Issue 9 2013-14

Newsletter Issue 9

Friday 8th November 2013

Dear Parent/Carer,

Welcome back to the new half term. I hope you all had a lovely break and feel raring to go for the run up to Christmas- Only 47 days to go until Christmas Day!

Children’s Mayor of Leeds

Representing our city on Thursday was the amazing Georgia in Year 6. Georgia was shortlisted to become the Children’s Mayor of Leeds 2013-14 and was invited to an exclusive event along with celebrities and important members of the city community. Although Georgia did not win, we must recognise this incredible achievement and I know you will all join me in congratulating her. Well done Georgia; you are always a winner to us!

Scooters and bikes

Please feel free to allow your child to bring their bikes or scooters to school once more. I would advise strongly that you provide your child with a lock, which can be attached to the bike rail at the back of the school. I must stress that it is at your own risk that these are left on the premises. Cycling or scooting to school is a wonderful, active way to carry out the journey and I would not like to discourage this.

New Zealand Rugby Team

Next Tuesday, 15 pupils will be accompanying our Active Team; Miss Mees, Mr Malley and Miss Pensom to an exclusive event whereby they will be able to watch a New Zealand Rugby squad training session. The children will then be meeting the players, gathering autographs and having their photos taken with team members. What a fabulous and exciting opportunity for our children! I can’t wait to hear all about it.

Year 6 Maths competition

A huge well done to Evan, John, Izzy and Bethan in Year 6 for competing in the Leeds Junior Maths Challenge at Leeds Grammar School on Wednesday. Back in October, the children were placed in the top 20 highest-scoring schools out of approximately 50 schools from across Leeds during the semi-finals and as a result, were invited to compete in the finals on Wednesday. The competition involved answering challenging mathematical puzzles and logical problems as a team. Although the children didn’t win, we are still so incredibly proud of the children for their dedication and enthusiasm throughout the competition; they really were a credit to our school!

Children in Need

Next Friday is Children in Need day. We have always supported this charity and feel that it is for a cause very close to our hearts. We are inviting children to wear their warmest and best pyjamas especially for the day. We are asking for a £1 donation. If you would like to buy a Children in Need wristband (optional), they will be on sale each day next week either in the office and the school captains will also come around classes in the afternoon to take donations of £1. Thank you.

Mrs Beckwith

I am very sad to inform you that our wonderful Mrs Beckwith will be leaving us next Friday. Mrs Beckwith has been with us for 15 years and is one of our longest standing members of staff. Over the years, Mrs Beckwith has worked with a great many of our pupils, past and present and I have personally had the great pleasure of teaching in a class supported by Mrs Beckwith. Everyone who has worked with Mrs Beckwith will agree with me that her commitment to and love of our school has been immeasurable. Her positive approach and love for life has meant that she has made a very many good friends but most of all, the pupils who have been supported by Mrs Beckwith have benefitted massively from her professional and warm hearted approach to teaching and learning. We will all miss you, Mrs Beckwith!

PTA News

It's manic at PTA HQ organising the Xmas Fayre. We have heard from Mrs Claus and she has put the 30th November in Santa's diary so he will be able to attend our Fayre and speak to all our wonderful and well behaved children! Before the half term holidays I mentioned that we would be asking for donations to make our Xmas Fayre the best yet so here goes..... If you have any bottles, cans, chocolate, sweets, good quality unwanted teddies, gifts please send them to school for our tombolas. Due to the success of the donated cake and bun sales at our previous events we will be having a stall to sell the wonderful and tasty goodies which you will hopefully be very generous in donating again.
By Monday every child will have brought home a book of raffle tickets to sell, which have cash and many other prizes to be won. We understand that some parents may have more than one child at school and will therefore be in receipt of more than one book of tickets. If you are able to sell them all, fantastic, if not please bring any monies and unused tickets to the SCHOOL OFFICE in an envelope marked for the attention of the PTA.
One last thing, thank you to all the teacher, parents, grandparents and carers who have already pledged their time to help out at the Fayre, if anyone else is available to help for an hour or so, or to ask any questions, please contact us at robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Dale

Nursery newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP
We have had an explosive week this week! The children have all really enjoyed the learning we have been doing about bonfire night and they had an amazing time at our Bonfire parties. Thank you for the party food – it is lovely to see the children having a great time.

THIS WEEK

It was great to see the children come bouncing into school with big smiles on their faces after half term and it was lovely to hear about all the exciting things they had been doing with you at home. Our classroom was transformed over the holidays and new exciting areas of provision have been set up (see the FS blog). The children have been very keen to access the new areas and have been engaging in some wonderful and creative role play with their friends, which is a pleasure to watch and be involved in. In Literacy this week we have learnt about how to be safe when we go to bonfires and we have learnt all about The Gunpowder Plot. We have made fabulous fireworks to display and made our own Bonfire Parkin for the celebrations.

NEXT WEEK

Next week we are starting off the week learning about Remembrance Day and the children will be writing a kind word on a poppy petal and they will be making their very own poppy. Their learning will be used for a display and all the poppy petals will be put together to make one big poppy. No doubt our classroom will be looking even more amazing by the end of next week. To support the children’s learning on Monday we ask that the children wear something red to school, this can be instead of their uniform. The rest of the week will be spent preparing for our very own celebration; we will write our own invitations, make party hats, make decorations and bake yummy party food. We will have our celebration parties on Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·         Please read with your child for at least 5 minutes every night.

·         Please send your child into school in something red on Monday (11^th November) and we would also appreciate it if they could bring in one item of party food on either Wednesday morning (13^th November) or Friday (15^th November).

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin and Miss Fox

 

Reception newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

We have had an explosive week this week! The children have all really enjoyed the learning we have been doing about bonfire night and they had an amazing time at our Bonfire party. At our exciting bonfire party we set our own fireworks off and we made our own firework noises using bubble wrap. We enjoyed using and eating our chocolate apples that the children had made as part of our science learning (changing states) and the children once again really enjoyed sharing their bonfire food with their friends. Celebrations just wouldn’t be the same without yummy food to share!

THIS WEEK

It was great to see the children come bouncing into school with big smiles on their faces after half term and it was lovely to hear about all the exciting things they had been doing with you at home including trips to Windsor Palace and even Spain. Our classroom was transformed over the holidays and new exciting areas of provision have been set up. We now have a fire station and our very own firework viewing area which you can see on our Blog. The children have been very excited to access the new areas and have been engaging in some wonderful and creative role play with their friends which is a pleasure to watch and be involved in. In Literacy this week we have learnt all about how to be safe when we go to bonfires and we have learnt all about The Gunpowder Plot. The children produced some fantastic fire safety display posters which are now displayed in our classroom to remind us how to keep safe. In topic they have made some fantastic splat paintings using syringes and pipettes. It was very action packed outside this week as well. The children had made their own fire engine and were rushing to the scene of the fire where they quickly threw buckets of water onto the burning buildings. In numeracy the children have really grasped the concept of simple addition and we were super impressed. You are fantastic mathematician’s guys! In phonics they have learnt to read the Phase 3 sounds j, v, w and x and have learnt to read the words; will, that, this, them, then and with.

NEXT WEEK

Next week we are starting off the week learning about Remembrance Day and the children will be writing a kind word on a poppy petal and they will be making their very own poppy. Their learning will be used for a display and all the poppy petals will be put together to make one big poppy, so no doubt our classroom will be looking even more amazing by the end of next week. To support the children’s learning on Monday we ask that the children wear something red to school, this can be instead of their uniform. The rest of the week will be spent preparing for our very own celebration where we will write our own invitations, make party hats, make decorations and bake yummy party food. When we have gone through all the preparation we will have our own celebration on Friday. In phonics we will be learning the sounds; y, z, zz and qu and the words of the week are; for, see, too, look, now and down.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·         Please read with your child for at least 5 minutes every night.

·         Please send your child into school in something red on Monday (11^th November) and we would also appreciate it if they could bring in one item of party food on Friday (15^th November).

Have a great weekend!

Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception team.

Key Stage 1

Home Learning: To support our numeracy learning from the week please support your child in learning their number bonds to 10 and then 20. Below are two links to youtube videos that we have used in class. These facts need to be rote learnt and recalled rapidly so that your child can solve mental arithmetic and addition problems with more than 2 numbers by finding bonds or near bonds. Test your child by saying a number and seeing if they can call the matching bond back to you. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XpoFxwKBwE8 Number facts to 10. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kOeljq70-_Q Number facts for 20. Please encourage your child to show you what they have learnt this week in maths (the strategies we have taught are cited below) and answer some challenging addition problems using counting on, 100 squares or the Malteser system. Each child should do at least 10 sums…make sure that your child doesn’t just pick numbers that end in a zero!

News:

Welcome back!

We hope you had a lovely time at half term and got to spend some quality family time together! It certainly feels like half term brought the winter winds with it so please make sure that your child comes to school each day with a warm coat, hat and gloves.

Cereal boxes:

Thank you so much for all the cereal boxes that have come in so far to help our D&T in week 3. We’re really looking forward to making a Jungle Book puppet stage out of them!

Literacy

Autumn 2 brings with it a new unit of study in literacy; we are leaving factual, non-chronological report writing behind and sinking our teeth into some fictional, narrative writing. Each class in the key stage is looking at a different Julia Donaldson book as a starting stimulus: Year 1 are walking through the forest with a brave little mouse who finds The Gruffalo, Year 1-2 are soaring high with the witch and all her friends in Room on the Broom and Year 2 have met one of the kindest and sweetest fictional characters The Smartest Giant in Town. The beginning of the week saw us becoming familiar with the characters and plot within our stories through dramatization. The objective throughout this was for every child to use expression, both vocally and physically by experimenting with freeze framing certain sections. We moved on to having a more in depth look at what happens as each story progresses and linked this to the traditional ‘story mountain’: an opening in which we meet the characters and find out where the story is set, the build-up in which the protagonist’s journey begins and other characters are introduced leading to the climax that inevitably brings with it some kind of problem, tension or drama! After reaching the top of the ‘story mountain’ here, tales move into the resolution in which the climactic problem is solved somehow and can therefore bring about the ending be it a happy one or a sad one! The children will continue build their own story up around their class’s book this week and next, changing either the plot, character or settings leading to a star write next Friday in which we will be looking for conjunctions, adjectives and purposeful verbs and adverbs that suit the animal or person they are describing.

Numeracy

We have also moved into a new unit of study in numeracy for the next two weeks; addition. We have stolen a literacy format and started every numeracy session consolidating number formation with a bit of ‘number handwriting’! Number formation is so important at this stage of each child’s schooling and the only way to get them formed correctly every time is practise – please do support this at home too! Our mental maths throughout the week has had a tight focus around number bonds to five, ten and twenty. These number facts act as a real stepping stone for the children as they work towards rapid recall of addition sums and also understanding number so each day we have tried to beat our score with how many bonds we can recall. Each class have used songs and videos to support consolidate these number facts – the links can be found below. We then moved onto addition sums reciting our mantra: “Biggest number in your head, just count on” ensuring that the children used their fingers to count on carefully. The journey progressed from simple units + units, into teens and tens (34/76) add units, before moving onto tens + units that bridge into the next ten (i.e. 24+9=33) and then into tens + tens both with round tens and mixed units. Our focus this week was to get the children as secure as possible with all the different strategies they can employ to solve addition problems depending on the difficulty of the sum. These strategies are rote counting on from the biggest number, using their hundred square and circling the biggest number before rote counting on and striking off each number as they go and seeing which number they land on. Our final method is using the Malteser system, which is really helpful when adding two bigger numbers. The children go through 3 steps upon getting their addition sum: step 1 – label the columns in both sides of the addition sum with tens and unit hats, step 2 – partition the numbers using Malteser packets for the tens column or single Maltesers for the unit column, step 3 – count up the tens in both tens columns and then count on in ones in both unit columns to find the answer. There is so much to remember and much care to be taken in solving such problems so we are spending next week on the same unit but looking at addition in day to day word problems too. Ask your child to show you what they can do at home!

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We’ve had a fantastic start to our new half term and have been overwhelmed (once again) by the variety and quality of the half term’s home learning. This has been a great start to our new exciting topic ‘Multimedia Madness’. As Christmas is fast approaching we will be holding auditions for the Christmas production next Tuesday lunch time in Mrs Brook’s class room. For the auditions we would like children to practice a short performance. This might be singing, telling a joke, reading a short piece from a book or any other wonderful act that will show off their amazing talents. We would like to see as many children audition as possible, however each year preference is given to year 4 pupils but there are lots of parts so we do encourage year 3’s to come along as well.

Home Learning

As well as the children reading daily and practicing their weekly spellings, we would like everyone to be learning their Times Tables. We will now be testing the children weekly on a different times table as this will help us all greatly when solving multiplication and division problems. Links to any on line games to support your child with this will be on our phase blog. The times table we will be testing next week is the 7 Times Table.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been learning how to multiply numbers by both ten and a hundred and also how to use the grid method to solve multiplication problems. They have all tried super hard to set out their grids accurately and follow the steps in order to reach the end answer. This involves drawing on last half terms addition written strategies, using column addition. Next week we will be learning the written strategy of the bus stop method in order to solve various division problems.

Literacy

This week in literacy, the children have been learning the difference between formal and informal writing and when we would use these. We had lots of fun acting out different scenarios where we would use a formal or informal tone e.g. meeting the queen. We have also learnt lots of different persuasive techniques to use in our writing and put these to good use when writing a letter to Mrs Dale persuading her to get rid of our school uniform. Next week we will be learning how to use lots of different sentence openers in our writing to make it more interesting and how to write a balanced argument.

Spellings

These Spellings will be tested on Monday 11^th November.

Group One	Group Two
coat	describe
boat	climate
coach	immediately
goat	escape
toes	telephone
goes	investigate
home	furniture
rose	texture
hose	figure
rope	sculpture
	creature

Reminders

·         Please can all Year 4 children remember to bring their swimming kit and goggles if needed every Friday. They may also bring a snack to eat on the coach on the way back to school. This can be a biscuit or a piece of fruit.

·         Please ensure your child’s PE kit is kept in school from Monday-Friday every week.

·         Now that the weather is wet and windy, we ask that your child must bring a coat to school every day.

·         Just a gentle reminder to ensure all of your child’s belonging (especially PE kits, hats and gloves and school jumpers) are clearly labelled with your child’s full name.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Team 3/4

 

UKS2 Newsletter

Welcome back everyone! We hope you have had a lovely holiday!

News Roundup:

Home Learning

A very big well done to the Year 6 children who have been busy completing their Splat the Sats packs! Also, we have been impressed so far with some of the Year 5 Inventions Home Learning; we’ve had some fantastic outcomes and it appears that we definitely have some future inventors amongst us! For those Year 5 children who have not yet managed to complete their home learning, we are extending the deadline until Thursday November 14^th. All Year 5 children need to have an idea as they will be using this during our Topic sessions. We are asking the Year 5 children to think of an invention with a transport-related theme. They may want to design and/or make their own mode of transport, or they may wish to create an item which might be used whilst using a mode of transport. The children can present their home learning however they choose (model, poster, video, booklet, presentation etc).

Leeds Junior Maths Challenge:

A huge congratulations to Evan. John, Izzy and Bethan in Year 6 for attending the Leeds Junior Maths Challenge final at Leeds Grammar school this week. It was super that the children reached the final out of over 50 schools across Leeds and although they didn’t win, we are all incredibly proud of them for getting so far! Well done, guys!

Achiever of the Week:

Achiever of the week goes to all of 5/6Ma for their fantastic attitude towards our science learning. All children have shown a fantastic enthusiasm and have impressed with their fantastic subject knowledge and predictions during many different investigations. Congratulations to all pupils in 5/6Ma, you all thoroughly deserve it!

Children in Need:

Next Friday in aid of children in need, pupils will be able to come dressed in pyjamas for the day. We ask that children contribute £1 to raise money for this fantastic cause.

Core Subjects:

Numeracy:

In Numeracy this week, we have been learning about multiples, common multiples and factors, prime numbers and using brackets. The children have needed to apply all of their times tables in order to succeed with this and we have already noticed a huge improvement with the speed and accuracy of their times tables. We do however, ask that the children continue to practice their times tables regularly, especially their 6, 7, 8 and 9 x tables as there is still some room for improvement here. See our blog for a good interactive resource to help!

Next week, the children will be learning how recognise the place value of decimals, how to order and compare decimals and how to extend sequences in steps of decimal tenths and decimal hundredths!

Literacy:

In Literacy this week, pupils have been re-editing and improving their year 5/6 survival guide. For the remainder of the week pupils have been working hard to improve their knowledge of grammar and punctuation through a rotation of classroom activities.

Next week pupils will be identifying the key features in a range of different advertisements. Pupils will then apply these features into an advert for a transport invention of their choice.

SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are: chaotic, chemist, electrical, quality, quicken, accommodate, school, recur, stomach, technology. Your child has received a copy of these spellings which have been glued into their planner. They will be tested on these words on Friday November 15^th.

Other areas of the curriculum:

PE: This week pupils have focused on travelling in gymnastics. Pupil’s explored different methods of travelling and combined them with jumps and flight to perform their own sequence. 

Spanish:

In Spanish, the children have been learning all about objects and items in the classroom.

Science:

This week, the children have been learning about forces in actions. We have learnt about friction and gravity and have used newton meters to measure forces.

ICT:

During our ICT sessions, the children have been researching famous robots and their function in everyday life. They have also explored the Lego Mindstorms software which requires programming a robot to follow commands. A great start to an exciting unit!

Once again, please ensure that your child comes to school with the appropriate PE kit each week. 5/6M and 5/6MO PE sessions are on Mondays and 5/6G PE sessions are on Tuesdays. As the PE unit this half term is Gymnastics, the children only need their plain white PE t-shirt and black shorts.