Tropical World

We have had a fantastic day at Tropical World. We saw lot of different animals – butterflies, a crocodile, fish, tarantulas, frogs, bearded dragons, iguanas, meerkats, birds, snakes and lots more.

We enjoyed a nice ice-cream in the sunshine and a picnic before we began our afternoon workshop.

In the workshop we learnt how to measure the height of a tree by laying  metre sticks on the ground and how to calculate the age of a tree. We thought of different animals that live in trees too. Spiders, owls, ants, bees, beetles and bats were just some of the animals we thought of.

We also learnt how different animals adapt to their habitat. Meerkats have long tails to help them balance and check for prey. They have black rings around their eyes for protection from the sun and 2 eye lids – the second pair of eye lids are see through to stop sand getting in their eyes when they are digging. We also learnt that chameleons have a curly tail to wrap around things like trees and they change colour depending on their mood.

Well done Y12, you were amazing!

Relationships and Sex Education

Over the past few weeks, we’ve been learning about how our bodies change as we go through puberty and become an adult. We looked at the similarities and differences between male and female bodies and how to keep clean.

“I’ve learned that we grow hair in different places on our body.”

“I found out that girls have periods every month.”

“It was good to learn about how to keep clean and find out there are different deodorants.”

“It was helpful to look at different sanitary towels.”

This week’s bible story

Joseph’s brothers lie about his death. Genesis 37:17-33

In the bible, there is a story about Joseph and his technicoloured dream coat. Joseph had 12 older brothers who didn’t like him very much. His father, however, loved him very much and would often say how we was his favourite. Joseph had lots of dreams and he liked to tell his brothers all about his dreams.

Joseph’s brothers were fed up with listening to his dreams. Why was he always the star in them? Why did he always think that he was so much more important than they were? Jacob, Joseph’s dad, heard their grumbles and decided to keep Joseph at home on the farm with him, while Joseph’s brothers were sent off into the fields to look after the sheep.

Then, Jacob did something that made Joseph’s brothers even more cross! He gave Joseph a special coat made of brightly coloured cloth. Joseph’s brothers were jealous and angry. They didn’t think it was fair that Joseph should be treated differently from them; they were upset that Joseph was their dad’s favourite.

Do you think Joseph’s brothers were right to be jealous?’

Joseph’s brothers were so cross that they began to plan to get rid of Joseph.

One day, when Jacob sent Joseph to take food to his brothers in the fields, the brothers grabbed Joseph and threw him down an old well! While they were considering what to do next, they heard the sound of people travelling along the dusty road. As they looked in the direction of the noise, they saw some travellers who were on their way to Egypt, with their camels loaded with spices that they hoped to sell there. What luck! This was a perfect way of getting rid of Joseph forever

. The brothers quickly pulled Joseph out of the well and handed him over to the travellers. Then, they watched as Joseph disappeared along the dusty road. Poor Joseph! His life had become a nightmare; perhaps he would wake up soon, and discover that it had all been a bad dream.

The brothers had got rid of Joseph, but what could they tell their dad? To try to cover up what they had done, they put some animal blood on Joseph’s special coat and took the coat home to show their dad.

‘Look what we found!’ they said to Jacob.

Jacob saw the coat and thought Joseph must have been killed by a wild animal. He cried and cried. The brothers tried to comfort him, but it was no use.

Reflection:

Do you think the brothers felt sorry and sad when they saw how much they had hurt their dad?

Do you think they were wrong to do what they did?

Should they have tried harder to like their brother, Joseph?

Should they have been honest with their dad about how they were feeling?

There are times when we don’t find it easy to like everyone. However, we feel, though, it is wrong to deliberately hurt people. It is always better to talk about things and try to sort out any problems between people.

Prayer:
Dear God,
Please help us to care for other people.
Please help us when we feel cross or jealous.
Please help us to talk about our problems with someone we trust.
Amen.

spelling wc 11th July 2022

This week we are practising double consonant words.

occasion

possible

difficult

occasionally

disappear

appear

opposite

accident

We are healthy!

This week at nursery, we’ve been thinking about how we can keep ourselves healthy. On Tuesday, it was our Sports Day and the children had lots of fun taking part in all of the activities and races. The nursery staff were very proud of their achievements and we really appreciated all the support from parents. During the week, we’ve been making up our own games to keep us fit and we’ve also tried lots of different exercises under the trees in our outside area.

We’ve had many discussions about which types of food and drink help us to grow strong and which types are good for our teeth. There have been lots of new activities in the classroom to help us with our learning: we’ve cleaned and flossed pretend teeth, posted healthy foods into a large mouth and sorted foods into ‘healthy’ and ‘not so healthy’ categories. We’ve matched the correct prices to the fruit in our maths area and also played mini football in our small world area. Our home corner has been a healthy eating café.

At the end of our ‘healthy week’, we made fruit kebabs and the children exercised their fine-motor skills by cutting their own bananas and threading pieces of fruit onto paper straws. Hopefully, everyone will be feeling fit and healthy on Monday as it’s the penultimate week of this academic year!

As the temperatures are set to soar, please remember to send your child to school with a water bottle, sun hat and sun cream. It would really help our staff if sun cream could be applied before the start of the day and then we can help the children to top it up during the day.

Many thanks.

08 July 2022

This week, we would like you to practise a mixture of all the spelling patterns we’ve been learning this half term. Please learn these words for a test next week.

• chronology
• geographically
• dictionary
• delicious
• ambitious
• anxious
• partial
• substantial
• residential

08 July 2022

Y1: day   play   say   boy   toy   annoy   said   is

Y2: happier   happiest   replies   replied   copies   copied   copier   didn’t   can’t   hasn’t

08 July 2022

I can share my views about health.

We’re proud to be a happy and healthy school.

Each year, we ask you to complete a short health questionnaire. Your views can help us to become even happier and healthier.

Parents/carers: please complete this survey with your child, to find out their views on some of our key health issues at school, and comment at the end.  You can find the link to the survey in the Homework page of our school website.

Please submit before Friday 15 July 2022.

This week’s message (Friday 08 July 2022)

It’s a busy time of year in school. Sports day, productions, reports… This week, you should have received an end-of-year report for your child – if you haven’t, please let us know.

At this time of year, you might be already thinking about uniform for next year. This week’s message starts with a reminder that we’ve updated our school uniform policy…

School uniform

Due to a recent change in guidance about school uniform, we’ve recently updated our school uniform policy.

Wearing a school uniform brings with it many benefits, and everyone following the policy brings a sense of fairness.

There’s no change as to what uniform is required in our policy: as has always been the case, branded items are available, but they’re optional. As well as having at least three suppliers for branded items (with different price ranges), you’re able to purchase generic items from a range of retailers, giving you choice and value for money. Second hand uniform items can also benefit parents / carers and, by extending the life of items, are more sustainable. Some items may be available in school (unclaimed and unnamed lost property at the end of term) or at the Leeds School Uniform Exchange.  Check out the website for more information on suppliers and the policy.

We do expect all children to follow this policy, including wearing the correct kit on PE days.

Thank you for supporting us with this.

TikTok

Last week’s message mentioned TikTok. Here’s an extract from a weekly email we receive from a safeguarding expert:

A few days ago I spent a rather disturbing half-an-hour on TikTok… Clicking in to TikTok Live was worse than I had thought it would be… there were a number of video streams that I think should concern us from a safeguarding perspective. Livestreams from the school bus, school playgrounds and even from tutor time in classrooms. There was even a group of primary aged boys trying to out-swear each other while they waited for the bell.

Check out these parents’ guides: one from Common Sense Media and one from Internet Matters.

Some summer reading

You might like to read the latest edition of Raring2go. It’s got lots of ideas for the Summer holidays.

Some summer support 

The approach to providing free school meals during holidays has changed in line with government guidance. 

As a result of this change in government guidance, Leeds City Council has decided to support those households in receipt of council tax support. This will include most households receiving free school meals but this will no longer be the driver of eligibility. More detail on how the council is spending the funding can be found here.

Anyone in urgent need of support for food, rent and other household bills can contact the Leeds Welfare Support Team. Details are available at: Help with food and bills (leeds.gov.uk). The Healthy Holidays scheme will also continue to provide support during the summer holidays to those most in need.

The forecast is looking good… Have a happy and healthy weekend!

Living and Learning: PANTS ARE PRIVATE

Today, we discussed the very important NSPCC Underwear rule  and the biological differences between boys and girls.

I was so impressed with the children’s mature attitudes during this lesson.

Ask your child about this learning at home.