Newsletter
Issue 29
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Friday 2nd May 2014
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Dear Parent/Carer,
There can’t be anybody amongst
us who has not been touched and affected by the tragic event that took place on
Monday in one of our city’s schools. As mentioned many times in the news via
Children’s Services, Leeds is a safe place to go to school and the incident was
isolated. Ann McGuire seemed to have many of the traits of our teaching staff;
the kind who would go above and beyond the call of duty to ensure that the
children in her care succeeded and reached their potential. I am sure that she
improved the life chances of so many young people in our city.
Dates
for your diary
We are now approaching the
summer months with all of the fun and special events that take place:
Year 6 Residential- 4th/5th/6th
June School group photos- 25th
June Arts Award Showcase – 2pm 3rd July
Training day- School closed to
pupils- 4th July Sports
Day- 7th July Golden
Day- 9th July
Year 6 Fish and Chip treat
(lunchtime) and Year 6 end of year prom – 10th July Leaver’s Assembly- 11th July
(year 6 parents only)- (LAST DAY FOR YEAR 6) Transition day to new class- 14th
July
Reminder! The last day of the
school year is Thursday 17th July due to planned closure days linked
to the expansion work.
Assemblies
for Summer 2
Friday June 6th-
Reception Friday June 13th- Key Stage 1 Friday 20th June- Voices Foundation
assembly Friday 27th June-
Lower KS2 Friday 4th July- Training day Friday 11th July- Year 6 leavers assembly
Lost
property
Mrs Holland will put out
jumpers and items of clothing left in school, outside of the office next Friday
(9th May). Please come and reclaim any lost items.
The
location of our RH owl and sheep!
Mrs Chin’s genius creations,
the owl and the sheep made completely from pom-poms can be seen on display at
Armley Mills Industrial Museum. If you are there on a visit, give them my best
regards!
Visitors
from Sweden
We will be welcoming some
colleagues from Arvidsjuar in Sweden next week. Our visitors will join us on
Tuesday and Wednesday morning as part of the WHISE project (Welfare and Health
in School education). They will be focusing specifically on our ICT provision
and our inclusive approach to provision for children with Special Educational
Needs. Miss Pyatt and Mrs Steel will be leading proceedings and ensuring that
our visitors see the best of these aspects of school.
PTA News
We
have met with Mrs Dale earlier this week and are now able to fill the diary up
with exciting events, all of which will raise money for the school to use to
benefit all our children, after all not everything our wonderful children wish
to participate in can be covered within the school budget. We have a
couple of discos, and a craft Fayre just to name a few. None of these
events can happen without the help and generosity of you and the wider
community. WE DO NEED HELP WITH
OBTAINING DONATIONS FROM LOCAL AND NATIONAL COMPANIES SO WE ARE ABLE TO OFFER
FANTASTIC PRIZES FOR THE RAFFLE WHICH WE ARE HOLDING TOWARDS THE END OF THIS
YEAR. If anyone is able to help us with this, whether you work for a
company who you think would be able to donate a prize (tickets, vouchers etc.)
or you would be happy to make a few telephone calls for us, please contact us
at robinhoodprimarypta@gmail.com. If you require documentation from the
PTA to obtain any donations, again contact us as above and I will arrange for
the documentation to be sent to you. Thank you for any help you are able
to offer it is much appreciated and the benefits will be seen within school
over the coming year.
Have a great weekend.
Mrs Dale
Don’t forget:
The next parent coffee morning will take place on
Monday 19th May with Miss Thackeray in Friendly Faces. The agendas
for discussion will be:
· Website and blogs-
how well used are they? How could we make them more engaging/useful for your
children?
· How do you rate
our improved parental engagement this year?
If you
are unable to come, please do not hesitate to share your views with me
Nursery newsletter
NEWS ROUND UPThank you all for your fabulous props, pictures and wonderful artwork that you have produced for our Pirate display. Mrs Chin is in the process of pulling it altogether and including some of the fabulous paintings that we have showed off in our assemblies.
Please keep looking on our
blog for the latest information and to see what has been happening in Nursery
at http://foundationstagenewsatrobinhood.blogspot.co.uk/
THIS WEEKThe children have continued to enjoy being pirates and we have been very impressed with their enthusiasm and fantastic outfits. We have taken advantage of the lovely weather to do some ‘swashbuckling’ outside and the children have engaged in some super pirate role-play. We have shared the story of ‘I want to be a Pirate’ and the children have used their super language skills to retell it together focusing on the time connectives such as first, next, and finally. In numeracy we will be hunting for numbers in the sand and working together to order the numbers from 0 to 10.
NEXT WEEK
We will be making even more changes to our classrooms as we introduce
dinosaurs into our Island Life topic! To set the historical contexts we will be
learning about fossils and Mary Anning – who has been described as the World’s
most famous fossilist. There are some super clips on the BBC website which you
may like to look at together: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/mary_anning/ We will
be digging for fossils in the excavation area as well as making our own fossils
in our topic sessions. In our numeracy sessions next week we will be revisiting
the shapes and numbers we see when we are out and about (bus numbers, wheelie
bin numbers, shapes of road signs etc.) and exploring how we can manipulate
numbers by sharing items out in different ways, but keeping the total the same.
For
home learning this week please could you support your child to make/draw/colour
or decorate a dinosaur and have a go at writing the name of the dinosaur
underneath. Thank you.
PLEASE NOTE the following diary dates: Nursery will be CLOSED on Wednesday 2nd July 2014
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
·
Please complete the home learning task with your
child (see above) and bring it in on their first day back.
·
Keep practising writing names (first and then
second) and encourage your child to read to you for five minutes every
day.
Thank you for your continued support, it really is making
a difference to your child!
Mrs Steel, Mrs Chin, Miss Fox and Mrs Beckwith.
NEWS ROUND UP
We have had another fabulous
week at sea and the children have loved learning all about Jake and the
Neverland Pirates. We would like to say how proud we are of the children and
the wonderful enthusiasm they are coming into school with. Please keep looking
on our blog for the latest information and to see what has been happening in
Reception at http://foundationstagenewsatrobinhood.blogspot.co.uk/
THIS WEEKOur crew of pirates have had another exciting week aboard their ship and have been scrubbing the decks and keeping a watch out for other pirate crews. In literacy we have been concentrating on adjectives and the children have been using them to describe the pirates and the story settings, for example a petrifying pirate, sparkling diamonds and wavy seas. Once they had thought about the adjectives the children wrote their very own pirate stories which were amazing! In topic the children carried out an investigation to decide which material they would make their pirate ship out of. We predicted which materials would float and which would sink and then tested them. Let’s just say I think they will all stay very dry on their pirate ships. In numeracy we have been learning about addition and subtraction and the children are becoming more confident with the counting on and counting back method! Well done you are superstars. In phonics the children have learnt the alternative long a sounds; Mr End ay (play) and the split digraph a_e (make) and they have learnt to read the words; about, your, day, make, came and made.
NEXT WEEK
We will be making even more changes to our classrooms as we introduce
dinosaurs into our Island Life topic! To set the historical contexts we will be
learning about fossils and Mary Anning – who has been described as the World’s
most famous fossilist. There are some super clips on the BBC website which you
may like to look at together: http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/primaryhistory/famouspeople/mary_anning/ We will be digging for fossils in the
excavation area as well as making our own fossils in our topic sessions. In
numeracy we will be learning about doubling and halving. In phonics the
children will be continuing to learn the long a sounds; eigh (eight), ey (grey)
and ei (vein) and they will be
learning to read the words; here, saw,
very, oh, their and people.
PLEASE NOTE: Our next class assembly will be next Friday the 9th of May at 2.30pm in the hall. We look forward to seeing you all there.
HOW YOU CAN HELP US
·
Please engage with the home learning and the
learning logs.
·
Please read for 5 minutes daily and help your
child learn their spellings.
Thank you for your continued support!
Miss Lambert, Miss Pyatt and the Reception Team
Key Stage 1
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Home Learning:
Our
mental maths foci have slightly differed from class to class this week: Year
1 have been looking at division problems that divide by 2, 5 and 10, year 1-2
have looked at adding three numbers together (alongside number bonds to 10,
20 and 100) and year 2 have focused on 3 and 4 times tables to solve division
problems. Please support your child with these skills, either mentally or
using counters to demonstrate the strategy and keep up counting in 2s, 3s,
4s, 5s and 10s.
Bug Club is still a fabulous way to engage
your child in reading and we love seeing in their reading records everything
that you do together.
We have seen a marked improvement in the
spelling tests also, thank you for your support with them! Some children are
writing sentences that contain their spellings (especially if they’re a bit
harder) to really understand how to use the words and also practise their
writing skills – please feel free to do this! Stickers will be dished out!
|
Water bottles:
As the weather continues to (hopefully) get
warmer, please ensure your child comes to school with a water bottle for the
classroom. This is a separate water bottle from their packed lunch bottle and
must contain fresh water filled up at home every day (a few children have
juice, which is not school policy). Whilst we may sound like a broken record on
this subject because of how often it is mentioned, there are still so many
children in class without anything to drink after break times spent running
around. Please help your child to concentrate and feel healthy by sending a
water bottle in each day. Hay Fever:
Again, linked to summer: we will be using the field for our outdoor PE lessons and during lunch time break, so if your child has a hay fever allergy, please make sure they take any medication before school. We are unable to administer medicine in school.
Art:
The chaos of creating our own mod rock
character has begun! This art unit will run into next week as well. The
children all chose a Disney character that they wanted to sculpt, designed a
picture plan of them and printed their picture off the internet before rolling
up newspaper to make a 3D model of it. We used masking tape to join the parts
together and had to think really hard about how to make it solid and how to
make sure it would stand up. The messy mod rock was introduced on Thursday
(sorry to the cleaners for that!). The children had to wet the mod rock on
either side and use their finger to mould it to their figure, getting rid of
all of the tiny holes by smoothing the powder out. Once they’re dry we will
paint them and add details – we can’t wait to see the outcomes!
Literacy:
Our first focus within our narrative unit has
drawn to a close this week. The children have looked in depth at different
character traits whether they are good or bad and learnt new adjectives to
describe those traits before using that knowledge in developing their own
character. We have had some amazing inventions, ranging from princesses and
mermaids to evil slime men and sideways crab creatures! We have used clips from
the opening scenes of Disney movies and thought through what to include in an
opening paragraph.
Numeracy:
Our measurements unit continues the same as
last week with Year 1 learning about weight, year 1-2 focussing on capacity and
Year 2 learning about length. We have read and drawn scales, added three
numbers together to fill a scale and also started thinking about what’s the
difference or how much more to make X amount. It’s safe to say everyone finds
this such a difficult concept so please do support your child with this…you
could use food or sweets to demonstrate it!
Lower Key Stage 2 Newsletter
Another
superb week in year 3/4! We’ve had a busy week of writing our exciting stories,
finding out lots of interesting information about Leeds and had a great time
investigating the effects of friction! We hope to share many of our learning outcomes
at the end of the half term at our Showcase
Assembly on Friday 23rd May at 2.30pm.
Please
could we ask all parents to check at home for the following books, as they are
property of the School Library Service and we need to return them as soon as
possible!
|
Title
|
Author
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War
at home
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Anthony
Masters
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World
War 2 children: four true life stories
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Sallie
Purkis
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The
Second World War
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Henry
Brook
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Blitzed
Brits
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Terry
Deary
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War
Veteran & their medals Pack A (World War 2 KS2) [Photo pack]
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|
It
has been wonderful to see so many children taking a lead in their own learning
and completing such a variety of tasks during their own time. Many examples of
these fantastic outcomes will be shared on our blog as well as at our Showcase
Assembly at the end of the half term. Just
a gentle reminder that we are no longer sending home photocopied resources for
home learning. We have saved many resources onto the phase blog for you to
download at home along with links to games and activities that we have been
using in class. There are also paper copies of resources from in class often
available daily for the children to take home. We would also like the children
to continue to read daily and ensure they are recording this in their reading
records so we can reward their efforts with stickers! In addition to this, the
children should be practising and learning their spellings and Times Tables as this was the key skill
that has let many children down when trying to calculate multiplications,
divisions and fractions this half term. The
times table we will be testing next week is the 5 Times Table. We are really impressed with the children’s
continued effort with learning their times tables and all the children who are getting
12 out of 12 are celebrated on our blog
‘Wall of Fame’ on a weekly basis.
Numeracy
This
week the children have been identifying common properties (vertices, edges,
faces) of 3D shapes. We have also been looking at nets of 3D shapes and using
the nets to have a go at building the shapes. Next week, we will be taking a
look at fractions.
Literacy
This
week in literacy we have been looking closely at how to use effective sentence
openers and use super adjectives to make their writing even more exciting! They
have used all of their skills to continue their story by writing a build-up and
problem. The children have really used their imaginations and thought of some
knee-trembling problems!
Spellings
These
Spellings will be tested on Tuesday 6th
May.
Group 1: we’ve,
you’ve, they’ve, I’ve, she’s, he’s, somebody’s, nobody’s, there’s.
Group 2: exciting,
especially, necessary, electricity, recently, spicy, agency, currency,
frequency.
Topic
At
the start of the new topic ‘Where we live’, we asked the children what they
would like to learn about Leeds. In response to this, we found out lots of interesting
facts about landmarks in Leeds, including Kirkstall Abbey, Tropical World,
Elland Road Stadium, Temple Newsam and Leeds Bradford Airport. We used this
information to make fantastic information fact files which will help us next
week as we create a persuasive leaflet all about Leeds.
Science
This
week we carried out an investigation into which surfaces create the most/least
friction. The children used a variety of equipment to measure the distance
travelled by the car on different surfaces.
PE
This
week in PE we have continued to learn our section of this year’s BIG DANCE
routine. The children have really enjoyed learning the steps and moves and will
contribute to a whole school performance at the end of the half term in the
hope of breaking a world record.
Reminders
· Year 4 residential – Wednesday 7th
May- Friday 9th May. Please can all children who are going on this
trip be in school by 8.45am on the Wednesday morning?
· Showcase Assembly on Friday 23rd
May at 2.30pm
· The current weather is very changeable and so
we ask that your child brings a suitable coat to school every day.
· Please ensure all of your child’s belongings
(especially PE kits, hats and school jumpers) are clearly labelled with your
child’s full name.
· Remember the children have two PE units a
week now, one indoor and one outdoor so please ensure they are bringing the
correct kit each week.
· As the weather is getting warmer, can all
children please be provided with a named water bottle, especially on PE days?
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
events. http://year34rhps.blogspot.co.uk/
Have
a fabulous weekend!
Team 3/4
UKS2 Newsletter
News:
Water Bottles:
As the weather is getting warmer, the children
need to bring in a water bottle so they can keep themselves hydrated throughout
the day. For hygiene reasons, we ask
that the children are provided with their own water bottle as we have no cups
in classrooms. We ask that the children
bring in water only and not fizzy pop or dilute juices.
Deodorant
We
are aware that some children are ‘growing-up’ fast and beginning early puberty and
may be using deodorant at home. As the
weather is getting warmer and the children are running around outside and being
even more active during PE sessions, they are becoming a little bit
sweaty. In order to promote
responsibility for personal hygiene, we have suggested that children may want
to bring deodorant into school and leave it in their bags, if they need
to. We ask that children use roll on
deodorant as there are a number of children who have asthma. The children have
also been told they are not to share deodorant with their peers.
Core
Subjects:
Numeracy:
Within Numeracy this week, the children have been
practising their mental maths skills using the following website: www.topmarks.co.uk. This is a fantastic website which we would
highly recommend encouraging your child to use at home. The ‘Speed Challenge’ game can help support
your child’s mental maths skills. You
could even have a challenge with your child and see who has the quickest mental
maths skills…
We have continued to practise the strategies which
have been taught so far this year. The
KS2 bitesize website is a useful website to use, particularly in preparation
for the SAT’s but also to embed numeracy skills which will be needed for adult
life! Please let us know if your child
has been using the following website and we can reward them with stickers…www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/ks2/
Literacy:
This week in Literacy the children have continued to
write their discursive report on the subject ‘Is modern technology affecting
the sleep patterns of young people?’ The
children have looked at introducing their report by explaining how the range of
technological devices has increased over the years and children are using this
more frequently before bed. They have
looked at the two side of the argument; one suggesting the lights from game
consoles is stimulating the brain, hindering sleep. The other argument suggests there are a
number of other factors including, diet, nutrition, and even reading a gripping
book. The use of language has been
incredible and very sophisticated. The
5/6 team are very proud of all of the children!
Other
areas of the curriculum:
PE:
In PE the children have continued to learn ‘The Big
Dance’. The children have learnt all the
routine and are now beginning to practise so they can perform it from memory.
The video is on our blog, so feel free to have a look to practice further.
During outdoor PE the children will be developing
their skills at working in a team work.
They will be supporting each other in completing an obstacle course.
Science:
In
Science this half term, the children will be looking at Sport Science, focusing
on the respiratory system and the circulatory system. They will look at how the heart and the lungs
work and how to keep these organs healthy through diet and exercise!
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