Community Week – the History of Wetherby

Following a visit from the Mayor of Wetherby this morning, the children have been learning about how people chose to live in Wetherby during the Bronze Age. The location next to the River Wharfe was a significant advantage and Wetherby became even more significant when a bridge was built to cross the river.

Important places, events and people are commemorated around our market town with blue plaques.  We have enjoyed researching the blue plaques and made our own.

Help at home: Learn more about the history of our wonderful market town by following the blue plaque trail.  Further information can be found here: https://www.wetherbycivicsociety.org.uk/blueplaquetrail/

Community Week – healthy friendships

As part of Community Week, we have been thinking about healthy friendships.

We considered the story of Beegu who finds herself lost and without friends.  We shared some ideas of what we could do to signal to Beegu that she belonged at our school.

If you would like to listen to the story of Beegu and learn how to draw Beegu, you can watch the video from Puffin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-8oLcy1Eow

We also had a very mature debate about the vital characteristics of a healthy friendship.  We all respectfully listened to the opinions of our classmates and enjoyed debating some of the characteristics which are less clear such as whether you should always feel happy in a healthy friendship.

With such considered opinions it is no surprise that there are so many healthy friendships in our class community to enjoy and celebrate!

Community Week – Stereotypes

As part of Community Week, we took part in a very exciting workshop led by Diversity Role Models (https://www.diversityrolemodels.org/) During the workshop we thought about where stereotypes come from and what harm they can do.

We challenged harmful stereotypes and thought about how we could turn these on their head.

Help at home: Lots of us were very passionate about standing up against stereotypes. If you would like more examples to discuss with your child you can find a video from the BBC here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/teach/young-reporter/articles/zkttm39

Community Week – British Values

As part of our Community Week, we learnt about the importance of British Values.  We updated our Living and Learning board with an acronym to help us to remember the values (see above.)

Help at home: Discuss with your child what the British Values look like in your family community.  Do children have individual liberty to make some choices?  Do you have rules that you follow as a family?  Do you make some decisions by voting?  Do you show mutual respect and tolerance to each other?

Me and My Community Theme Week

Migration – The Red Cross

Olivia, from the Red Cross, came in to visit us as part of Me and My Community Week. She taught us about the PUSH and PULL reasons why people migrate to other countries. Sometimes, people are pushed away from their country due to war, racism and poverty. On the other hand, people may be pulled away from their country due to better jobs, climate or improved healthcare.

Olivia read about a boy named Tesfay, who travelled from Eritrea to the UK. She spoke about the struggles and difficulties he faced. Individually, we then wrote a letter to someone who was new to our community to welcome them. Children mentioned places they love to visit like Ask Italian, The Wetherby Whaler, Leeds United and the local parks and green spaces.

Finally, we spoke about how we will treat people within our community and who are new to our community.

Help at home – Ask your child about how we should treat people, especially those who are new to our community. Write a message to someone within our community – this could be someone you know well or someone who is new to the area.

Diversity Roleplay

This morning, Lyndsey from Diversity Roleplay visited our class to talk about how we should treat people within our community and how we can respond when we see/experience things that are ‘unfair’.

Two key words Lyndsey taught us were:

• Bystander – Someone who watches or sees bullying, unfairness, or unkind behaviour take place but they do nothing to help.
  
• Upstander – Someone who does something that stops or reduces unkindness, unfairness or bullying behaviour they see. Also, someone who helps another person who is being treated badly by showing them kindness.

We related what she taught us to our own lives and communities. Lyndsey was keen for us to be Upstanders and ‘challenge unfairness’ when we see someone being treated unfairly. This was a good opportunity for us to reflect on ourselves and how we have responded to things in the past.

Help at home – What is a bystander? What is an upstander? Can your child think of a time when they were a bystander? What could they have done differently? Is there a time when your child has been an upstander?

British Values and Protected Characteristics

In Year 5 and 6, we have been focussing on British Values and Protected Characteristics. And as part of Me and My Community Week we have been lucky enough to have Zoom sessions to discover and explore what these things mean in more details.

To help us remember the British Values we learnt a saying:

I really do matter.

We spoke about how we display these values in our everyday life at school, at home and within our community.

There are 9 Protected Characteristics and, as a class, we are confident about what they are and what they mean. We learnt about the Equality Act 2010 and how that helps people within our community.

We were introduced to 2 words:

• Discrimination is unfair treatment of one particular person or group of people. Usually the different treatment is because of the person’s sex, religion, nationality, ethnicity (culture), race, or other personal traits.
•  Stereotype is an often unfair and untrue belief that many people have about all people or things with a particular characteristic.

Help at Home – Ask your child if they can remember the 4 British Values and how they can display them. What are the 9 Protected Characteristics? What does each one mean? What does discrimination mean? What does stereotype mean?

Me and My Community Week

Wetherby Brass Band

On Tuesday, we were lucky to have a visit from Steven from Wetherby Brass Band. He spoke to the whole school about the benefits of playing in a band and being part of a community within the Wetherby community.

Steven, brought in some instruments and some of us were lucky enough to play some of them – some made hilarious noises.

The band play during many events in the Wetherby community, including the Remembrance Parade. They also play every Sunday at 2.30-4.30pm from the end of April to the end of September.

Me and My Community – Caring for Our Community

What is a community?

Communities are made up of people who are connected in some way. They might share common interests and values.

The children came up with a list of people who make up our community:

• families
• friends
• police
• teachers
• shop owners
• doctors
• neighbours
• church

We are connected to these people in lots of different ways and they all play a part in making our community a happy and healthy place to achieve and believe.

We thought about our classroom community and how we’re connected to one another. To show our community and its importance, children passed the string to the next person, whilst offering some words of appreciation, encouragement or support.

The web shows our classroom community. If we all show care and support, it will be strong.

We then dropped the string…

When people stop caring and supporting, the community will start to have problems.

What if we cared MORE not less?

Help at home by discussing this question with your child. You could use these stem sentences to help:

• To support my family community at home, I could…

• To care for my school community, I could…

• To help my local community, I could…