Newsletter
Issue 18
|
Friday 24th January 2014
|
Dear Parent/Carer,
It’s been a very busy week with
many great learning opportunities happening both in and out of school. I have
had the pleasure of observing lessons in many classrooms and am as usual, very
pleased and encouraged by the commitment, dedication and talent of all of our
staff.
Young Voices
Well done to our amazing
Choir for helping to raise the roof off Sheffield Arena on Wednesday night. It
was a magnificent event which gave our children a fabulous opportunity to
perform live to a huge audience of thousands. This event is I believe, one of
the best in the area for children who are passionate about music and singing.
It was a privilege to be part of it and I can’t wait for next year. Many thanks
to our wonderful Miss Thackeray who organised and coordinated the event and to
Mrs Comstive, Mrs Cookson and Miss Parker, who gave up their evenings to
accompany the children and enable so many of our pupils to attend.
500 words competition
Mr Firth has kindly
brought a competition to my attention that I think would be great for children
from RH to enter. Chris Evan’s on the Radio 2 show has launched a competition
whereby children under the age of 13 can enter a story they have written and
the golden rule is that it must be no more than 500 words. We get many children
bringing stories into school that they have written and this would be a
fabulous way to submit these talented pieces in order to potentially gain some
recognition. More information can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00rfvk1
BETT Show, London
Our excellence is
reaching far and wide as Robin Hood venture down to the Bett Show in London
today. As you are reading this, Miss Hinton, Miss Pyatt, Miss Thackeray and
Miss Lambert will be researching ways to improve our ICT curriculum and use
technology to enhance the children’s learning. The ladies will also be visiting
the Naace stand to receive a certificate for the school’s ICT Mark Champion
School award. If that wasn’t enough, they will also be delivering talks at the
2Simple stand to show visitors how to use the 2Buildaprofile app which we
currently use in Reception and are trialling in Key Stages 1 and 2.
Miss Parker
Congratulations to Miss
Parker, who has completed her Apprenticeship with us. I am delighted that she
will now be joining our fabulous team of teaching assistants as a qualified
member of staff. We have all been very impressed by Miss Parker’s energetic
dedication in achieving her goals. She has built up wonderful relationships
with staff, pupils and parents and I very much look forward to continuing to
work with her.
PTA News
Posters will be going up shortly for the
Valentines Disco. The nursery, reception and KS1 disco is from 3:45 until
5:00 and the KS2 disco is from 5:15 until 7:00. Invites have gone out
this week. Please could you return them with your name, class, carers
name and contact number and your £1, in an envelope marked for the attention of
the PTA. If you could put the envelope in the silver box outside the
office and the lovely ladies will ensure that we get them. One other
thing....of course the disco, like all our other events could not go ahead
without the help of the wonderful parents, grandparents and carers, if you are
able to help out at either or both of the discos please contact us at robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com
or alternatively speak to one of us before or after school. We have
already had some volunteers say they are able to help, but we do need some
more. Thank you to those who have already volunteered their time.
Have
a lovely weekend everyone.
Don’t forget!
Our next parents coffee morning will be on Monday
10th February 2014 between 9 am and 10 am with Miss Thackeray in
Friendly Faces. You are invited to come along with positive suggestions which
are relevant to the agendas that we set. Any other issues can come directly to
me. It is important that we use the limited time that we have together to best
effect. The agendas for next time will be:
· Home learning-
Do you think the children get too much/too little? Is it purposeful? Any ideas
for improvement.
· Holiday
projects- what do you and your child think of them?
· Just a question
for discussion- what would we think of a shorter summer holiday but longer half
terms?
If you cannot make it, we
value your views so you can email me at gaynor.dale@robinhood.leeds.sch.uk
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
Thank you to all our
fabulous parents and carers who came to our Celebration Assemblies last week.
It was so lovely to see how confident and happy the children were. Mrs Dale
said how much she had enjoyed both assemblies! We are pleased to let you know that we have put the money raised at
our Christmas shop to good use by booking a visit from the Zoo Academy. They
will be visiting us on Friday the 7th of February and will bring
with them lots of exciting rainforest animals, which will link in with our
topic of Jungles for that week. Once again thank you so much for your support!
We know the children will be thrilled with the experience and it will be a
valuable learning opportunity for them.
THIS WEEK
We started off our week with
tasty home-made bread which some of our children had made at home – this is a
fantastic way for the children to get a real life understanding of their
learning, so thank you for your support. The children continued to deepen their
understanding of Farms and Farm animals and we have been sharing the story of
‘The Little Red Hen’. We used Pie Corbett to add actions to the story and the
children have done really well with their retelling. We have also used our
knowledge about the Little Red Hen to mix, knead, roll out and make our own
bread rolls. Jill from Friendly Faces kindly baked them in the oven for us so
we could then enjoy them with butter at our snack time – delicious!
NEXT WEEK
Next Week we are learning all about Chinese New
Year. On Wednesday (29th) and Friday (31st January) we
will be holding our very own Chinese New Year celebrations, so for home learning this week please can
the children bring in some Chinese food for our party on Friday? Please could
your child also make a decoration for our new Chinese restaurant; all the
children’s home learning will be used to decorate it so it will look fabulous.
If you would like to give your child a head start
with their learning about Chinese New Year then there is some information about
Chinese New Year on the activity village website http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/chinese-new-year. At the
bottom of the web page there are some links to different activities.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
· Please continue to read every day with your
child and bring in book bags Mondays and Wednesdays so we can change their
books.
· Keep practising writing the first letter in
your child’s name and beyond as soon as they are ready (all children were given
a name book just before the Christmas break)
· Please complete the home learning task with your child (see above) to give them a head
start for our new learning next week
Thank you for your support. Have a great weekend!
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin, Miss Fox and Mrs Beckwith.
Reception newsletter
NEWS ROUND UP
We are pleased to report
that we have put the money raised at our Christmas shop to good use by booking
a visit from the Zoo Academy. The Zoo Academy will be visiting us on Friday the
7th of February and will bring with them lots of exciting rainforest
animals, which will link in with our topic of jungles for that week. Once again
thank you so much for your support! We know the children will be thrilled with
the experience and it will be a valuable learning opportunity for them.
THIS WEEK
This week we have been
learning about British wildlife and the children have really enjoyed thinking
about the animals they might see if they went for a walk in a local wood or
forest. We learnt about lots of animals in detail including a fox, badger and
barn owl by watching lots of factual video clips about them. The literacy
outcome this week was a fantastic fact file about the animals they had learnt
about and they have been put in our library for the other children in school to
enjoy. There have been lots of exciting activities taking place in our outside
area this week with Mrs Friar! The children made exciting dens, houses for the
animals, mud pies and magic fairy wands from the sticks Miss Pyatt had collected
on her forest walk at the weekend. In numeracy the children have really
understood doubling and enjoyed doubling the sweets they had on their plates.
They have really got to grips with the numicon equipment that we have started
to implement to help the children understand maths in more detail. This week
the children learnt to read and write the Phase 3 sounds oa, oo, oo and ar and
learnt to read the tricky words; out,
when, what, one, there, were and little.
NEXT WEEK
Next week will be all about Chinese
New Year. On Monday our home corner will have been transformed into our very
own Chinese restaurant where the children will be able to dress up, enjoy
oriental cuisine and eat it with chopsticks. We will introduce the children to
the topic of China by taking an aeroplane trip there and learning facts about
the country. We will learn all about how people celebrate Chinese New Year and
the story behind it. The children will get a chance to write their name in
Chinese and will learn what Chinese year they were born in. In topic they will
be making their very own papier-mâché lanterns and collaboratively we will make
a large scale Chinese dragon. We will be holding a Chinese party on Friday (31st)
and the children will get a chance to enjoy delicious Chinese food and perform
a traditional dragon dance with the dragon we have made. In numeracy we will be
learning about halving numbers. In phonics we will be learning the phase 3
sounds or, ur, ow and oi and writing the Phase 3 tricky words
he, she, we, me, be and was.
Have a lovely weekend!
Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception team.
Key Stage 1
Home learning
For
the next few weeks we will be extremely artistic in KS1. We will be learning
different printing techniques and exploring with a range of materials. In
preparation for our art extravaganza please can you do some leaf rubbings? See
if you can make a picture. All you need to do is put a piece of paper on top of
a leaf and colour it with a pencil, crayon or chalk.
Singing Superstars!
We
have some budding performers in our midst! We would like to say a MASSIVE well
done to Caiden, Ellis, Alyssa, Francesca, Adam, Ella, Kate, Cerys and Eleanor
who performed with the rest of the school choir at the incredible Young Voices
event. Young Voices is an organisation which arranges enormous concerts for
school children to take part in. The children performed at Sheffield Arena
alongside thousands of other choirs… they even supported some celebrity
singers! This truly was a wonderful opportunity for the children and I know
they all thoroughly enjoyed the experience. They have all shown such dedication
by attending regular rehearsals and learning the words to a variety of songs
from a range of genres. You should all be exceptionally proud of yourselves.
Very well done indeed!
Arriving on a morning
Please
can you make sure you arrive before 9am on a morning so your child is not
marked as late in the register. The Year 1 and Year 2 doors need to close at
9am so that support assistants can return promptly to class for the start of
the school day. If you arrive after that time, please make your way round to
the school office to sign in there. This system is in place to ensure with
absolute certainty that children who are in school are marked as present. The
register is sent back to the office by the teacher as soon as the bell goes at
9 o’clock so Mrs Holland takes responsibility for marking in anyone who arrives
after that time. We can’t open doors after 9am firstly because there is a risk
children won’t be marked as present and also because we want to avoid
disruption to lessons.
Numeracy
This
week we have consolidated our knowledge of 2D and 3D shapes before moving on to
look at symmetry. The children have been cutting and folding shapes to identify
and draw lines of symmetry. After that we looked at reflective patterns, like
the wings of a butterfly. Some children were carefully measuring shapes to
accurately reflect them in a mirror line. Can your child find anything
symmetrical around your house or out and about?
Literacy
The
star write challenge reflected some of the children’s most incredible writing
so far! Their invitations to their favourite Mister Men were fantastically
creative and well structured. Having spent two weeks practising skills,
generating ideas and building sentences together, we passed control over to the
children so they could apply all their new skills. They truly have blown us
away with some of their incredible outcomes. Not only are they thinking really
carefully about where full stops and capital letters go, they are applying
conjunctions to extend, adjectives to describe and time connectives to order
events. WOW! Keep your eyes peeled because you may very well be receiving an
invitation of your own soon!
Topic
Our
Geography learning this week progressed onto the subject of deforestation. The
children were extremely interested in the causes and effects of deforestation
and showed an incredible depth of understanding around this important topic.
They produced some lovely writing outcomes outlining their thoughts on
deforestation and also enjoyed finding out about endangered creatures. The next
three weeks will be dedicated to Art. In a few weeks’ time we will be hosting
an exhibition for you to view the children’s learning. More details to follow…
We will also keep you well informed by putting lots of pictures of the
children’s learning on the KS1 blog.
Have
a lovely weekend.
The
KS1 Team
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
What
an exciting week we’ve had in year 3/4! The children are thoroughly enjoying
our World War Two topic so far and are using lots of their new found knowledge
to write some extremely detailed war time diaries. We are really looking
forward to sharing all of our fabulous learning about our new topic at our
phase assembly on Friday 31st
January at 2:30pm in the school hall.
Numeracy
This
week in numeracy the children have been looking at measures of weight. We have
been exploring the various intervals on a scale, reading scales to the nearest
gram and kilogram, marking weights on a given scale and calculating weights on
a scale using addition strategies. Next week we will be applying our problem
solving skills to answer questions related to weight and mass. We will also be
applying all of our measuring skill to bake some tasty treats on Thursday ready
for our phase assembly on Friday.
Literacy
This
week in literacy, the children have been writing letters from the perspective
of a mother living in the city in World War 2. They have written to their
evacuated child telling them all about their new jobs in the factories,
rationing and the many air raids. In order to empathise and draw on these
women’s thoughts and feelings the children have been doing drama, making
freeze-frames of different women’s jobs in WW2. We focussed on extending these
thoughts and feelings into detailed compound sentences this week, ensuring that
the children are using a variety of conjunctions to extend these ideas. Next
week, we will be continuing to write our diary entries detailing many of the
events encountered during the evacuation.
Topic
In
our topic sessions this week, we have been looking at the ‘home front’ and what
life was like for people living in the cities during World War Two. The
children created their own ration book, including all of the food they would be
allowed to buy in a week and used this to create a family meal. They have also
researched all of the different jobs that women took on during the war and will
be using this information during their literacy sessions to write letters to
their evacuated children. Next week we will be looking at the Blitz and how it
impacted upon the lives of people living in the city.
Science
This
week in science we have been finding out about electrical insulators and
conductors. Next week we will be carrying out an investigation to find out what
happens when we vary the number of components (resistors) within a circuit.
PE
During
our indoor PE unit, we have been practising our football skills, looking at how
to dribble, pass and shoot the ball accurately. The children have been trying
super hard to ensure they are keeping their heads up whilst running with the
ball to ensure they are running into space. Next week we will start to play
some mini matches against each other to put these skills to use. During our
outdoor PE unit, we have continued to develop our ABCS multi-skills – Agility,
Balance, Co-ordination and Speed.
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 5 Times Table. Keep an eye on the phase
blog for the Times Table Wall of Fame. We would also like to say Thank You to
all parents for supporting the children with their weekly home learning.
Spellings
These
Spellings will be tested on Monday 27th
January.
Group 1: boat,
coat, road, soap, book, bookcase, cook, could, would, should
Group 2: taught,
caught, straight, weight, eight, tough, cough, rough, enough, through
Reminders
· Please ensure your child has an art shirt in
school at all times.
· The current weather is very changeable and so
we ask that your child brings a suitable coat to school every day.
· Just a gentle reminder to ensure all of your
child’s belongings (especially PE kits, hats and gloves and school jumpers) are
clearly labelled with your child’s full name.
· Children will be required to bring an outdoor
PE kit (t-shirt, jumper, jogging bottoms, outdoor trainers) every Wednesday and
an indoor PE kit (shorts and t-shirt) every Thursday.
· Please make sure year 4’s have their swimming
kit with them every Friday.
Don’t forget to check out
our blog where you will find lots more information about this week’s learning
as well as important reminders and dates for forthcoming event. http://year34rhps.blogspot.co.uk/
Have a lovely weekend!
Team 3/4
UKS2 Newsletter
News
Roundup:
PE kit reminder:
Pupils are now enjoying 2 hours of PE in school
lessons. The extra outdoor session has been fantastic for children to develop their
fundamental movement skills, which are so vitally important at their age. It is
therefore imperative that all children have both PE kits in school at the start
of the week. The indoor kit consists of indoor trainers, black shorts and a
white t-shirt. The outdoor kit includes; trainers, a hooded top or warm jumper
and tracksuit bottoms. We would like to thank all pupils who have consistently
remembered to bring the appropriate kit for these sessions.
Core
Subjects:
Numeracy:
This week in Numeracy the children have been
learning how to find percentages of amounts, including increasing and
decreasing amounts by 9%, 35%, 60% and 75% to find price increase and decreases
of the toys from the Toy Story film! Next week, the children will be handling
data, which will include reading and interpreting various graphs and databases,
we will even be drawing our own graphs to illustrate results.
Literacy:
SPELLINGS: This week, the spellings are: piano,
pianist, cycle, cyclist, floral, florist, art, artist, special, specialist,
science, scientist, style, stylish, tickle, ticklish, Ireland, Irish, fool,
foolish. Your child has received a copy of these spelling and they will be tested
on Friday 31st January.
Next week pupils will be researching Alexander the Great in order to
write their own biography. Pupils will identify the key features of a biography
and apply their research to write their own biography introduction all about
Alexander the Great.
PE:
In
PE this week pupils have been continuing to develop their skills in rugby. This
week pupils have focused on the backwards pass and have concentrated on the
timing of their runs in small teams.
The
timetable for PE sessions is as follows; 5/6M and 5/6MO PE sessions are on Monday afternoon
and 5/6G PE sessions are on a Tuesday morning. The outdoor sessions will be
held on a Thursday afternoon for all classes. Outdoor kit includes; a warm
hooded top or jumper, warm jogging bottoms, a white t-shirt and outdoor
trainers. The timetable is sometimes subject to change so it is important that
PE kits are brought into school on Monday mornings.
ICT:
This week, the children have been learning about
E-Safety. They have been devising their own motto which represents each of the
elements of being safe whilst using technology. They have also been evaluating
the validity and effectiveness of various websites to see if they are fit for
purpose and user-friendly!
Science:
In Science this week, the children have been
learning about materials and their properties. We had a portion of ‘Alien Soup’
which contained lots of secret materials which the children had to extract
using a different piece of apparatus and process, these included using magnets
to extract paper clips, sieving to extract rice, filtration to extract sand and
finally evaporation to extract salt from the water. We had loads of fun and
learnt so much about the different processes involved when separating materials!
Topic:
Each Year 5/6 class has been learning about a
different aspect of Ancient Greek life this week. The children are now in small
teams and have been busy gathering research which will form the basis of a
presentation which they will continue to build next week.
Visit
our blog: http://year56rhps.blogspot.co.uk
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