been rearranged to Monday the 22nd July 5.30- 7.30pm. More details to follow. 

·         The school council elections for our new Year 6 captains will be held on the 20th June. The format has changed from last year and we will now be selecting new captains to represent throughout the year. This gives more children the opportunity to experience these leadership roles. Soon pupils will be required to produce a small presentation on why they think they should be school captain along with what qualities and skills they can bring to the role. An equal number of class representatives will be selected before the final candidates are decided.

·         Please can all year 6 pupils ensure that their Bikeability consent forms are completed and returned to school as soon as possible?

·         Any year 6 pupils, who have been given a rising stars grammar and punctuation book or a mental maths memory stick, please return this as soon as possible.

Dates for your diary:

·         12th June- Multiplication Parent Workshop (4:30- 5:15pm) in Miss Gascoigne’s room.
·         13th June– Year 6 Information Evening for prospective Rodillian pupils (4:30- 7:30pm).
·         20th June- Elections for our new Year 6 captains.
·         17th- 21st June- Year 6 Bikeability training. 
·         27th June – Tea Party at Rodillian for Year 6 pupils. (4:00-6:00pm)
·         1st, 2nd and 3rd July- Year 6 induction day for prospective Rodillian and Royds pupils (8.20am- 14.30pm).
(Pupils need to wear their Robin Hood school uniform).
·         4th July – Year 6/7 disco at Rodillian – Hawaiian theme! (6:30-8:30pm)
·         22nd July- Year 6 leavers prom.


Numeracy:
·         This week pupils have been readdressing their addition and subtraction strategies. Pupils have been developing their rapid recall strategies to help them when mentally calculating addition and subtraction problems.
·         Next week pupils will be recapping on their knowledge of number. Lessons will address prime numbers, multiples, common multiples, factors and common denominators.

Literacy:
·         This week pupils have been getting creative and writing poetry. Pupils have been using a variety of descriptive techniques through figurative language. 
·         Next week pupils will be introduced to some popular poems by Roger McGough and writing some of their own poetry in a similar style.
·         Spellings: Pupils will be tested on the following spellings; impression, progress, discussion, permission, comparison, conclusion, decision, collision, division, extension.

Other areas of the curriculum:
·         In PE this week pupils have been developing their sprinting technique in preparation for sports day later this term. 
·         This week in ICT pupils will be introduced to aural broadcasts and will be identifying the key features within a successful broadcast.
·         In Spanish this week pupils have been learning the names of continents and world rivers.
·         In Music this week, 5/6M have started to explore several percussion instruments with a music specialist. 5/6B have started to learn the key notes of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. 5/6G have started to experiment with a variety of loops and samples for their silent movie compositions using garage band.


 

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