Issue 7 2013-14

Newsletter Issue 7

Friday 18th October 2013

Dear Parent/Carer,

We enjoyed our Harvest Festival this morning; Key Stage 1 impressed us with their brilliant harvest themed learning and led the proceedings just brilliantly. Thank you to all who attended.

The Big Draw
We had a fantastic time on Monday, creating marvellous art work as part of our Big Draw celebrations. This year, we have Mrs Chin and Mrs Mistry to thank as they were the creative brains behind our fabulous outcomes, which were all linked to “Outside”. A wealth of fabulous drawing skills were developed across school and it was a joy to visit each classroom to see the work in progress. Nothing was more impressive though, than the finished, collective result which was displayed in the hall at the end of Tuesday. The children’s artwork looked absolutely fantastic and it was great to see so many parents and friends in our hall appreciating the fabulous efforts of the children. Look out for our article in the Rothwell Record soon.

Leeds Children’s Mayor

We are very proud of Georgia in Year 6, who has been shortlisted to take up the prestigious role of Children’s Mayor of Leeds 2013-14. Please show your support for Georgia by reading her manifesto and placing your all important vote by visiting www.breezeleeds.org/pg/228/Leeds_Children's_Mayor.

School uniform

We have noticed that there have been a number of children who have not been abiding by the school dress code. Please do refer to the school website in the “Our School” section, where you will find details of our uniform. I must remind everyone that nail varnish is not allowed. Also, there are many boys seen wearing black trainers. Please be reminded that all children must wear black shoes. Failure to dress your child in the appropriate, smart manner will be challenged. Thanks.

Leeds United

Children in Key Stage 2 are currently being given the opportunity to attend a Leeds United football after school club. My thanks to Mr Malley for facilitating this wonderful extracurricular activity. The club is being run by a UEFA B qualified coach who is focusing on technical skill development, communication skills and spatial awareness. Pupils have been incredibly excited to attend this club and the quality of the sessions have been outstanding. This is the first of many very exciting plans that our Active Team; Miss Mees, Miss Pensom and Mr Malley are developing over the course of this year. Watch this space!

School website

Please remember that our informative school website is available at http://www.robinhood.leeds.sch.uk
Amongst a huge range of information, here you will find a Message Board to ask quick questions which we will try our hardest to answer. The School Calendar is updated to include key events for your reference; please look out for Christmas events in the next few days. You will also find a range of fantastic blogs, including a Newsletter blog, which means you will be able to find out any information you may have missed or misplaced. We work very hard to keep these available for your reference so that you feel suitably informed so please make the most of them!

 PTA News

Thank you to all those who attended last week’s meeting, it was fantastic to see some more new faces. This week the tickets for the Halloween disco have gone out, Friendly Faces are making a witch and a wart and I'm busy making lots of jelly just to make sure that this event is as brilliant as all the others!?!?!? If anyone is able to spare any time to help at the disco please contact us at robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com. Have a great week-end.

We hope that we see as many of you as possible at the Halloween Discos next week. The PTA are continuing to work very hard in ensuring that our children have some exciting events to look forward to and that we can raise some extra funds which will have a sustainable impact on aspects of our school provision.

Have a great weekend!

Mrs Dale

Next Parent’s Coffee Morning: Monday 2^nd December 2013- 9 a.m. - 10 a.m.
Agendas for discussion

·         Do you know how well your child is achieving? What manageable ways could we improve that knowledge?

·         What knowledge do parents have of age related expectations?

·         Celebration Assembly- what could we do differently/better?

If you cannot attend, please feel free to email your views to gaynor.dale@robinhood.leeds.sch.uk

Nursery newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP

The children had a fantastic day on Monday when we all took part in the Big Draw ( a whole day of art based activities!)  They were so excited to be able to draw all over the floor in the hall and drew some fantastic drawings of minibeasts, fish and people. Together the children made a collaborative caterpillar using recycled materials which was displayed proudly in the hall. We also added our own hand shapes to the tree in the hall, created some lovely butterflies and decorated cupcakes to look like mini beasts!

THIS WEEK
This week we have continued learning about our senses and the children have enjoyed exploring our Opticians role-play area in the classroom. Thank you to Mr Chin (Optician) who gave up his time to come and talk to the children about what we can see with our eyes and how to look after them. I have been very busy completing the half termly assessments and have had the opportunity to read and write with all the children as well as encouraging them to show me just how fabulous they are at counting, spotting shapes and listening!

NEXT WEEK

Next week is the final week of Autumn 1 and our topic is ‘feelings and sharing’. We will be reading the story of the Rainbow Fish and will be talking about why it is good to share and how it makes us feel when people won’t share. The children will undertake lots of practical activities around the theme of the Rainbow Fish and to finish off the half term we will be hosting a colour party on Wednesday morning and Friday afternoon. For home learning can you please send your child in with a small amount of coloured party food to share with their friends and dressed in something lovely and colourful. Thank you.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·        Please keep reading with your child and encouraging them to hold the book, turn the pages and talk about the story!

·        Please continue to encourage your child to have a go at putting on their own coat – we have seen a huge improvement in the number of children who are willing to have a go at showing us how grown up they are at coat time so it really does help.

·        Make sure that your letter requesting an appointment for our parent consultations is returned to Mrs Holland in the office as soon as possible.

Have a great weekend and thank you for your continuing support.

Reception newsletter

NEWS ROUND UP
The children had a fantastic day on Monday when we all took part in the big draw. They were so excited to get to draw all over the floor in the hall and drew some fantastic drawings including; a shark in the pond (Oliver), 8 spiders (James) and a very scary garden monster (Evan). Together the children made a collaborative butterfly which was inspired by the butterfly from The Hungry Caterpillar. They then made their own individual butterflies that they could bring home for you. The hall looked fabulous on Tuesday and it was great to see so many of you coming to have a look at all the fabulous drawing and art work the children had been doing.

THIS WEEK

The Reception team have been brimming with pride this week as we are so proud with how well the children have done in their assessments. It is great to see how much progress they have made and we are so proud and pleased to see how enthusiastic the children were to show us their amazing learning. We will share the children’s assessment results with you at parents evening and will let you know how your child is performing in relation to the governments age related expectations. We will also provide you with their next steps in phonics, reading, writing and numeracy.  On Tuesday we were very lucky to have a visit from Mr Chin an optician who told the children all about how to keep their eyes healthy. We set up our very own opticians in our classroom and the children have really enjoyed pretending they are opticians by testing each other’s eyes and wearing the glasses Mr Chin kindly gave us. The children now know all about our 5 senses as they took part in lots of immersive learning experiences including working with a partner to negotiate the bark trail with a blindfold on and making their very own perfumes in our perfume lab. In numeracy the children impressed us with how confident they were at ordering their daily routines.

NEXT WEEK
Next week is the final week of Autumn 1 and our topic is feelings and sharing. We will be reading the story The Rainbow fish and will be talking about why it is good to share and how it makes us feel when people won’t share. In topic we will be making a collaborative Rainbow Fish display. The children will make their own scale for our Rainbow fish as a promise that they will always try their hardest to share. They will also use lots of different materials to make other underwater sea creatures. To finish off the half term we will be hosting a colour party, so on Friday please send your child dressed in colourful clothing so that we are all as colourful as the Rainbow Fish. In numeracy our short challenge warm ups will be based around missing numbers up to 20.They will also be learning about repeated patterns and will paint fish using repeated patterns of 2 and then we will move on to 3. The fish will be displayed on our Rainbow Fish display.

HOW YOU CAN HELP US

·         Please listen to your child read for at least 5 minutes every day. Help them spot the sounds we have been learning and help them sound out and blend simple words. Don’t forget bug club!

·         Please help your child practise recognising all the Phase 2 sounds and words.

·         Please send your child into school in a colourful outfit on Friday and we would also appreciate it if they could bring in one item of party food.

Have a great weekend Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt & the rest of the Reception team

Key Stage 1

Home Learning:

Following on from our trip to Morrisons, next week as part of our topic learning we will be using Microsoft Word to write a letter to the store to thank them for an excellent day out. In preparation for this, please talk to your child about their favourite part of the trip: did they like watching the pizza being made, tasting the fruits, learning how bread is made or was the check-out the main feature?

For the home learning we would like the children to put together a recount of their trip. This can be a poster with just their favourite part or a diagram of their journey from start to finish with pictures used as labels for each part. Please can you encourage your child to write a paragraph about which part of the trip they most enjoyed and why they liked it so much.

News:

Beep, beep, beep…please wait for assistance:

You guessed it, our trip to Morrison’s was so much fun and full of brilliant learning opportunities. The children were so excited about the trip (leading on from our Smoothie making, I think that some children thought they were going to see their beverage for sale!) and none of it disappointed. The children’s behaviour was exemplary as we arrived at Morrisons and were directed from the Fish Mongers to the Bakery to the checkout.

The Big Draw:

Monday saw us donning our old t-shirts and rolling our sleeves up with one mission: to make sure no one in our classes ever says, “I’m not good at art!” again. Our stimulus kick-started the day as we watched a clip of ‘The Animals of Farthing Wood’ and told them about the animals’ problem: human beings destroying their habitat to build houses! Our task was to draw fish, birds and frogs to add to the hall display to show humans how wonderful these creatures are in the hope of saving their land. We started by doing some observational drawings considering size, scale and proportions before bringing each creation to life with abstract patterns using collage, chalks, felt tips and textured paint. Every child had a really fun day and when asked if they thought their art skills had improved, not one hand was left down. We hope you had the chance to have a look at the final display in the hall, if you didn’t make sure you look at our blog to see the incredible learning produced in just one day! Unbelievable!

Harvest Festival:

Thank you to everyone who made it to our Harvest Festival performance. The children really loved practising and performing their parts and it is so wonderful and fortunate that we have so many parents who want to support such events. We hope you enjoyed it and felt pride in your child…we certainly did!

Literacy

Despite having had such a busy week with our extra-curricular pursuits the children still managed to squeeze in time to complete our unit on Exercise with a fantastic Star Write. Having spent 6 weeks learning all about non-chronological reports (factual posters, brochure, leaflets and booklets) we handed control over to the children to design their own layout on an A4 page using different coloured and shaped templates. Should any of you want to start your New Year’s resolution to get fit early make sure you read your child’s poster all about why exercise is important, how it affects your body, drill sergeant-style instructions on the movements you can try (all of which were ordered using time connectives) and what your child’s favourite sport is and why!

Next week sees this unit of learning come to an end with our final assessed ‘cold write’ – a piece of writing that has minimal input and scaffolding from the teacher to see what each child has retained from the half term’s learning. We’ll be looking for headings, sub-headings, labels, pictures and loads of interesting information developed using conjunctions (and, because, so, but, if) and adjectives.

Numeracy
We have had a lovely week in numeracy in which we have learned all about rounding to the nearest 10 or 100. This follows on from our learning last week around estimation – if you’re estimating life is easier if you estimate to a nice round number! We have used an online tutorial to structure the children’s learning (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMdck80SHnw) which teaches 4 rules for rounding: 1) find the two tens a number lies between, 2) find the halfway point between those two tens, which will always end in 5, 3) look at whether your number lies beyond or before the halfway point, 4) round it up or down. As well as this we have been singing songs to consolidate the facts.

Next week will see the Year 2s sitting a SAT paper which will test their numeracy knowledge in all areas, including some that haven’t yet been covered, whilst the Year 1s will show us what they can do around their new learning from the year so far: place value, partitioning, number sequences and finding 1 or 10 more/less. From our experience the children relish these tests and are un-intimidated by the prospect of it…unlike adults!

Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter

We have had such a super week in LKS2 and we were really impressed with everyone’s attitudes towards their assessment. Don’t forget today is celebration Friday, so feel free to come into the class and look at your child’s wonderful learning from across the half term.

Home Learning

As part of the children’s home learning in 3/4, we ask that your child is reading every day of the week. We expect all children to hand in their signed reading record on a Monday morning so we can reward them for each day they have read. If a child reads every day they will be rewarded with a sticker.

Your child will continue to receive numeracy home learning on a weekly basis, which we ask all children to engage with. The home learning will be handed out in their blue home learning books every Friday, and your child will have until the following Friday to hand their home learning back to their teacher. As mentioned above, we are so impressed with the engagement in their home learning so far! Your child will also be receiving a booklet of mental maths questions, which we urge you to practice at home at your own pace.

Numeracy

This week in numeracy the children have been showing off all of the skills they have learnt so far over this half term. We were really impressed with the children’s attitudes towards their assessments. Every child tried their best, even when finding some sections a little bit tricky. We will be allowing children to look back at their assessment papers to see if, with a partner, they can correct any errors and make even more progress with their numeracy learning. In year 3/4, the mental maths section of the paper is extremely important and can have a big effect on the level given at the end of the test. It would be great to practice mental maths at home with your child by working through the booklets we will be sending out at the end of the term.

Literacy

This week in literacy, the children have written a diary entry as though they were a Viking for a day! We were blown away with the wonderful ideas each child had and were happy to see all of the children using a range of engaging features throughout their diary entries. We were particularly impressed with the children’s use of adjectives, adverbs and conjunctions within their writing and were even more impressed with some of the complex sentences we read! We are looking forward to giving your child a level and sharing these with you in parent consultations next week.

Spellings
These Spellings will be tested on Monday 21^st October.

Group One	Group Two
Pie	Accident
Flies	Complete
Tie	Experiment
Five	Recognise
Slide	Equipment
Smile	Separate
Bike	Comparison
Prize	Suppose
Sky	Surprise
Spy	Whose

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. Unfortunately, we are still seeing children coming into school dripping wet and cold. We insist that the children should wear their coat to school daily, as well as every break and lunch time.

Have a fabulous weekend!

Team 3/4

UKS2 Newsletter

News Roundup:

A really big well done and congratulations to all the Year 5/6 children this week for completing their half termly assessments with maturity and dedication. All the children gave their assessments 110%; they should be very proud of themselves!

Big Draw 2013.
The children had a fabulous day on Monday! Year 5/6 looked at graffiti as their theme for the Big Draw this year. We used neon paints to blow, print, paint and flick to create different techniques onto black paper, we then cut out giant letters which spelt the quote, “Large streams from little fountains flow, tall oaks from little acorns grow”. This looked so impressive in the hall! The children also created their own graffiti ‘tag’ of an environmentally friendly word which was arranged in the branches of the Robin Hood tree, which was painted on the wall in the hall. The children and teachers had a great time and produced some impressive outcomes!

Year 5/6 PE clothing:

The children in Year 5/6 are welcome to bring in some clothing for their final dancing session next week.

·         Mr Malley’s class - Line Dancing clothing on Monday.

·         Miss Gascoigne’s class - Street Dance clothing on Tuesday.

·         Mrs Moore’s class - Rock and Roll on Monday.

Core Subjects:

Numeracy:
Next week we will be learning how to use the grid method to multiply decimals when finding the area of compound shapes which make up the rides in the theme park, Flamingo Land. We will also be learning how to divide by using the Bus Stop method and then Chunking method. For some support ahead of these sessions with these methods, visit our year 5/6 blog, which you can access via our school website, for some interactive games.

Literacy:

Next week, we will be learning about the key features of narrative stories and applying these skills into their own section of a mystery story all about the Titanic.

SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are: literature, lecturer, fracture, gesture, futuristic, manufacture, preacher, stretcher, century, judgement.

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 October 25^th.

Other areas of the curriculum:

Topic:
This week in Topic, the children have been learning about the Titanic disaster. We have looked at some footage, eye witness accounts and timelines of the tragedy and have written our very own newspaper articles based on the disaster.

Music:

The Year 5/6 children have had another great week of Music lessons. The Year 6 children can now hold the bow and play the notes D, G, A and E to some simple songs on the violin and the Year 5 children can now play Firework by Katy Perry on the guitar.