Transition
On Thursday, Reception Class spent the morning in their new Year 1 classroom. The children were excited and coped incredibly well with this change. We enjoyed playing some fun games and some getting to know you activities. Following this, the class completed a drawing of themselves onto their own footprint – look out for these in our science lessons next year!
Regular communication between home and school is important so please feel free to pop in if we can help with anything at all.
Help at home
There will be plenty of up to date posts on our Year 1 Class News page so do please keep having a look with your child. This is a great opportunity to hold a conversation about what’s been happening in school.
Reading Competition
Here at St James’ CE Primary, we love reading. Over the Summer holidays, we’ve a challenge for your child… Show us how reading-obsessed they are by sending us a pic of them reading in an extreme place or position.
Here’s someone who’s already getting stuck into some extreme reading. (can’t think who it could be!)…
To enter, email your pics to stjamesoffice@spherefederation.org by Friday 08 September. Enter ‘Summer competition’ as the subject.
All entries will be displayed in school, and there are prizes for our favourites
To finish with, we wish you all a very happy and healthy summer break and look forward to welcoming your child into Year 1 on Tuesday 5th September 2023.
Year 1 staff
Mrs Freeman – Class Teacher (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday)
Miss Gledhill – Class Teacher (Thursday)
Mrs Cairnes – Teaching Assistant
Miss Rigley – Teaching Assistant
Transition Morning
Year 1 had a lovely time in their new Year 2 classroom. They had a creative morning designing their name label for their desk tray and designing a birthday card for a friend for our birthday display for next year.
Well done Year 1!
DT: Making baby bears chair
Over the half term, we have been looking at what creates a stable structure. We found that a stable structure has a wide base, low height and a flat surface. First we tested 3 different shapes (cuboid, triangular prism and a cylinder). We found that the cylinder was the most stable and could hold the most weight. This is because it doesn’t have any corners. The children were set a challenge to plan and design a chair for Baby Bear from the story Goldilocks and the three bears.
Next, we made a plan by designing our chair thinking carefully about the chairs for baby bear will look like. How many legs will it have? What shape will the seat be? What will the back look like? What materials/resources will you need?
When we had made our chairs, we tested the stability by placing different weighted bears onto the chairs.
Well done Year 1 and 2. You worked well together to create your own chairs for baby bear.
Help at home:
What 3 things make a stable structure?
Would you do anything differently if you were to make the chair again?
Living and Learning: Body Image
What is body image?
Body image describes our idea of how our body looks and how we think it is perceived by others. This can include our thoughts and feelings about our height, weight, shape, skin, colour, and our appearance and attractiveness more broadly.
Thoughts about how we look are often influenced by things going on around us. It can be what we see every day on social media, what the characters we see on TV look like, or seeing adverts about ‘improving how you look’. All of this can contribute to how we feel about our body.
Other influences might be:
- the media promoting one type of body as ‘fit and healthy’ with little to no representation of different bodies
- comments from friends or family about your body
- social media promoting what should be the ‘perfect body’ image
- clothes limited to fit certain body types
- adverts, health campaigns or lessons at school on what is a ‘ healthy body’
We are all different and therefore we all look different. – Ralph
It is what’s on the inside that really matters. – Lilly
Help at home
How can I help my child be body confident?
Body image can be an issue for many of us, but especially children. As they go through physical changes, they can become conscious of what their body is doing and what they look like. Avoid talking about other people’s appearance and their bodies. Instead, chat about more important things about a person, such as how kind, talented, or charitable they are or whether they have good manners or work hard.
Living and Learning – RSE
Over the last few weeks, Year 5 and 6 have been learning about RSE. It’s important to understand changes you might go through, both physically and emotionally.
Relationships
“There are lots of different types of relationships like families, friends and online,” said Willow. “If something is negative in a relationship you have, take some time away and tell a trusted adult.”
We’ve learnt about what healthy and unhealthy relationships look like and talked about how to build each other up, avoid peer pressure and improve the connections we have in our lives.
Puberty
Brooklyn explained, “You might get taller, hair grows more and you will sweat more!”
“Your hair also gets greasier, too,” added Ellie.
We’ve learnt about the different changes we might go through and how to take care of our bodies as we get older. We discussed how every adult has already gone through it and most of the changes are actually shared by most people.
“Bath every day!” said Jewel.
“Use deoderant!” insisted Olivia.
“Wash your face every night and/or morning,” advised Siana.
However you’re feeling, it’s important to talk to a trusted adult if you’re unsure, especially if you’re feeling like your emotions are hard to manage.
Help at home by having a reflection on what your child has learnt in RSE over the last few weeks.
Football Coaching Fun
We enjoyed joining together this afternoon for some football coaching.
Check out our brilliant ball skills!
Temperatures!
Throughout Year 2, we’ve been recording the temperature once a week.
Today, we put our data from the first six weeks in the Spring term into block diagrams using cubes!
Total Warrior
Year 6 had a brilliant time at Bramham Park where they took part in the Total Warrior Challenge. By the end, they were head to toe in mud but with huge smiles on their faces. Well done Year 6!
Forest School
Today we celebrated mud week at Forest School. We could paint using mud, we could cook different food with it in the mud kitchen, we could squelch the mud with our hands. It was all very fun and messy. We also had a go at using a flint and steal to spark a fire.
Week 4 – Clean up!
Our focus book this week has been ‘Clean Up’ by Nathan Byron. This story helps us to understand why looking after our planet is so important and the impact pollution can have on our environment. The children have loved thinking of ways that they could help people to remember to take their rubbish home or put it in a bin.
Our book was set in Jamaica. We learnt more about where Jamaica was in the world and that it was an island. We recognised that we live on an island too! We then labelled the land and sea and made our own islands.
As there has been more rain this week, this made us think about rain coats and what materials are best to keep us dry. We decided to conduct an experiment to see which materials would be best to make a jacket for a polar bear.
We have learnt more about the sculpture Alexander Calder. We looked at some of his pieces of work and created our own inspired pieces using wire and polystyrene 3d shapes.
Our poem this week was all about peas! We hope you enjoy it!